Police as settler policy: Michael K. Bryden, ‘Police Legitimacy and Indigenous Self-Determination: Towards a Decolonised Dialogue’, International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 2026 | settler colonial studies blog

Police as settler policy: Michael K. Bryden, ‘Police Legitimacy and Indigenous Self-Determination: Towards a Decolonised Dialogue’, International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 2026

06Jul26

Abstract: In settler states, police are used to establish and maintain colonial order, suppress Indigenous resistance, and secure state authority. Today, Indigenous people experience disproportionate rates of police contact that emerged during colonisation. Yet, mainstream scholarship on legitimacy has largely ignored Indigenous perspectives on policing, the wider context of settler colonialism, and questions of self-determination. This article focuses on police legitimacy and Indigenous self-determination in Australia, with implications for other settler states. I argue that Indigenous selfdetermination cannot be achieved without legitimate forms of social control. Building on the theorising of Beetham (1991) and Bottoms and Tankebe (2012), this article suggests that decolonised legitimacy dialogues are necessary to understand how Indigenous peoples conceptualise legitimate policing. A decolonised dialogue acknowledges policing’s colonial origins and its ongoing role in settler societies, the Western philosophies underlying legitimacy theory, and the need to centre Indigenous self-determination. I propose that “police” legitimacy can be enhanced via two pathways: (1) through reforms within state structures and/or (2) through Indigenous-generated alternatives (e.g., night patrols). This dual strategy considers the importance of both community-informed and evidence-based practices in policing to reduce harm while striving, ultimately, for as little (state) policing as possible. Here, I argue for epistemological consilience: the integration of Indigenous and Western knowledge systems.

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