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What is policeness? On being police in Somalia

Hills, Alice

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Authors

Alice Hills



Abstract

This article uses the notion of policeness to explore the essence of what police are, what makes for a police and what makes it recognized as such. Western ideas of police are based on a specific understanding of what a police organization is, but this is not necessarily the case in the global South. Based on the experience of Somalia’s police forces, it appears that while there is something universally distinctive about police organizations, police are best understood as a project reflecting political and social processes within unequal fields of power. Ultimately, policeness, which alludes to the symbolic and coercive functions associated with police, is a matter of perception.

Citation

Hills, A. (2014). What is policeness? On being police in Somalia. The British Journal of Criminology: An International Review of Crime and Society, 54(5), 765-783. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azu049

Journal Article Type Article
Online Publication Date Jul 13, 2014
Publication Date Sep 1, 2014
Deposit Date Jul 21, 2014
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal British Journal of Criminology
Print ISSN 0007-0955
Electronic ISSN 1464-3529
Publisher Oxford University Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 54
Issue 5
Pages 765-783
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azu049
Keywords Coercion, Police culture, Policeness, Security, Somalia.

Files

Accepted Journal Article (343 Kb)
PDF

Copyright Statement
This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in British Journal of Criminology following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version Hills, Alice (2014) 'What is policeness? On being police in Somalia.', British journal of criminology, 54, 5, 765-783 is available online at: http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/content/54/5/765.




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