There should be no open doors in the police

In criminal investigations by police officers in northern Ghana, the lines are fluid: civilians arrest suspects on their own, assuming the tasks of the police. Police officers are heavily influenced by civilians, often forming paid alliances with them. Yet such entanglements paradoxically enable state policing and integrate the police into society in a context of low resources and low legitimacy. Other practices limit and frame such transgressions. Using the concept of boundary work, this article analyses how actors maintain and negotiate the seemingly blurred distinction between state and society in West Africa

Boundary (topology) · Boundary-work · Context (archaeology) · Criminal justice · Criminology · Doors · Geography · Legitimacy · Negotiation · Police science · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · State (computer science) · Work (physics) · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Engineering · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Law · Sex work and related issues

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