Comparing volunteer policing in Malaysia, England and Wales and the United States of America: cross-national findings

Abstract

PurposeThis article offers a tri-national comparison between Malaysia, England and Wales and the United States of AmericaDesign/methodology/approachIt is based on reviewing, collating, comparing and contrasting previous research findings and official reports on the topic with a view to identify recurrent commonalities in the three countries studied.FindingsThree key common themes are identified and presented in the article: (1) The relevance of the cultural positioning of volunteers in policing; (2) the importance of understanding the roles and capability of police volunteers; (3) recognizing prerequisites for recruitment of volunteers and the nature of their subsequent training.Research limitations/implicationsWe suggest that more detailed comparative studies of volunteer policing structures and officer roles would be valuable.Practical implicationsThe practice implications of these findings are discussed, and the potential value of and major challenges in carrying out cross-national national comparative study in the field of volunteer policing shown.Social implicationsThe paper discusses important issues in the role and value of police volunteerism to criminal justice and society.Originality/valueThere are few international comparisons of volunteer policing and even fewer that compare approaches between Western and Eastern countries. This is the first study to do so.

Special beginnings: An explorative study of the early career experiences of volunteer special constables

“…Previous studies also reflect the particular importance to Special Constables of forming positive, valuing, trusting, constructive relationships with regular officer colleagues (Britton et al, 2018b;Cheah et al, 2021;Gaston and Alexander, 2001;Gill and Mawby, 1990;Leon, 1991;Mirrlees-Black and Byron, 1994;NPIA, 2010;Prins, 2018). Several studies also identify challenges within these relationships.…”

Volunteer Police Cadet leaders across England and Wales: exploring their motivations

“…In the UK volunteers are a key feature of life, with 40% of adults volunteering in some capacity (McGarvey et al, 2019). Such volunteering ranges from running libraries (Casselden et al, 2015) and the local provision of services such as sport (Morgan, 2013), to a range of roles across policing (Cheah et al, 2021). The most common reasons for volunteering are to either help others or improve things (McGarvey et al, 2019).…”

“…Cherney and Chui (2010) point out that at the international level there has been an increasing diversification of policing roles and functions within and external to public police agencies, sometimes referred to as plural policing or 'auxiliarisation', examples of which are widely discussed (Jones and Newburn, 2006;Jones et al, 2009;Rogers, 2016;Dobrin and Wolf, 2016). The use of volunteers in certain roles appears to have been historically common and growing in popularity (Bullock, 2018), volunteering within policing has received limited attention, especially in terms of research (Pepper and Wolf, 2015;Cheah, et al, 2021). Dobrin (2017) states that both the police organisation and communities benefit from police volunteerism because people in free societies are best governed when members of the community take active participation in the oversight of the community.…”