Conference in cooperation with the Working group on Policing of the European Society of Criminology ESC and the Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR).
Police and policing services face increasing challenges as our society has evolved and is evolving on a daily basis towards a more complex, diverse, enhanced and digital (in short: smart) society in which technology and digital evolutions play a crucial role. Societal changes imply and require changes in police and policing, yet adapting to these fast-changing contexts is not as easy as it may seem.
The organisers see important oscillations in police organizations all over the world in general and in Western European countries in particular. Often, these changes are set up with a view on effectiveness and efficiency (in many cases accompanied by a centralization of police services).
In spite of these organizational adaptations, some authors say that dramatically little has changed in regard to policing. Loftus (2008) for example explains that the adaptations remain mostly surface level changes, that have not changed the intrinsic nature of police forces. Police culture, in her view, is therefore still associated with cynicism, suspicion, machismo, and a crime-fighting mind-set. Other authors still consider the male dominated managerial culture of the police as well (Silvestri, 2018, Osterlind and Haake, 2010), although there are, undoubtedly, positive evolutions in diverse fields, such as the gender element and the opportunities for ‘outsiders’ to enter the police force (though both groups still stumble upon a number of difficulties) (Silvestri, 2018).
In this conference, the aim is to grasp the different evolutions and non-evolutions that surround policing in the current social and societal climate, and stimulate readers to think about the future of policing, taking the changed contexts and challenges into account.
After the conference all conference attendants will be invited to join the 30 years celebration party at Gaston Rooftop Bar in Ghent.
Date
Tuesday, 17th September 2019
Venues
Conference: Ghent University
Law & Criminology Faculty - campus Aula
Universiteitstraat 4, B-9000 Ghent
Auditorium C
More information HERE.