Undercover: Police Surveillance in Comparative Perspective

The United States and Europe have recently experienced a significant expansion in the use of undercover police tactics and technological means of surveillance. In a democratic society, such tactics raise significant questions for public policy and social research. New and sophisticated forms of crime and social control (and their internationalization) represent an important and neglected topic. Realizing this, the leading scholars in this field created a European and American working group for the comparative study of police surveillance. This collaborative, landmark volume reports the results of their work. It is the first book ever devoted to the comparative study of the topic and includes articles on the historical development of covert policing in Europe and its spread to the United States (where it was extended and recently exported back to Europe), plus detailed accounts of the use of covert tactics in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Iceland, Sweden, Canada and the United States. Audience: Social scientists, historians, policy makers, lawyers, and criminal justice practitioners