Reinventing policing through the prism of the colonial kiap

Abstract

Few institutions globalised more quickly to every nation on earth than the one Sir Robert Peel invented in 1829. The argument of this essay is that the transplantation involved has very often lacked contextual attunement to local conditions. Consequently, a great many nations have police that are promoters of tyranny, privilege and corruption rather than defenders of liberty. The particular argument of our contribution is that there has been excessive transplantation of urban policing models into societies where village life is more the norm. In this regard, we suggest there is something to learn from pre-Peelian police in the first world and colonial policing in the third world.