LAUSR

ABSTRACT Public police require a reliable supply of resources to operate effectively, and police increasingly seek resources from private organisations and individuals. Since police departments are public bodies, they encounter boundaries in doing so. The key challenge for public police is how to access private resources for initiatives while seeming to avoid real or alleged influence from private entities providing them. This article examines policing across inter-organisational boundaries and boundary negotiation by investigating two kinds of private organisations – police foundations and Crime Stoppers organisations – operating in Canadian jurisdictions, and which reflect significant trends in public police practices. Both organisational models were established by public police in the United States in 1970s, have proliferated, and now commonly operate adjacent to – but not within – North American police departments. Both models, and especially how they connect, create distance from, and otherwise relate to public police, lend insight into how boundaries are maintained, negotiated, and spanned. Implications of these arrangements for future research and the public good are discussed.