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Police Training and Police Violence in Scandinavia
Abstract
Compared to countries such as the United States, in Scandinavian countries there tend to be fewer violent confrontations between police officers and civilians. In many countries where there are low rates of police violence the public has high trust in the police and high rates of feeling safe compared to countries with a high level of police violence. In order to understand how to improve the public’s trust in the police and improve community relationships with the police, scholars have explored notions such as training, organizational structure, police practices, and strategies. Furthermore, police agencies and policing models in other regions, such as Scandinavia, are often studied due to the lower levels of violent encounters between citizens and the police and the extensive training officers receive. Police training is one of the factors most often discussed when examining ways of reforming the police and changing officers’ conduct in various situations such as violent encounters, misconduct, and efficiency. Thus, Scandinavian police agencies are often of particular interest to scholars doing comparative work in the area of policing. This chapter will review the current literature on police agencies in Scandinavia, their use of force, and the Scandinavian peoples’ perception of the police. It will also make recommendations for future research on police training and the role it plays in police conduct, drawing on the knowledge from Scandinavian policing.
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Why do people believe that violence is acceptable? In this article, the authors study people’s normative beliefs about the acceptability of violence to achieve social control (as a substitute for the police, for self-protection and the resolution of disputes) and social change (through violent protests and acts to achieve political goals). Addressing attitudes toward violence among young men from various ethnic minority communities in London, the authors find that procedural justice is strongly correlated with police legitimacy, and that positive judgments about police legitimacy are associated with more negative views about the use of violence. They conclude with the idea that police legitimacy has an additional, hitherto unrecognized, empirical property—by constituting the belief that the police monopolise rightful force in society, legitimacy has a “crowding out” effect on positive views of private violence.
There is a debate in current scholarship regarding whether or not education and training is an effective tool to change police officers’ conduct. Compared to the United States, Sweden has longer training for officers who experience 2 years of academic training and 6 months of practical training. The Swedish police training is also, contrary to the American training, standardized. This paper aims to investigate how Swedish officers value, evaluate and manage knowledge when making decisions. To examine this further 27 qualitative interviews were conducted with 14 male and 13 female Swedish police officers during 2018. The interviews were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis in both English and Swedish to uncover themes and codes. Findings suggest that police officers utilize experience, seniority, and gut feeling when valuing, evaluating and managing knowledge. Furthermore, the results imply that certain types of knowledge are valued differently by officers. These findings can inform how and if education can be used as a tool to potentially change how officers in the US and other countries make their decisions.
The police can be seen as a governmental institution or as an organizational body, where especially the work - effectiveness, or fairness in encounters - is valued. Through the combination of these approaches and the inclusion of social trust and criminal victimization, Silvia Staubli offers an understanding beyond existing literature on institutional trust and procedural fairness. Moreover, due to analyses for Eastern and Western Europe, she addresses experts from sociology, political science, criminology, and social anthropology equally. Beyond, the study offers an insight to the public on how public opinions towards institutions are shaped.
Recent years have seen trends within police to use different forms of “community policing” strategies that aim to foster closer relationships and trust with citizens, as well as an orientation toward “procedural justice” in law enforcement practices. Based on 25 interviews with police officers in two different police precincts in Denmark, this article explores the policing of ethnic minority youth in so-called “ghetto” areas from the perspectives of police officers. In doing this, we describe the specific challenges and strategies in implementing such policing methods in neighborhoods where some residents display low trust or even hostility toward the police. The article sheds light on the emotional, organizational, and practical challenges involved in doing community policing in marginalized neighborhoods and the way in which this shapes how community policing is being organized in practice.
Professionals within street-level organizations are essential for the delivery of public services to citizens. However, among a number of difficult dilemmas, they have to deal with an extensive workload. The police can be seen as a good example of this; they are expected to solve most crimes, including the so-called mass crimes and the more spectacular cases that make it into media headlines, and often on a continually decreasing budget. A key regulating mechanism for investigation departments in the Swedish police is the so-called balance. The balance can be described as a basket in which they put the cases that there is a desire and potential to work on but not in the immediate term. The purpose of this article is to analyse the balance as a way of rationing the workload within the Swedish police. Working with the balance consists of two processes: limiting and buffering the workload. Limiting is the practice of reducing the work in a situation. Buffering is the process of putting some work on hold to deal with later, of which the article identifies five kinds; functional, problematic, quasi, progressive, and symbolic buffering. The exploration of ‘the balance’ contributes to our understanding of how street level organizations attempt to defend their professional jurisdictions, their well-being, and their ability to complete their duties.
