The volume brings together an international group of authors discussing basic concepts and approaches to plural policing as well as aspects and practices of plural policing in specific locations. The context comes from the fact that policing activities are nowadays performed by a growing number and variety of police and non-police stakeholders. This development is internationally discussed as ‘pluralisation of policing’ or plural policing. This book provides insights into plural policing across different countries of the global North. It looks at day-to-day security which is mainly produced at the local level, and where there is considerable diversity in philosophy and practice. Therefore, it allows learnings for possible future developments in the field. This volume contributes to policing studies and is of interest to the wide range of academics dealing with questions of security and order, as well as policy makers and practitioners working on security in their regions.

Dr. Nathalie Hirschmann is a sociologist, criminologist, behavioural and communication trainer, and coach. She is project leader of the research group PluS-i, funded by the BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany), at the Institute of Political Science, University of Münster (Germany). She deals with aspects of the so-called context adequacy (Kontextadäquanz) of policing, the sociological perspective of policing models and professionalisation issues of policing within the project. Her main research interests as sociologist and criminologist are: the sociology of professions and organisational sociology in the context of security, criminology and empirical social science research.

Dr. Tobias John is a political scientist and deputy head of PluS-i at the Institute of Political Science, University of Münster (Germany. In PluS-i, he focusses on policy analysis and questions of legitimacy. In general, his research deals with pluralisation of security production, policy analysis regarding the policy field of security and order, and theoretical question on policy making. 

Frauke Reichl is a political scientist and research assistant in the PluS-i project at the Institute of Political Science, University of Münster (Germany). Her research focuses on participation and citizen involvement in security production. Within PluS-i she is dealing with aspects of legitimacy and context adequacy regarding police volunteers and citizen policing groups. She has written several articles on these themes and currently writes her thesis on the relationship between state and civil society in security production.

Jacqueline Garand graduated in European Studies and is currently doing her master’s degree in political science at the University of Münster (Germany). In the context of the PluS-i project she is a student research assistant. Her research interest includes security production in urbanspaces and the perception of order and security in cities.