As imperial political authority was increasingly challenged, sometimes with violence, locally recruited police forces became the front-line guardians of alien law and order. This book presents a study that looks at the problems facing the imperial police forces during the acute political dislocations following decolonization in the British Empire. It examines the role and functions of the colonial police forces during the process of British decolonisation and the transfer of powers in eight colonial territories. The book emphasises that the British adopted a 'colonial' solution to their problems in policing insurgency in Ireland. The book illustrates how the recruitment of Turkish Cypriot policemen to maintain public order against Greek Cypriot insurgents worsened the political situation confronting the British and ultimately compromised the constitutional settlement for the transfer powers. In Cyprus and Malaya, the origins and ethnic backgrounds of serving policemen determined the effectiveness which enabled them to carry out their duties. In 1914, the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) of Ireland was the instrument of a government committed to 'Home Rule' or national autonomy for Ireland. As an agency of state coercion and intelligence-gathering, the police were vital to Britain's attempts to hold on to power in India, especially against the Indian National Congress during the agitational movements of the 1920s and 1930s. In April 1926, the Palestine police force was formally established. The shape of a rapidly rising rate of urban crime laid the major challenge confronting the Kenya Police.

A striking new interpretation of colonial policing and political violence in three empires between the two world wars.

Colonial policing and the imperial endgame is the first comprehensive study of the colonial police and their complex role within Britain’s long and turbulent process of decolonisation, a time characterised by political upheaval and colonial conflict. The Colonial Police Service was created in 1936 in order to standardise all imperial police forces and mould colonial policing to the British model. From the British Caribbean to the Middle East, the Mediterranean to British Colonial Africa and on to Southeast Asia, colonial police forces struggled with the unrest and conflict that stemmed from Britain’s withdrawal from its empire. As the shadow of decolonisation grew ever longer, so colonial police forces reverted back to their traditional role as a colony’s first line of defence. At the same time, as tensions increased throughout the empire, so too did the power of the police through the development of police intelligence systems and counter-insurgency units. Colonial policing and the imperial endgame controversially asserts that it was coercion rather than consent which was more commonly associated with the work of police forces during this period of political dislocation. Georgina Sinclair's focussed study of colonial policing during this period facilitates a greater understanding of the processes of decolonisation.

Colonial Policing and the Imperial Endgame is the first comprehensive study of the colonial police and their complex role within Britain's long and turbulent process of decolonisation, a time characterised by political upheaval and colonial conflict.

This book undertakes an exploratory exercise in decolonizing criminology through engaging postcolonial and postdisciplinary perspectives and methodologies. Through its historical and political analysis and place-based case studies, it challenges criminological inquiry by installing colonial structures of power at the centre of the contemporary criminological debate. This work unseats the Western nation-state as the singular point of departure for comparative criminological and socio-legal research. Decolonising Criminology argues that postcolonial and postdisciplinary critique can open up new pathways for criminological investigation. It builds on recent debates in criminology from outside of the Anglosphere. The authors deploy a number of heuristic devices, perspectives and theories generally ignored by criminologists of the Global North and engage perspectives concerned with articulating new decolonised epistemologies of the Global South. This book disputes the view that colonisation is a thing of the past and provides lessons for the Global North.

This compilation represents the first study to examine the historical evolution and shifting global dynamics of policing across the Lusophone community. With contributions from a multi-disciplinary range of experts, it traces the role of policing within and across settings that are connected by the shared legacy of Portuguese colonialism. Previously neglected within studies of the globalisation of policing, the Lusophone experience brings novel insights to established analyses of colonial, post-colonial and transnational policing. This compilation draws research attention to the policing peculiarities of the Lusophone community. It proposes new cultural settings within which to test dominant theories of policing research. It uncovers an important piece of the jigsaw that is policing across the globe. Key research questions that it addresses include: • What were the patterns of policing, and policing transfers, across Portuguese colonial settings? • How did Portugal’s dual status as both fascist regime and imperial power shape its late colonial policing? • What have been the different experiences of post-colonial and transitional policing across the former Portuguese colonies? • In what ways are Lusophone nations contributing to, and indeed shaping, patterns of transnational policing? • What comparative lessons can be drawn from the Lusophone policing experience?

Crime, Aboriginality and the Decolonisation of Justice explores contemporary strategies which might reduce the extraordinary levels of imprisonment and victimisation suffered by Aboriginal people in Australia. These are problems that continue to rise despite numerous inquiries and reports. Harry Blagg disputes the relevance of the western, urban, criminological paradigm to the Aboriginal domain, and questions the application of both contemporary innovations such as restorative justice and mainstream models of policing. He also refutes allegations that Aboriginal customary laws condone violence against women and children, pointing to the wealth of research to the contrary, and suggests these laws contain considerable potential for renewal and healing. This book maintains that unresolved questions of colonisation, decolonisation and sovereignty lie at the heart of debates about criminal justice in post-colonial Australia. It explores the potential for 'hybrid' initiatives in the complex 'liminal' space between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal domains, for example, Aboriginal community/night patrols, community justice groups, healing centres and Aboriginal courts. This new edition covers emerging issues such as Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) and reports on the consequences of the Commonwealth Government's contentious 'intervention' in remote Northern Territory communities in 2007.