Normalizing covert surveillance
The Subterranean World of Policing
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7677041 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Bethan Loftus (0000-0002-5346-1332, School of History, Philosophy and Social Sciences Bangor University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 70 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 2070-2091 |
| Publication date | 2019-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | British Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-1315 • E-ISSN: 1468-4446 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/1468-4446.12651 |
| PMID | 30843195 |
| OpenAlex | W2922329301 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 16 |
| References cited | 53 |
In this article, I draw on data derived from an ethnographic field study of covert policing in the United Kingdom to demonstrate that the deployment of covert surveillance has become normalized, both in policing thought and operational practice. In a break with earlier patterns, the methods of covert surveillance are used extensively and are no longer regarded as a tactic of last resort. Covert policing is well anchored within organizational arrangements, empowered by a series of internal rationales mobilized to justify the expansion of covert tactics over and above more traditional, overt forms. The building of intrusive and exceptional policing practices within mundane contexts, I argue, is one of the ways the police have adapted to a broader policing environment characterized by public scepticism and distrust. Policing relies on the invisibility and low profile that comes with covert work, in order to govern contemporary concerns of crime and insecurity without the conflicts which can accompany – and trouble – overt policing practices. As mainstream policing becomes an increasingly extroverted enterprise, introverted forms of policing have come to the fore
Business · Computer security · Covert · Criminology · Distrust · Epistemology · Ethnography · Invisibility · Mainstream · Order (exchange · Political science · Public relations · Skepticism · Sociology · Computer Science · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Global Security and Public Health · Law · Policing Practices and Perceptions
Private Detectives
The implementation of digital forensic science in a Swiss police force
“Criminals” and “Killjoys”
The showability of policing
Chameleonizing
The moral and emotional world of police informants
Policing, undercover policing and ‘dirty hands’
Trust and Transparency in an Age of Surveillance
Who’s watching Mr Big? Scenario operations and induced confessions
Hiding in Plain Sight
Theatrics of transnational criminal justice
Surveillance arbitration in the era of digital policing
Ethnography and the Evocative World of Policing (Part I)
Skolnick Goes Undercover
Carceral domesticity as containment of troubled families in Santiago, Chile
Rethinking prevention as a reactive force to contain dangerous classes
The functions of the police in modern society
Writing the World of Policing
Reproducing Order
Undercover
Police Culture in a Changing World
Policing and the Condition of EnglandMemory, Politics and Culture
The Politics of the Police
Policing Contingencies
Trust and legitimacy
Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education
The State of Exception
Human Rights, Regulation, and National Security [Introduction]
The Culture of Control
Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor
Triggers of change to public confidence in the police and criminal justice system
Covert surveillance and the invisibilities of policing
Watching the watchers
Improving the Disclosure Regime
Ripa 2000
Reconstructing Leviathan
Policing on camera
Policing and the surveillance of the marginal
Social Surveillance and the Rise of the `Police Machine
The police intelligence division-of-labour
Normalising the Exceptional
Policing by risks and targets
Intelligence Led Policing, Managerialism and Community Engagement
Policing and Regulation
Policing Uncertainty
Law Enforcement in a Time of Community Policing
Undercover Policing and the Varieties of Regulatory Approaches in the United States
The Blue Line on Thin Ice
This is not Justice
Undercover Policing
From a Visible Spectacle to an Invisible Presence
The Banality of Security
Policing in Cool and Hot Climates
Policing's New Visibility
Undercover policing and the spectre of ‘domestic extremism’
Risk society
Time
Prevent-ing Muslimness in Britain
Enforcing order
High Policing and Low Policing
The Normalization of 'Sensible' Recreational Drug Use
| Unique citing works | 16 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,67 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2026 (7) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 15 |