"Iceland has primarily produced instrumental research carried out by research teams at the Reykjavík Metropolitan Police and the National Police Commissioner, often in cooperation with researchers at the University of Iceland. This research can be divided into three areas: offenders; victims and perpetrators; and police culture and work environment."
This article builds on two interview studies on racial profiling conducted in Finland and Sweden. It examines policing practices in order to elaborate on the understanding of what we define as the ‘racial welfare state’. The analysis draws attention to the ways that bordering practices reproduce racial orders, within and beyond the nation-state. The embeddedness of the Nordic region in the western sphere, with its colonial legacies, is highlighted through the empirical material that focuses on the consequences of internal and external migration controls, as well as more general police stop-and-search practices. The study underlines the need to investigate racial profiling as a practice that enforces an imagined community based not on whiteness in general, but on Nordic whiteness in particular as the norm against which the bodies of ‘others’ are measured.
Research has highlighted the harmful effects of targeted police practices and the subsequent low trust in the police among ethnic minorities. However in spite of this research, there still exists a relative lack of knowledge on the day-to-day relations between ethnic minority youth and the police and on the perceptions that ethnic minorities have of procedural justice. Furthermore, comparative and cross-nation research is needed. This study, using data from 121 in-depth interviews, investigates how ethnic minority youth living in Finland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden describe policing practices. Our findings indicate that descriptions were quite similar in each of the four Nordic countries. While on the one hand, ethnic minority youth felt suspected by the police for no justifiable reason, thereby creating strong feelings of procedural injustice and unfairness, on the other hand, they described encounters, where they felt protected by the police and in general trusted the institution of the police. As such ambiguity has often been neglected, this article highlights the positive perceptions of the police but also argues that targeted police practices can undermine notions of procedural justice, trust in policing and a sense of belonging.
One of the most striking genre conventions to emerge in Danish cinema in
recent years is the gangster motif. Replete with gritty social realism, urban decay,
and tribal warfare between different ethnic groups, these films reflect a growing
discontent in the Danish welfare state, particularly regarding multiculturalism and
inclusion. This article follows these trends from the mid-1990s, focusing specifically
on the themes of ethnic division in four films: Nicolas Winding Refn’s Pusher (1996), Michael Noer’s Nordvest (2013) [Northwest], Omar Shargawi’s Gå med fred, Jamil (2008) [Go With Peace, Jamil], and Michael Noer and Tobias Lindholm’s R (2010) [R: Hit First, Hit Hardest]. The article explores racial division in these films by examining how they reflect
or subvert cultural and political approaches towards diversity in Denmark over the
last two decades.
The Swedish police organization has recently undergone a significant restructuring, combining previously independent regional bodies into a single national authority. It is currently unclear how this process has affected the accessibility of police services. Using central place theory and notions of public reassurance as theoretical references , this study examines the distribution of police stations and how their spatial arrangement affects the population's access, by car, to various types of police services. Open-access data and geographic information systems underlie the methodology. Results show that, despite regional differences in population density, a large majority of the population has less than a 20-min drive to the nearest police station. However, residents of remote areas may have to travel more than 2 h to access uncommon services. The article discusses policy implications in the Swedish context, which are broadly relevant for understanding the supply of police services in other sparsely populated countries.
The complexities of modern policing require law enforcement agencies to expand how officers are trained to do their jobs. It is not sufficient for training to focus solely on the law or on perishable skills; such as arrest and control; defensive tactics; driving; and firearms. The present manuscript addresses the critical importance of infusing academy training with the psychological skills essential for officers to meet the contemporary challenges of police work. The authors suggest that the skills (i.e., cognitive; emotional; social; and moral) discussed in this paper may improve officers' wellness as well as promote relationships between police officers and community members. Specific methods of incorporating these skills in academy training are offered.
As societies are becoming more heterogeneous and complex, the role of the police is becoming more demanding. To fulfil this role, police officers need several widely recognised skills and personal qualities, but less is known about how they are valued by police recruits. Thus, we have examined views of police recruits in six European countries on three competencies or characteristics of known importance for police work: knowledge, leadership, and the ability to form good relations with citizens. We have also explored variations in views of recruits in different organisations and changes in their views during their training. For these purposes, we used survey data collected in the RECPOL project. Since the data were collected from different populations and at different times, the analysis is based on measurement invariance methodology, and one of the aims was to highlight the importance of rigorous appraisal of the quality and comparability of similar survey data using such methods. The results reveal both differences and similarities in views of recruits in the surveyed countries and changes during training. Police culture appears to be a significant factor, as more items in the applied instrument could be validly used in comparisons of recruits in organisations with similar police traditions. The results also showed interesting contrasts, e.g. new recruits in Sweden rated good relations with citizens more highly than recruits in organisations with a more military history, but this pattern changed during training, presumably due to influences of the recruitment process, training and culture within the organisations.
