This article examines the development of networked modes of policing along what has been described
as a particularly vulnerable part of the UK border – namely, the Welsh coastline. Through the
introduction of a novel policing initiative, ‘Coastal Surveillance Wales’, the enforcement apparatus
aims to bring together numerous state agencies, an array of service providers and responsibilised
members of civil society. While finding resonance with claims that the hierarchical, state-dominated
provision of policing has been uprooted by a move toward a more polycentric, networked mode
of governance (Shearing & Wood, 2003; Brodeur, 2010), it is suggested that the emerging security
network along the Welsh coastline serves to enhance the policing and surveillance functions of the
state. By co-ordinating otherwise disparate institutions, the policing initiative aspires to incorporate
a range of agents and agencies in the crime control complex. In sketching a map of this policing
arrangement, the article raises the question of how localised security arrangements can be imagined.