This paper reviews contemporary plural policing developments in England and Wales with a focus on the local policing of public spaces. Based on a review of the existing research literature, it sets out developments in pluralization along some of the dimensions of plural policing elucidated by Loader (2000), namely, policing ‘by’, ‘through’, ‘beyond’ and ‘below’ government. This analysis suggests that policing in England and Wales has continued to become more pluralized during the 1990s and 2000s, with significant developments in policing ‘beyond’ government (commercial security) and ‘through’ government (out-sourcing of public policing functions). However, the austerity programme introduced by the Coalition Government since 2010 has seen a slowing of these developments, with an increased emphasis on pluralization ‘below’ government (informal voluntary or community-delivered policing). The paper goes on to consider the regulation and accountability of plural policing, and consider the impact of the introduction of elected Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs). It suggests that whilst PCCs have yet to develop as an effective oversight of plural policing networks in local areas, the reforms may eventually contribute to further fragmentation and pluralization of the policing landscape in England and Wales.

The article starts with an overview of the role of the police within the German political system and sketches recent developments and tendencies towards structures and processes of plural policing. Plural policing in this context is understood in the sense of ‘the expanding role of non-police service providers in policing, and the variety of different public, private and voluntary bodies now engaged in the activity’ (Wakefield, 2009, 227), with a special focus on the local level. In addition, the most prominent stakeholders in plural policing are introduced, followed by a description of the current forms and patterns between these stakeholders and the police. After analysing some relevant chances and obstacles of plural policing, the author focuses on local safety and security governance before ending with considerations upon plural policing and the changing role of the state.

This paper analyzes the changing public/private as well as central/local relationships for the provision of public security in public places in France. It describes the emergence and development of a now frequent public-private mix in policing, based on the hot issue of regulating social behaviours in public places. The significance of the French model in terms of the nature of privatization and pluralization is then discussed and compared to international trends. The rise of a local level public-private mix, while not unique in Europe, appears as a major shift in a French environment traditionally characterized by the structural centralization of its public forces.

This article increases the body of knowledge on the origins of plural policing in a continental setting, more specifically in Belgium. Compared to other European countries, Belgium occupies a unique position, which can be explained by its particular constitutional setting. While non-police public actors execute police surveillance tasks in the public space, private security companies have no more competences than any ordinary citizen. Today maintenance of social disorder in the public space presents itself as a municipal patchwork, delineated by municipal autonomy and by political choices against privatisation. In this article we formulate an answer to the central research question ‘How did plural policing processes in Belgium originate and what is the current situation?’ By means of a multiple case study with triangulation of methods, 27 years of security policy (1985-2012) are analysed. Contrasting with neo-liberal policies in the UK from the 1970s on, Belgian policy was shaped by the powerful presence of socio-democrats who occupied key ministry positions in the federal government, such as the minister of the Interior and the minister of Big Cities, throughout the entire time period. Political bargaining processes explain the ongoing investment in prevention and in ‘purple vests,’ and the choice to exclude private actors in the public space.

In this article the main findings and conclusions are presented of an international comparative study on the pluralization of policing in five countries (England and Wales, Canada, Belgium, Austria, and the Netherlands). We focus on the question: what are the main differences and similarities in plural policing between these countries, and how can these be understood? In answering this question much attention is given to the position of non-police providers of policing (employed by municipalities or security companies) in relation to the regular police. To understand the peculiarities of this pluralization we paid attention to legal, historical, cultural and political aspects, to the organization of the regular police and the position of private security. This study shows that the pluralization of policing has not been the result of some goal-intended governmental policy, but more an incremental process or the effect of an accumulation of unintended consequences. In the last section we present four models of regulation of plural policing that may be relevant to imagining potential future policy developments.