The number of outlaw bikers is growing globally. Despite this, little research exists on these groups and their alleged violent tendencies. To address this, the current paper uses unique data to examine whether gang violence causes outlaw biker violence. The period examined runs from mid-2008 until early 2012 during which violent clashes occurred between outlaw bikers and street gang members involved in an alleged conflict in Copenhagen, Denmark. A precise description of each individual act of violence would make it possible to identify whether specific acts were carried out in furtherance of the alleged conflict. This would allow one to determine whether outlaw bikers commit violence on behalf of their club. However, such knowledge is unavailable. The paper therefore takes a different approach by examining whether acts of violence committed by the two groups are statistically associated. In other words, it considers whether one or more acts can be described as retaliatory during the observation periods. The sample consists of 640 individuals involved with the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club or with non-biker street gangs–both of which are present in Copenhagen. Statistical models are used to predict 143 violent events committed by 196 outlaw bikers. The results suggest that violence committed by gang members predicts violence committed by outlaw bikers. This indicates that violent acts committed by outlaw bikers are at least partly a form of retaliation carried out on behalf of their club. The paper expands the literature on the kinds of inter-group, micro-level processes that can lead to reciprocal violence by including outlaw bikers in a literature that has previously focused on non-biker street gangs.
As different social groups are directly and indirectly confronted with diverse forms of police practices, different sectors of the population accumulate different experiences and respond differently to the police. This study focuses on the everyday experiences of the police among ethnic minority young people in the Nordic countries. The data for the article are based on semi-structured interviews with 121 young people in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark. In these interviews, many of the participants refer to experiences of “minor harassments” – police interactions characterized by low-level reciprocal intimidations and subtle provocations, exhibited in specific forms of body language, attitudes and a range of expressions to convey derogatory views. We argue that “minor harassments” can be viewed as a mode of conflictual communication which is inscribed in everyday involuntary interactions between the police and ethnic minority youth and which, over time, can develop an almost ritualized character. Consequently, minority youth are more likely to hold shared experiences that influence their perceptions of procedural justice, notions of legitimacy and the extent to which they comply with law enforcement representatives.
This article focuses on the perspectives of young ethnic minorities in the Nordic countries who have experienced various forms of “police stops”, i.e. situations where the police stop them without any reference to a specific event of which the youth are aware. Analytically, the debate is positioned through an intersectionality approach of (un)belonging to majority societies. Across the Nordic countries, we found that the young people described five social markers as reasons for being stopped, namely clothing, hanging out in groups, ethnicity, neighbourhoods and gender. We argue that the police stops explicate how the young men in particular are often forced to think about themselves in terms of “a threat” to the majority and the attributes they have that make them seem like criminals.
This paper contributes to the growing literature on organised crime prevention by examining how crime associated with outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMCGs) is understood and approached in Scandinavia. The paper describes different understandings of the phenomenon in the form of past experiences and expected future developments. Criminal justice system responses and other innovative approaches are also outlined. The paper offers insight into the challenges associated with OMCGs, and the efforts of Scandinavian nations to prevent recruitment and encourage dissociation and desistance.
Several European countries, like the Netherlands, England, Wales
and Scotland have implemented or are undergoing major structural
changes in order to centralize their police organizations. (Fyfe,
Terpstra & Tops, eds. 2013) This goes for the Scandinavian countries as
well. As an extra twist, this centralization is presented as decentralization
reforms. The purpose of this literature review of the Scandinavian
police reforms is to present the studies done so far of these reforms. This with a special address to
the non-Scandinavian readers. The presentation is limited to studies
of the reform from 2005 and onwards.
Most of the monographs are written in Scandinavian languages.
Books in English are limited to Degnegaards doctoral dissertation
on the Danish police reform. However, four of the authors of the
monographs have also presented articles on the studied reforms (Haraholma
& Houtsonen 2013; Holmberg 2014; Holmberg & Balwig 2013;
Johannesen 2015; Wennström 2013). A general discussion on the Norwegian
reform is also found in Christenson et al. (2016). There are also
articles in English of more specific studies like Haake et al. (2015)
and Vuorensyrjä (2014).
The studies presented are of different character. First there
are university and empirically based studies, such as Balvig, Holmberg
and Nielsen’s (2011) extensive empirical survey of the Danish reform;
Degnegaards (2010) dissertation which covers the same reform, from
a management perspective; Haraholma’s (2011) evaluation of the Finnish
reform, here presented through an article in Fyfe et al. (2013),
and Renå’s (2016) survey report from Norway about police employees’
and managers’ attitudes to Norwegian police reform.
