One Step Ahead: The Police Transnational Firearms Intelligence Network (The 'Network').

Policing has been reconstructed from state provision to a mixture of public and private police providers. Bayley and Shearing (2001) have called for continuing research to enable a better understanding of the reconstruction. In addition, the transnational threat from organised crime groups (OCGs) and terrorists has increased (Lilley 2009). Therefore, this thesis examines a transnational police response to that threat and any resulting reconstruction of policing that occurs within a context of global policing theory. Transnational policing has previously been analysed by developing the Weberian theory of bureaucratisation. Police officers, with operational independence from their democratic nation state, meet to create transnational policing processes. This is known as 'Policeization' (Deflem 2002, p228) which is viewed by some critics as generating a loss of sovereignty and an increase in the global police state (Westmarland 2010). That tendency towards the global police state is confirmed more recently with a theory of global policing (Bowling and Sheptycki 2012). The increased threat from OCGs and terrorists has been accompanied by their increasing use of firearms (Bruggeman 2008, Jojarth 2009 and Rollins 2010) and my epistemological standpoint (Corbin-Dwyer and Buckle 2009) relates to the development of policing and intelligence gathering on the firearms threat. Therefore, this professional doctorate thesis has focused on the police transnational firearms intelligence network (the Network). Qualitative data has been gathered to establish whether the Network contributes to a reconstruction of policing. That data has been analysed using adaptive grounded theory (Chamaz 2006) and nodal network analysis (Shearing and Johnston 2010). As a result, this thesis articulates the UK firearms threat and the police response. The indications are that the Network is contributing to a glocal reconstruction of policing. The reconstruction includes pluralistic transnational action in partnership with other UK public organisations. There is no evidence of any privatisation of policing at the transnational level or any global control of UK policing through the Network.