Third Party Policing

Citation

Boba, R. (2006), "Third Party Policing", Policing: An International Journal, Vol. 29 No. 4, pp. 773-774. https://doi.org/10.1108/13639510610711655

According to the authors, third party policing consists of “police efforts to persuade or coerce other non‐offending parties such as health and building inspectors, housing agencies, property and business owners, parents and schools to take responsibility for preventing or reducing crime problems” (p. 23). The key topics of the book are:

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  defining and describing third party policing, a relatively new term, though not a new practice;

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  outlining how the blurring of civil and criminal law have lead to a more regulatory state that has fostered third party policing;

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  systematically reviewing third party policing evaluation literature; and

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  presenting ideas for further thought and research.

The main point of the book and the relevance of third party policing is that we are seeing the responsibility of crime control shift from the state that attempts to stop crime in the act and rehabilitate offenders to the individual or groups who change their own behavior and environment. Further, the authors assert that policing is changing from seeking to punish anti‐social conduct to encouraging particular forms of acceptable and crime preventative activity. The authors use this fairly new term to carve out a niche of policing strategies that are used to engage others in crime prevention and control. The authors assert that although third party policing is closely related to problem‐oriented policing, they are not necessarily the same idea. They also indicate that third party policing is different than situational crime prevention since it relies on coercion or implicit threat of coercion by police to recruit place managers or their crime prevention partners. The following is brief description of the book's chapters.

Chapter 1 provides a brief example and definition of third party policing highlighting how regulatory agencies come together to solve crime problems with the police. Although police play a major role in identifying problems, in third party policing they play a secondary role in addressing them. The chapter continues with a synopsis of the content of the following chapters.

Chapter 2 covers the role of public police in the new regulatory state and provides a history of the relationship of police and regulators, how they have become more similar in their approach to risk, problem identification, problem solving and developing and fostering partnerships.

Chapter 3 provides a detailed analysis of the dimensions of third party policing. It includes a discussion of the crime prevention and control purposes of third party policing and how a variety of strategies are used, the types of problems typically addressed, the initiators of efforts (police), and the focal point of efforts (e.g. places) and targets (e.g. persons conducting deviant behavior). The chapter also includes a discussion and examples of the various legal levers used in third party policing (e.g., health and safety codes), the sanctions and penalties (e.g. fines, forfeiture, court ordered repairs), as well as the tools and techniques of coercion (e.g. citations, court ordered action).

Chapter 4 presents the types of law and sanctions available for third party policing efforts and specifically discusses criminal law (detection and prosecution), regulatory law (negotiation, inspection, and administrative actions) and private law (civil court action for disputes). A table comparing the three types of law both historically and their current practices shows how they are increasingly overlapping. The chapter finishes by providing specific examples of how specific laws and sanctions, such as civil asset forfeiture, alcohol‐free zones, and youth curfews, have been utilized.

Chapters 5 and 6 provide results of systematic reviews of evaluations of drug problem and crime problem efforts. The authors outline the specific criteria they used for evaluation of the various studies, that may not have been specifically called third party policing efforts, but have components of third party policing, as defined by the authors. The results of the review of drug problem efforts suggest they are successful. The results are varied for crime problem efforts although they suggest the best efforts are those in which business owners are involved.

Chapter 7 features a discussion of the ethics of third party policing and issues of equity and possible positive (diffusion of benefits) and negative side effects (displacement) of these types of crime prevention and control efforts. Several main concerns on a large scale are that third party policing intrudes the routinized activities of regulatory agencies and makes them burden‐bearers of problem solutions; that civil law is being used for criminal justice purposes; and that even though efforts may be effective, there is potential for individuals to misuse and abuse them.

Finally, in Chapter 8, the authors focus on the future of third party policing and assert that because the term is not common, people do not name their research or index it as third party policing, which has been the purpose of the book – to bring these efforts together under a common representation. They outline future research needs to focus on classifying and categorizing third party policing approaches and cost/benefit analysis; assessing the impact on specific crime problems; and understanding the relationships of the police and third parties.

Although the book is primarily focused on governance and police practice in Australian, Canada, Britain, and the USA, it is thorough in its arguments and historical picture of regulatory agencies and provides an excellent academic foundation for third party policing practice and research. These ideas correspond with those in problem‐oriented policing in which there is a push towards formalizing the process of shifting and sharing responsibility for public safety problems and outlining how police can persuade or coerce others to address crime and disorder problems. The important contribution of this book is that it defines and outlines the dimensions of strategies for crime prevention and control that fall between formal policing and citizen responsibility as well as provides an evaluation of current and past third party policing efforts. This is important because it enables researchers and practitioners not only to have a common language by which to refer to this activity, but also specific guidance for practice.