Community Safety Officers and the British Invasion: Community Policing Frontiers

Abstract

This chapter examines community safety officers (CSOs), transitional agents who are linked to public police, and more broadly considers community policing frontiers. CSOs have been prominent local security providers in the UK, Australia, and elsewhere for two decades. In the UK, CSOs and related neighbourhood policing emerged from reassurance policing that was partially influenced by earlier US ideas on community policing. Currently in the UK, austerity is challenging the continuation of these kinds of policing, and yet these models are influencing developments beyond its borders. Examining recent establishment of CSOs in cities in Western Canada, the chapter then engages in international comparative research at the frontier of community policing. It analyses freedom of information disclosures and policy documents to demonstrate that CSO establishment in Canada has not involved a straightforward transfer of criminal justice policy from the UK.