More specific studies are Vuorensyrjä’s (ibid.) study of changes
in organizational and occupational stress in the Finnish police
force during the police reform years, and Haake et al. (ibid) on
expectations on police leaders during major organizational change
pressures.
Second, with an empirical base, there are evaluations conducted
by a government mandate, such as reports from the Swedish Agency
for Public Management (Statskontoret 2016) and from the Norwegian
Agency for Public Management and eGovernment (Direktoratet for forvaltning
og IKT (Difi) 2017).
Third, there are three books which are primarily based in
organizational theory and police science and which analyze the basic
assumptions behind the police reforms, often in a polemic and popular
way. This goes for Wennström’s (2014) and Björk’s (2016) analyses of
the background to the Swedish reform, and Johannessen (2015), who
examines the development of the Norwegian police.
Harm reduction has since the late 80s gradually been part of Norwegian drug policy, challenging original working strategies for police in open drug scenes; places with extensive public trade and use of illegal drugs. This study addresses the research questions: What characterizes police work in open drug scenes in Oslo? How do the police solve the practical challenges of working within a ‘dual-track policy’ combining harm-reducing and punitive approaches? This historical analysis of police approaches to open drug scenes concerns the years 1993–2015. The open drug scene has moved continuously within a limited area around the Central train Station. The study uses data from newspaper articles, semi-structured interviews of responsible police in the area and public action plans by the Municipality of Oslo. Police strategies in Oslo’s drug scenes have changed from strictly punitive to a mixture of harm-reducing and punitive efforts. The police change back and forth between these strategies, and within the same time period they sometimes engage in both. Within the current drug policy, the dilemmas of practical police work persist, as inhabitants of the drug scene perform numerous criminal acts and simultaneously are in need of care.
Police safety and use of force decisions during critical incidents are an ongoing source of concern for both police practitioners and the public. Prior research in the area of police performance reveals that psychological and physiological stress responses during critical incidents can shape the outcome of the incident, either positively or negatively. The goal of this study was to test a training method to improve use of force decision making among police. This randomized controlled pilot study consisted of training officers to apply techniques to enhance psychological and physiological control during stressful critical incidents. Of a pool of 80 police officers, potential participants were invited based on equivalent age, years of experience, physiological characteristics (i.e., body mass index [BMI] and cardiovascular reactivity), and expertise. Results revealed that the intervention group displayed significantly better physiological control, situational awareness, and overall performance, and made a greater number of correct use of force decisions than officers in the control group (all ps < .01). The relevant improvements in use of force decision-making found in this pilot study indicate that this training method warrants further investigation. Improved use of force decision making directly translates into potential lifesaving decisions for police and the civilians they are working with.
Police supervisors play a critical role in preventing unreasonable use of force.
Despite their importance, only a few studies have examined the influences of
supervisors on their subordinates’ daily practices, especially on their uses of
police force. To bridge this gap, the current study explored the relationship
between supervisors’ education level and use of force training and subordinate
officers’ use of force practices. Using police use of force reports from 2004 to
2007 in a single urban police department, the current study examined how
supervisor education and training impact on police use-of-force and found both
highly educated and trained supervisors moderate their subordinate officers’
uses of higher levels of force.
Crime policy is increasingly legitimized by reference to the public sense of justice. A research project has therefore been conducted in all five Scandinavian countries in order to examine the public’s views on punishment. These views have been examined by means of simple questions in telephone interviews, by vignettes in postal questionnaires, and by focus groups having seen a film of a mock trial. The results show that, when asked simple questions, the public want stiffer sentences. In their assessments of the vignette crimes, the public demands on average lower prison sentences than judges, and this tendency becomes stronger in the focus group study. The propensities towards punitiveness seem to diminish with more information and increasing proximity to the parties involved.
Aims
This article discusses Norwegian policy on drugs in prison since the 1970s as presented by prison authorities. How does the drug policy ft the penal frame and how are these policies related? Does the drug policy soften the prison policy, and does the prison policy strengthen the drug policy? How does the policy on drugs in prison impact on the position of prisons in society?
Data and Method
I have used documents such as white papers, budgets and circular letters, and interviews with former and present directors of Norwegian correctional services.
Results and Conclusions
Since the 1970s, four main measures have been implemented to handle drug problems in prison, combining control, sanctions and rehabilitative measures. They accord with the general prison policy on rehabilitation and control, and support both elements. What is also crucial in the prison drug policy is the position taken in penal policy that treatment should not take place in prison, but inmates should be rehabilitated and motivated to apply for treatment and help after release. This can be seen as a factor influencing the prison numbers.
