AdvocateThe case for third-party policing

Abstract

Third-party policing is defined as police efforts to persuade or coerce organizations or non-offending persons, such as public housing agencies, property owners, parents, health and building inspectors, and business owners to take some responsibility for preventing crime or reducing crime problems (Buerger and Mazerolle 1998: 301). In third-party policing, the police create or enhance crime control nodes in locations or situations where crime control guardianship was previously absent or non-effective. Sometimes the police use cooperative consultation with community members, parents, inspectors, and regulators to encourage and convince third parties to take on more crime control or prevention responsibility. Central, however, to third-party policing is the police use of a range of civil, criminal, and regulatory rules and laws, to engage, coerce (or force) third parties into taking some crime control responsibility. It is the regulatory and legal provisions that dictate the process for third-party intervention.