This panel discussion seeks to draw out and compare the complex and often tense mutual existence between law enforcement, criminal gangs and the respective communities, through case studies from informal urban settlements in post-colonial contexts. It is assumed that a legitimate police is one that creates a conducive environment to the realisation of people’s human rights. However, as police, gangs and communities have sought to navigate law and order in emerging post- colonial countries, their relationship in practice is much less straightforward, often seeming to exist in a state of mutual, but tense co-existence. We will explore the implications of this relationship in the context of changing technological and surveillance capabilities. Speakers include Kaitlin M. Ball – a licensed U.S. attorney finishing her PhD in Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge on policing and paramilitarism in post-Patten Northern Ireland – Nanjala Nyabola – a political analyst and independent researcher based in Nairobi – and Dr. Jude Kagoro – whose research on Ugandan police is part of the DFG Priority Programme “Adaptation and Creativity in Africa.”