This article introduces the author’s recent study on the ‘strategic impact’ of routinely arming the New Zealand Police and discusses how two significant research findings are consistent with published theory. First, the utility of taking a binary, black, and white approach when analysing the ‘routinely armed versus routinely unarmed’ debate, is limited in terms of considering police officer behaviour. This is because police departmental policies shape police officer risk-taking and behaviour to a considerable degree. Second, despite departmental policies, the routine armament of a routinely unarmed police force, say for health and safety reasons, may be counterproductive; such a change exposes police officers to increased risks. Both findings come from an analysis of Scandinavian police forces. The author’s study was primarily concerned with the police forces of Norway and Sweden; however, comparisons were made, at times, within a wider Scandinavian context.
In this study, we set out to explain fear of crime and feelings of unsafety, using two waves of the European Social Survey (2006 and 2008) covering 25 European countries (N = 77,674). The results of our multilevel analyses showed varying effects of contextual- and individual-level characteristics on our two outcomes. Higher crime levels in countries increase the fear of crime; however, they do not affect feelings of unsafety. Social protection expenditure proves to be an important determinant of both fear of crime and feelings of unsafety. Moreover, distrust in the police, generalized social distrust, and perceived ethnic threat induce fear of crime as well as feelings of unsafety. Finally, policy implications are discussed.
In the past, police scholars have examined the impact of higher education on different measures of officer behavior, most notably arrest and the use of force. Much of this prior work has suffered from poor methodologies, such as inadequate samples and the inability to control for theoretically relevant variables. In addition, previous inquires have focused on but one single behavior per study. In an attempt to overcome some of these limitations, we examine the effect of officer education on three key decisionmaking points (i.e., arrest, search, and use of force) by relying on observational data from two medium-sized cities.The results of the analysis indicate that higher education carries no influence over the probability of an arrest or search occurring in a police— suspect encounter. College education does, however, significantly reduce the likelihood of force occurring. Results may be due to the amount of discretion officer’s exercise in pursuing these behaviors. Recommendations for future inquiries revolving around theory development and the incorporation of research from the field of education are presented, as well as varying policy implications.
Past research on police shootings, when examining officer characteristics, has focused on the officer's race, particularly when it is not the same as the race of the person shot. Data from 186 officer-involved shootings were used to examine whether race effects existed and, if so, would be eliminated or attenuated by controlling for officer gender, education, age, and history of shooting. Male officers were more likely to shoot than female officers, and college-educated officers were less likely to be involved in shootings than officers with no college education. Risk of officer-involved shooting was reduced as the officer aged. White, non-Hispanic officers were more likely to shoot than Hispanic officers; however, there was no significant difference between Hispanic and Black officers. Officers with a previous history of shooting were more than 51% as likely to shoot during the follow-up period as officers without a history of shootings.
Police work involves substantial emotional labor by officers, who must control their own emotional displays and those of citizens, who often are encountered at their worst—injured, upset, or angry. Although policing often is viewed as masculine work that focuses on fighting crime, it also requires that officers maintain order and provide diverse services, which officers tend to disdain as feminine activities. This article explores the varieties of emotional labor, the rules regulating emotional displays in policing, and the role of gender in shaping these occupational and organizational norms. It identifies variations in the norms regulating emotional labor across policing assignments, interactional situations, and the gender of both the officers and the citizens in an encounter. It also reviews coping mechanisms for regulating emotions—including socialization, organizational rituals, humor, and off-duty social activities—and the dilemmas that norms related to emotional labor pose for women officers.
Young men living in socially deprived areas are more likely to be exposed to criminal activity and extraordinary policing measures. This article focuses on the narratives of police encounters told by ethnic minority young men living in a deprived neighbourhood in Denmark, defined by the Danish government as a ‘ghetto’. In total, 76 young men and 6 young women (age 15 to 26) were interviewed between 2016 and 2017. The article focusses on their experiences of the police’s use of force, interpreted as violence by the participants. We have categorized their experiences into three types: unnecessary use of force, inconsistent violence, and humiliation/insults. While police violence is often understood as primarily physical, we also show that in the young people’s recollections of these incidences, issues of ‘moral violence’ becomes important. While not only specifically violating the body, this type of violence also affects the integrity and dignity of individuals. Our participants recounted forms of violence, which were extra-judicial in terms of physical use of force and they described how the police used indirect and degrading techniques of violence, some of which can be categorized as sexual harassment, embarrassment and public humiliation. From their perspectives, police power appeared unpredictable and illegible.
