Source: (2002) Social & Legal Studies. 11(4), 523–546.
The literatures regarding policing and regulation are largely separate, reflecting the
common assumption that there is some essential distinction between the activities.
The relevance of the decline in state sovereignty and associated shifts to ‘governance’
and the ‘regulatory state’ are discussed. Much state intervention regarding crime is
aimed formally at the repression of illegal markets while states also seek to regulate
legal ones. Yet the distinction is far less in practice: the ubiquity of ‘knowledge’ and
‘power’ problems facing states, the fragmentation of policing and regulatory agencies
and the persistence of ‘enterprise’ crime are some of the factors discussed. The variety
of relationships existing between police and regulators on the one hand, and firms
and entrepreneurs ranged on a spectrum of legal through ‘grey’ to illegal markets, on
the other, are examined. It is argued that there is no essential difference between the
two activities. Rather, the analysis of contemporary policing would be improved by
viewing it as part of a spectrum of regulation. This will facilitate analysis of the crucial
interaction between regulators and markets.
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