Introduction: Contemporary policing and non-warranted volunteering

Millie, Andrew; Wells, Helen

Abstract

Research on policing has tended to focus on paid and warranted officers, often overlooking the large and, in many jurisdictions, expanding army of volunteers working with or for the police. Where there has been research on police volunteering this has focused mainly on warranted auxiliaries, reserves or special constables. This Special Issue of Policing and Society contains three articles that add to our knowledge and understanding of non-warranted volunteering, and of the lived experiences of those who volunteer. In this introduction we provide some context for these three articles. The articles draw on experiences within England and Wales, yet they are relevant to other jurisdictions that make use of volunteers. For instance, volunteers have been utilised in the US in efforts to support community policing, improve police-community relations, and perform specific roles that the police find difficult to do (Ren et al. Citation2006, Ayling Citation2007, Wolf et al. Citation2016, Albrecht Citation2017). Volunteers are utilised elsewhere. For instance, in Canada (Parent Citation2017), South Africa (Bezuidenhout Citation2017) and Hungary (Kardos and Szoke Citation2017) volunteers are available to support the main body of regular paid officers, although these are mainly warranted auxiliaries or reserves.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 13, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Feb 26, 2019
• Publication Date: May 4, 2019
• Deposit Date: Jun 6, 2023
• Journal: Policing and Society
• Print ISSN: 1043-9463
• Electronic ISSN: 1477-2728
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 29
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 371-375
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2019.1584624
• Keywords: Law; Sociology and Political Science
• Additional Information: Peer Review Statement: The publishing and review policy for this title is described in its Aims & Scope.; Aim & Scope: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=gpas20; Received: 2018-10-02; Accepted: 2019-02-13; Published: 2019-02-26