Post-crisis Policing and Public–Private Partnerships

The post-financial crisis ‘politics of austerity’ have prompted many police forces to explore a range of radical new budget-reducing policies, including outsourcing key service areas to the private sector on an unprecedented scale. This article analyses the largest outsourcing contract to date: the £229 million Lincolnshire Police–G4S strategic partnership. It addresses the question: to what extent has the outsourcing process engendered a shift from the logic of the public good to the logic of the market in the delivery of those frontline operations covered in the contract? In arguing that these operations are characterized more by a complex blurring of logics than a straightforward unidirectional shift, the article contributes towards both explanatory and normative dimensions of the ‘transformation of policing’ debate.