This article discusses current police reform in Sweden, analysing recent events in light of tensions between rationalistic reform culture and more mundane work practices in policing. The analytical tool-kit consists of practice theory and the neo-classical theory of bureaucracy. The empirical material originates in ethnographic observations and semi-structured interviews from different regions in the new police organization in Sweden. Three themes are outlined: structural sanctification, job crafting, and resilience in work practices. At the end of the article, some reflections on shared leadership are presented, focusing on discretionary powers in police work.
ABSTRACT
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore how Swedish police officers describe occupational knowledge. By learning more about how officers describe occupational knowledge, we learn more about the types of information that they may be more likely to adopt in their occupational tasks.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, I conducted 27 semi-structured interviews with Swedish police officers. I asked officers several open-ended questions about their everyday work life and professional experience.
Findings
Swedish officers divide up knowledge into two categories, which are theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge. Theoretical knowledge is learned in the academy and is described as “black and white”, meaning that it is considered static and not applicable to what happens out in patrol. Practical knowledge is learned in the field from colleagues.
Research limitations/implications
Police officers around the world have a wide range of requirements and training to become police officers. However, empirical studies have found that officers tend to use different types of information when performing policing tasks. Depending on how information is perceived and is taught, officers may respond differently to different types of knowledge, due to their evaluation of the validity of the knowledge.
Originality/value
The findings in this study support previous empirical studies on the area of policing and knowledge in two ways; firstly, this study argues that there is a categorization of knowledge among police officers. Secondly, this study suggests that officers view one occupational knowledge type as more theoretical and more practical.
Research Summary
De‐escalation training has been widely implemented by U.S. police agencies in the wake of adverse public reaction to recent controversial police use‐of‐force incidents. Despite vast promotion from politicians, academics, expert panels, and the public, we know little about the effects of de‐escalation training on officers and police–citizen interactions. In this article, we offer findings from a multidisciplinary systematic literature review that demonstrate limited knowledge concerning the impact of de‐escalation training across all professions. We identified 64 de‐escalation training evaluations conducted over a 40‐year period, primarily in the fields of nursing and psychiatry.
Policy Implications
Although assessment outcomes reveal few adverse consequences and provide some confidence that de‐escalation trainings lead to slight‐to‐moderate individual and organizational improvements, conclusions concerning the effectiveness of de‐escalation training are limited by the questionable quality of almost all evaluation research designs. As such, important questions regarding the impact of de‐escalation training for police remain. Given the critical impact that de‐escalation training could have on officers and the public they serve, we conclude with a direct call to academics, practitioners, and funders across the field of policing to prioritize as soon as possible the testing of de‐escalation and other police use‐of‐force policies, tactics, and training.
The paper provides an overview of recent police reforms in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, including what is known about the results of those reforms. The reform processes in the three countries are quite similar. The number of individual police districts is drastically reduced, strong centralized management is introduced, and reforms are expected to yield additional manpower though rationalization. To date, however, the results do not live up to expectations; reforms are hard realize in the expected time, resources are scarce, local policing is hard to maintain, and police performance and efficiency do not seem to increase. The paper offers two related explanations for the lack of results. First, all three reforms place emphasis on centralizing police management, regardless of the problems they are expected to solve. Second, a staple of Scandinavian police reforms is the quest for viability; police districts must be large enough to handle all eventualities. Even though the concept of viability has changed over the past 50 years, it is still at the core of reform plans. The paper concludes with a discussion about the possibility of ever achieving police viability.
This article examines the reform of the police in Norway between 2012 to 2015 drawing upon central public reports and official documents leading up to the reform. These include the report from the official Inquiry Commission into the police response to the terrorist attacks in Oslo and at Utøya in July 2011, a report issued by a public commission in 2013 – established to analyze challenges within the police – and the resulting government proposal and parliamentary discussion that culminated in a decision to create a new police structure in 2015. While governance capacity and the need for a stronger emergency police were a main concern throughout the process, the importance of governance legitimacy and of maintaining a community police force became more important towards the end. The organizational thinking behind the reform is explained in terms of a structural and an institutional perspective. The analysis shows that both cultural and structural change was seen as prominent instruments for improving the police force, but they were emphasized differently at different points during the process. The analysis demonstrates that political context, agenda settings, attention shifting and situational factors as well as path dependency were important drivers of the reform.
This chapter provides a broad overview of European gang discourse, knowledge, interventions, and current policy direction via a miscellany of countries, including Western European countries involved in the ITACA project, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia. In order to set European gang policies and interventions in context, the chapter reflects on the dialogue around definitions, with a particular focus on the problem of translation. The chapter illustrates how the gang phenomenon may be described in various ways between certain European countries, while indeed other European countries may not directly address "gangs" at all. Societal and criminal justice system differences within Europe are significant when it comes to understanding responses to gangs. The chapter provides an indication of the emerging evidence regarding the nature and extent of the European gang problem. Youth gangs and a plethora of gang policy responses dominate contemporary discourse on British youth more noticeably than other European countries.
