The history of international police cooperation: a 150-year evolution in trends and approaches

Abstract

This paper traces the history of international police cooperation through the development of collaborative initiatives that various police actors have introduced since the mid-nineteenth century to address transnational crime on a multilateral basis. The beginnings of international police cooperation efforts were largely rooted in anti-anarchist policies pursued by European governments in order to protect the status quo. Police collaboration largely halted during the world wars, but the second half of the twentieth century witnessed an explosion of international cooperation mechanisms in policing as most states came to recognise the importance of multilateral action against transnational crime. International policing now encompasses sophisticated, official and far-reaching channels of information exchange and joint policing strategies and operations. Police cooperation has gone through cycles, however: the political motivation that originally encouraged foreign police agencies to share information on alleged perpetrators and their activities in due course took second place to specifically criminal investigations, but in today's security-driven policy environment the political dimension is once again on the rise, as police strategies are aimed at terrorist groups.