The expansion of a police surveillance technology market within a crisis of legitimacy

The expansion of police surveillance technologies has been at the center of important debates around urban governance as technologies become increasingly embedded in infrastructure, city budgets, and clear concerns around civil liberties. After decades of consistently increasing police budgets, an expanded scope of policing under neoliberalism, and the development of the contemporary surveillant assemblage, we lack an understanding of the political economy of surveillance tech development as it reflects the legacy of these structural shifts in cities. This article aims to chronicle a chapter of this expanded policing apparatus: the partnership between the tech sector and law enforcement agencies at all levels to develop a market for police surveillance products as “force multipliers” in light of staffing shortages. Using interview data, transcripts from presentations, promotional materials, and other documents from police technology conferences and webinars, this article documents the ways in which the tech sector and law enforcement agencies are enmeshed in mutually reinforcing practices that have established and continue to develop the police surveillance technology industry. Our data show that the development of surveillance and analytical products arises through an interdependence where tech and policing sectors collaborate in product development, financing, and integration into the criminal legal system.