Police culture has for over half a century attracted interest from academics, students, policy-makers, police institutions and the general public. However, the literature of this area has proven to be diverse, sprawling and prone to contradiction which has led to an enthralling yet intricate body of knowledge that, whilst continuing to provoke interest and debate, has largely escaped any wider commentary.
This title offers an ethnographical investigation of contemporary police culture based on fieldwork across a range of ranks and units in the UK police force. By drawing on over 600 hours of direct observation of operational policing in urban and rural areas and interviews with over 60 officers, the author assesses what impact three decades of social, economic, and political change have had on police culture. The book offers understandings of the policing of ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, and the ways in which reform initiatives are accommodated and resisted within the police force. The author also explores the attempts of one force to effect cultural change both to improve the working conditions of staff and to deliver a more effective and equitable service to all groups in society. Beginning with a review of the literature on police culture from 30 years ago, the author goes on to outline the new social, economic, and political field of contemporary British policing. Taking this as a starting point, the remaining chapters present the main findings of the empirical research in what is a comprehensive analysis of present-day policing culture.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to track changes in organizational and occupational stress in the Finnish police force during the police reform years. It also estimates the effects of organizational stressors on labor turnover intention (LTI).
Design/methodology/approach
– The study is based on six distinct cross-sectional Police Personnel Surveys from 1999 to 2012. The surveys are not sample based, but have targeted the entire police force with good response rates. The study employs hierarchical logit models to predict LTI.
Findings
– Police agencies can be depicted as hierarchical frontline organizations. Major reforms in such agencies can be expected to give rise to increased organizational conflicts and stress. The empirical findings of the paper fall in line with the theory. Organizational stress and LTI have been increasing in the Finnish police force during the police reform years. However, at the same time, personal and occupational stressors have actually been reducing in the police force. Turnover intention was observed to be a positive function of those particular organizational stressors that have increased the most over the reform years.
Research limitations/implications
– The data are cross-sectional. No direct causal conclusions can be drawn from the results of this study. A non-material violation of the linearity assumption was detected in two logit models.
Originality/value
– Relying on Tops and Spelier's 2013 theory of police organizations as frontline organizations, the paper introduces a new theoretical construct – hierarchical frontline organization – and combines its theoretical ideas with comprehensive long-term data from the Finnish police force.
This study provides a test of the presumption that police recruits with a diverse background, undertaking comparatively long academic training, will refrain from non-legalistic practices. This is tested by longitudinal survey data, covering two cohorts of Swedish police recruits. The results show stable support for the legalistic perspective during academy training. However, during on-the-job training, the recruits become more positive towards non-legalistic practices. This reorientation takes place quite irrespective of the type of duty to which they are assigned. Additionally, neither the recruits’ nor their parents’ level of education seems to matter. There is some effect of age and gender: young male recruits are somewhat more prone to adopt Dirty Harry-inspired measures – that is, achieving essential ends by tarnished means.
Trust in the police appears to evolve slowly over time in response to deeper structural changes rather than single events.
However, what happens when a terrorist attack occurs and exposes serious flaws in police preparedness and their response during
and after the attack? This study investigates the extent to which trust in the police has been affected by the events on 22
July 2011 and the aftermath, utilizing survey data collected both prior to and after the terror attacks. The study finds that
trust in the police rose significantly in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, but then returned to pre-terror levels within
a year. Moreover, trust in the police has not fallen below pre-terror levels despite strong criticism in the heavily publicized
July 22nd commission report. This suggests a deep-seated belief in the willingness and ability of the authorities to address
and correct dysfunction in the police organization.
The great majority of individuals in policing are committed to honourable and competent public service. However, in every
police agency there exists an element of dishonesty, lack of professionalism, and criminal behaviour. This article is based
on empirical research of criminal behaviour in the Norwegian police force. A total of 60 police employees were prosecuted
in court because of misconduct and crime from 2005 to 2010. In our research, court cases were classified into categories of
sentence severity measured in terms of days in prison. Out of 60 police employees on trial, 20 cases were dismissed from court.
12 persons were sentenced to less than 2 weeks in jail, 15 persons to less than 2 months, 9 persons to less than 2 years,
and 4 persons to more than 2 years in prison.
The paper describes the plans for, and outcomes of, police organizational reforms in the Scandinavian countries. The reforms share a number of similarities, among them drastic reductions in the number of police districts, more Governmental oversight, increased reliance on performance indicators, and claims that these reforms are to be understood as decentralizations that will increase police ability to service citizens and meet the demands of local communities. The paper argues that the reforms are primarily to be understood as examples of centralization, and that local policing has suffered as a result.
