Putting the voluntary sector in its place : geographical perspectives on voluntary activity and social welfare in Glasgow.

The growing political and social significance of the voluntary sector in contemporary welfare reform is reflected in a wide body of research that has emerged in the political and social policy literature since the mid-1980s. While this work adds considerably to our understanding of the changing role of the voluntary welfare sector, these accounts are largely aspatial. Yet, geographical perspectives offer important insights into the development of the voluntary sector at both micro-and macro-levels. The purpose of this paper is thus twofold: first we wish to draw attention to what it is that geographers do that may be of interest to those working in the field of social policy; and second, we illustrate why such perspectives are important. Drawing on recently completed work in Glasgow, we demonstrate how geographical approaches can contribute to a greater understanding of the uneven development of the voluntary sector across space and how voluntary organisations become embedded in particular places. By unravelling some of the complex webs of inter-relationships that operate across the geographical and political spaces that extend from national to local we reveal some unique insights into those factors that act to facilitate or constrain the development of voluntary activity across the city with implications for access, service delivery and policy development. Hence, we maintain, that geographical approaches to voluntarism are important for social policy as such approaches argue that where events occur matter to both their form and outcome

Outlook:paradoxes, paradigms and pluralism - reflections on the future challenges for police science in Europe

In this contribution the author explores two challenges for the future development of police science in Europe. The first challenge concerns the need to become ‘smarter’ in terms of making research evidence ‘part of the conversation’ about police policy and practice. This challenge emerges from the paradox that police science is viewed by some as a ‘successful failure’: ‘successful’ in the sense that the production of knowledge about policing in Europe and elsewhere has never been greater; but a ‘failure’ in the sense that many claim that the application of knowledge to improve police policy and practice remains limited. The second challenge to be explored in this chapter is around the importance of sustaining a degree of pluralism within police science. Rather than just thinking about police science in narrowly instrumental terms, in which research is expected to have a direct impact on the actions of front-line practitioners, the author concludes that there is the need to embrace the different uses of research (from instrumental to conceptual), the different types of interventions that researchers make into public discourse about policing, and the different institutions that exist within a European context to promote the development and use of police research

Police reform, research and the uses of ‘expert knowledge’

This paper examines the interplay between research and police reform. Focussing on the creation of Scotland’s national police force in 2013 it examines the role of research as ‘expert knowledge’ in the political and policy debate leading up to the reform and the on-going evaluation of the impacts and implications of the new police force. The paper also situates the relationship between research and reform in the context of the role played by the Scottish Institute for Policing Research, a strategic collaboration between Scotland’s universities, Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority. The analysis is informed at a conceptual level by the work of Boswell and her consideration of the different ways in which bureaucratic organisations make use of expert knowledge. This focuses attention on both instrumental uses (ensuring decisions are based on sound reasoning and empirical understanding) and symbolic uses where knowledge plays a role in enhancing legitimacy or helping substantiate policy preferences in areas of political contestation. These different uses of expert knowledge have important implications for thinking about the role of police-academic partnerships

Living absence:the strange geographies of missing people

In this paper ‘missing people’ gain an unstable presence through their (restaged) testimonies recounting individual occupations of material urban public space during the lived practice of absence. We explore ‘missing experience’ with reference to homeless geographies, and as constituted by paradoxical spatialities in which people are both absent and present. We seek to understand such urban geographies of absence through diverse voices of missing people, who discuss their embodiment of unusual rhythmic occupations of the city. We conclude by considering how a new politics of missing people might take account of such voices in ways to think further about rights-to-be-absent in the city

The Abstract Police:a conceptual exploration of unintended changes of police organizations

Contains fulltext : 208720.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)21 p

Missing persons:the processes and challenges of police investigation

Responding to reports of missing persons represents one of the biggest demands on the resources of police organisations. In the UK, for example, it is estimated that over 300,000 missing persons incidents are recorded by the police each year which means that a person in the UK is recorded missing by the police approximately every two minutes. However, there is a complex web of behaviours that surround the phenomenon of missing persons which can make it difficult to establish whether someone's disappearance is ‘intentional’ or ‘unintentional’ or whether they might be at risk of harm from themselves or others. Drawing on a set of missing person case reconstructions and interviews with the officers involved with these cases, this paper provides insights into the different stages of the investigative process and some of the key influences which shape the trajectory of a missing person's investigation. In particular, it highlights the complex interplay between actions which are ‘ordered and conditioned’ by a procedural discourse around how missing persons investigations should be conducted, and the narratives that officers construct about how they approach investigations which are often shaped by a mix of police craft, ‘science’ and ‘reputational’ issues

Police Leadership in Times of Transition

Large-scale police reforms in the Netherlands and Scotland were accompanied by transitions in police leadership. For the purpose of comparative research, unique interview data were collected among the Dutch and Scottish strategic police chiefs who were in charge prior to the completion of the reform process. It was found that police reform trajectories in the Netherlands and Scotland were both political projects aimed at generating more efficiency and cost-effectiveness through the centralization of police governance. Police leaders who were involved in the police reform trajectories expressed that their professional voice was largely neglected or immobilized through exclusionary practices. Moreover, it was found that deadlines prevailed over consensus and quality, impacting upon professional support for the restructuring process. The evidence-based insights help to identify critical success factors for large-scale organizational police reforms. A critical success factor is that police organizations adopt active learning and evaluation strategies before moving to a next transition

Geographies of Missing Adults

‘Every case is different [...] routine kills. I demand from my people that they look at every case from scratch as if they know nothing and it’s from looking at a case from that way that you will see some details. Some specific elements that make a case unique. [...] Never exclude anything [...] everything is possible’, Alain Remue, Head of the Belgium Federal Police's Missing Person's Unit (17 May 2013). Alain Remue, in a recent address to a European meeting of researchers on missing people, reminds us of the need to regard each missing person episode as a unique single event. Understanding the way in which people interact with the environments around them is an integral part of comprehending the behaviour of missing people and their unique journeys, and as such is the focus of this chapter. Whenever a person is reported missing to the police, there is an obvious need to locate an individual in space and time. The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) provide a definition of ‘missing’ equating to '… anyone whose whereabouts cannot be established …', and a definition of ‘absent’ as 'a person not at a place where they are expected or required to be' (ACPO 2013: 5) clearly indicating that when someone is reported as missing to the police, it is because their geographical location at that moment in time is unknown or uncertain. To complicate matters, the individual may not be static in their situation or behaviour, and may move over time, through space, navigating the environment on an evolving journey, which could also be considered uncertain in terms of its intentionality (Stevenson et al. 2013). Consequently, searching for a missing person can be a complicated process for any agency, involving interpreting the interplay of spatial, environmental and human elements at stake. In this chapter, we elaborate these complexities, and seek to use recent research evidence to shed new light on missing adult geographies and journeys

The challenges of change:Exploring the dynamics of police reform in Scotland

Despite a long tradition of pessimism regarding the scope for meaningful change in police practices, recent structural reforms to police organizations in several European countries suggest that significant change in policing is possible. Drawing on recent research into the establishment and consequences of a national police force in Scotland, this article uses instrumental, cultural and myth perspectives taken from organization theory to examine how change happened and with what effects. It highlights how police reform involves a complex interplay between the strategic aims of government, the cultural norms of police organizations and the importance of alignment with wider views about the nature of the public sector. The article concludes by identifying a set of wider lessons from the experience of organizational change in policing