Politi og mening: Om politiets sosiale rolle, synlighet og sosiale forankring

Politianalysen (NOU 2013: 9) foreslår å redusere antall tjenestesteder fra 354 til 210. Dette er ikke første gang politi- og lensmannsetaten står overfor en strukturreform (se St.meld. nr. 22 2001). Interessen for politistoff i media er i utgangspunktet stor, og dette gjelder også saker som handler om organiseringen av politiet selv. Innbyggernes forventninger til, og forestillinger om politiet er sammensatte, og politiets rolle er kompleks. Til tross for mangfoldet i oppgaver og metoder står kriminalitetskontrollen sentralt i slike forestillinger. Selv om bilder av politiet som kriminalitetsbekjempere tar mye av oppmerksomheten, argumenterer denne artikkelen for at den som bruker kriminalitetsbekjempelse som prioritert målestokk eller eksistensberettigelse for politiet står i fare for å kaste barnet ut med badevannet

MachineLearning and the Police: Asking the Right Questions

How can we secure an accessible and open democratic debate about police use of predictive analytics when the technology itself is a specialized area of expertise? Police utilize technologies of prediction and automation where the underlying technology is often a machine learning (ML) model. The article argues that important issues concerning ML decision models can be unveiled without detailed knowledge about the learning algorithm, empowering nonML experts and stakeholders in debates over if, and how to, include them, for example, in the form of predictive policing. Non-ML experts can, and should, review ML models. We provide a ‘toolbox’ of questions about three elements of a decision model that can be fruitfully scrutinized by non-ML experts: the learning data, the learning goal, and constructivism. Showing this room for fruitful criticism can empower non-ML experts and improve democratic accountability when using ML models in policing

Cheats, Threats and Reflexivity: Organizational Narratives on Policing Organized and Economic Crime

Abstract Drawing on narrative criminology and sensemaking theory, this paper explores interpretive patterns in an interagency policing collaboration that targets ‘work-related crime’ (WRC). WRC is a policy term denoting organized crime and economic offences (i.e. tax evasion, benefits fraud, labour exploitation and immigration law offences) and is framed as a threat to the viability of the welfare state. While the concept signals an intent to coordinate across agencies, policing takes place within local and institutional contexts. How do agents in the police and collaborating agencies render the policy concept ‘work-related crime’ meaningful and actionable? The study articulates three organizational narratives explaining WRC as fundamental criminogenic change, as stability and as a reflexive product of the control apparatus

Cheats, threats and reflexivity: Organizational narratives on policing organized and economic crime

Drawing on narrative criminology and sensemaking theory, this paper explores interpretive patterns in an interagency policing collaboration that targets ‘work-related crime’ (WRC). WRC is a policy term denoting organized crime and economic offences (i.e. tax evasion, benefits fraud, labour exploitation and immigration law offences) and is framed as a threat to the viability of the welfare state. While the concept signals an intent to coordinate across agencies, policing takes place within local and institutional contexts. How do agents in the police and collaborating agencies render the policy concept ‘work-related crime’ meaningful and actionable? The study articulates three organizational narratives explaining WRC as fundamental criminogenic change, as stability and as a reflexive product of the control apparatus

Old, new, borrowed and blue: shifts in modern policing.

This article analyses ambiguity and complexity in proactive policing practices and identifies the paradox that despite the focus on increasing proactivity, police work remains strongly reactive. Drawing on a set of Norwegian case studies of policing in different domains, the article shows how under an overarching objective of 'combating crime', the distinctions between non-coercive (mainly proactive) forms of prevention or (mainly reactive) methods such as investigation or intelligence are seen as unimportant. This creates a demand for professionals working across different crime types, leading to a shift towards high policing in everyday life and tension between experts and generalists. Other, unintended consequences include a fragmentation of tasks and a more general and abstract way of policing. The result is pluralization and multiagency partnership strategies, where the police conduct high-policing tasks and external actors conduct low-policing tasks. These findings point to the emergence of new forms of hybrid of policing