Policing tourism: the emergence of specialist units

Abstract

Specialist tourist police units are a recent development in many countries where tourism is important to the economy and where crimes associated with tourism are recognized. However, such developments are scarcely universal. This paper focuses on three contrasting examples: the UK, where there are no specialist tourist police, despite a clear relationship between tourism and crime and disorder; Ghana, where tourist police have been introduced relatively recently; and the USA, where tourist police units are an established art of policing structures in tourist areas like Florida. After describing the current situation in each area, the paper concludes with a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of specialist units and the reasons why contrasting policies have emerged