'There should be no open doors in the police': criminal investigations in northern Ghana as boundary work

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Periodical article

Title:	'There should be no open doors in the police': criminal investigations in northern Ghana as boundary work
Author:	Beek, Jan
Year:	2012
Periodical:	Journal of Modern African Studies (ISSN 0022-278X)
Volume:	50
Issue:	4
Pages:	551-572
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Ghana
Subjects:	police criminal procedure arrest State-society relationship
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/41653733
Abstract:	In criminal investigations by police officers in northern Ghana, the lines are fluid: civilians arrest suspects on their own, assuming the tasks of the police. Police officers are heavily influenced by civilians, often forming paid alliances with them. Yet such entanglements paradoxically enable State policing and integrate the police into society in a context of low resources and low legitimacy. Other practices limit and frame such transgressions. Using the concept of boundary work, this article analyses how actors maintain and negotiate the seemingly blurred distinction between State and society in West Africa. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]