Jan Beek's book explores everyday police work in an African country and analyses how police officers, despite prevailing stereotypes about failed states and African police, produce stateness. Drawing on highly readable ethnographic descriptions, the book shows that Ghanaian police practices often involve the exchange of money (bribes), the use of violence and the influence of politicians. However, such informal practices allow police officers to deal with the inconsistent necessities and the social context of their work. Ultimately, Ghanaian police officers are also inspired by a...

State police forces in Africa are a curiously neglected subject of study, even within the study of security issues and African states. This book brings together important new work on the subject from a group of criminologists, anthropologists, sociologists, historians, political scientists and others, who have engaged with police forces and the publics with whom they interact across the continent to provide street-level perspectives from below and inside Africa's police forces. The collection is in three parts; first it considers historical trajectories and particular configurations of police...