A Philosophical History of Police Power

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Rethinking the philosophical grounds of police power, Melayna Lamb argues that traditional ideas of sovereignty and the law need to be radically re-evaluated. In placing police at the centre of analysis this book demonstrates the manner in which police power exists in a complex and overlapping relationship with sovereignty and law in a form which is not reducible to implementation. In doing this it argues for the centrality of order in any consideration of police and challenging a common narrative whereby a dynamic, interventionist sovereign power that follows from a belief of order as artificial is replaced by a liberal, limited non-interventionist sovereign power that proceeds from a natural order. Moving through thinkers such as Hobbes, Hegel and Adam Smith the book argues that police power is in fact an-archic in form, in a manner that makes it impossible to hold accountable through the law.

Lamb adopts an interdisciplinary approach that turns to philosophy to make sense of global events that see police power at their centre. This includes the history of police brutality in the US, the structural injustices made more apparent by COVID-19 and the growing calls to abolish the police.

Reviews

Melaynas Lambs groundbreaking work demonstrates that the police are never about justice but rather straddle the gap between what the law purports to be and the requirement to control various populations. Far from being a supplement to sovereign power, Lamb shows that the police are the foundation of that power. * James Martel, Professor, San Francisco State University, USA *
A striking new voice in the field, Melayna Lamb develops an extraordinary theorisation of the formlessness and an-archic nature of police power. * Illan rua Wall, Professor of Law, University of Warwick, UK *
In this must-read book, Lamb brings much needed philosophical precision to recent scholarship on policing. Patiently unpicking the prevalent view that police reproduce specific forms of order, Lamb charts a way past dead-end theories like the colonial boomerang to contend with the an-archy that is characteristic of police power itself. * James Trafford, Reader in Philosophy & Design, University of the Creative Arts, UK *

Author Bio

Melayna Kay Lamb is a Lecturer at the University of Law, London, UK.