The Policing of Pleasure: ‘What Kind of Police Service Do We Want?’

In times when the police service is faced with multiple tasks, this article takes a critical look at the role of the police in regulating pleasure. Applying the specific examples of gambling and prostitution, the article explores how the policing of pleasure has changed across the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We investigate the consequences of these changes in regulation as behaviours are controlled through different systems of prohibition, regulation and normalisation. We note the reduction of the role of the police in controlling pleasure as other agencies of control take primary responsibility to regulate behaviour against a background of a greater emphasis on self-control and self-regulation. A theme running throughout the article is the shifting emphasis in the policing of pleasure in the public sphere, whilst the private sphere has often been left ‘un-policed’.