This short overview of available statistical data on crime and penal systems in Scandinavia indicates that the level of traditional forms of crime in Scandinavia is on a par with or lower than that found in many other European countries. As elsewhere in western Europe, Scandinavia experienced a substantial increase in crime rates during the post-war period--indicating that these recorded increases may have common structural roots. The 1990s witnessed a stabilization of theft rates, albeit at a high level. Increasing equality between women and men may have contributed to an increase in the reporting of violent and sexual offences against women (and children), making these offences more visible. The system of formal control in the Scandinavian countries is characterized by relatively low police density; a clear-up rate that has declined; above-average conviction rates; the imposition of fines in a high proportion of criminal cases; and relatively low prison populations. The implications for crime policies are discussed.
Nordic police studies have grown considerably in the last 15 years and especially recently. Researchers from many institutions and disciplines have contributed. There are three main lines of research. In the strongest, on police practice and culture, the concept of the “police gaze” has been central. Studies show a liquid culture with great variation depending on gender, age, how the culture is situated, and forms of resistance to change. The second line, mostly an Anglo-American import, concerns new theories and methods. Concepts such as zero tolerance, problem-oriented policing, and community police have been influential on symbolic and rhetorical levels, but less so on practice. The third line is research on the difficulty of police work and different models for controlling the police. Nordic police are heavily influenced by the Scandinavian welfare model. The model has been under considerable pressure and its weakened position has influenced the police. There may be a distinctive Nordic version of the new penalism, characterized by a harsher tone in policy debates and a large increase in surveillance in which the police play an important role but also by a reserved use of imprisonment.
Many researchers have assumed that trust in the police increases victims’ willingness to report crimes. This question has rarely been considered empirically, but most of the available research suggests a surprising conclusion: trust in the police does not appear to increase the likelihood of people reporting crime. The seriousness of the crime and, in particular, the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator do have a significant impact on willingness to report. An especially interesting and influential factor may be mutual trust between citizens, which researchers of social capital have named ‘generalized trust’. Does a high level of generalized trust reduce citizens’ desire to rely on official control? This article examines the links between generalized trust and trust in the police, and their interactive effect on the willingness to report violent and property crimes. The research data are based on Finnish national crime victim survey data collected in 2006.
There is considerable variation in public trust towards the police in different European countries. Through multilevel analysis, the article explores what lies behind this variation. It first approaches the issue at the country level through factors related to the quality and structure of government. The quality of government is looked at and measured by examining corruption in government, and the structure of government by exploring the extent to which society invests its resources in public order and safety services. Here the assumptions are, first of all, that general corruption among public officials decreases public trust in the police and, second, that big investments in public order and safety institutions also decrease trust in the police. In addition, certain individual-level factors are identified that explain public trust in the police. Finally, empirical results are presented that corroborate the above assumptions: in particular, corruption in government strongly explains the country-level variation in public trust towards the police.
A major trend in the Nordic countries is the increasing focus on citizens' perceptions of safety, the enhancement of which is seen as a task for the police. One way to accomplish this has been the introduction of proximity policing. Existing research on the subject from all the Nordic countries is evaluated, with special focus on a comprehensive evaluation of a Danish experiment. The evaluations demonstrate that the concept of proximity policing has had limited success, and it has been abandoned in Finland and Norway. The article concludes by offering some explanations for the lack of success, among these the high level of perceived safety already present in the Nordic countries, the lack of causal relation between police visibility and citizens' perception of safety, and the lack of tradition for citizen involvement in the Nordic welfare states.
The purpose of this study was to compare whether the high incidence of drugged driving in Norway was different to that in the other Nordic countries. All blood samples received by Nordic forensic institutes during one week in 1996, from drivers suspected by the police of driving under the influence (Denmark: n=255, Finland: n=270, Iceland: n=40, Sweden: n=86, Norway: n=149), were analysed for alcohol and drugs (benzodiazepines, cannabinoids, amphetamines, cocaine, opiates and a number of antidepressant drugs) independent of the primary suspicion, and using the same analytical cut-off levels at the different institutes. The primary suspicion was directed towards drugs in more than 40% of the Norwegian cases, drugs were detected in more than 70% of these samples. In only 0–3% of the cases from Denmark, Finland and Iceland, were drugs suspected, while the corresponding frequency for Sweden was 17%. However, evidential breath analyses were used for about three-quarters of the Swedish drivers suspected to be influenced by alcohol. Blood alcohol concentrations (BAC’s) below the legal limits were found in 32, 18 and 2% of the Norwegian, Icelandic and Finnish cases, respectively (BAC