Preliminary Programme

A gun in the hands of a police officer indicates the potential use of violence and the right to do so in the interest of maintaining state order and security. For a long time a gun in the hands of a police officer also symbolized masculine strength and power.
These ideas were questioned during the second half of the 20th century by the British military government, female police departments and new social and political movements. Alternative models of policing without guns were discussed, but were often dismissed as weak, feminine or foreign.
The militaristic outlook in the culture and training of the uniformed German police was challenged from within the force itself from the late 1960s onwards by a new generation of senior officers, and as a result of discussions about the psychological aspects of shooting someone – fatally or otherwise. Training subsequently changed; emotional aspects such as stress, fear and social competences were incorporated in the programmes and units of military trained marksmen were established.
This paper discusses the attitude of both male and female police officers towards guns and the significance of carrying or refusing to carry a gun on the image of the individual officer, special police departments, and the police force as a whole in West Germany from the end of the Second World War up to the 1980s. (Show less)

This paper aims to bring some new reflexions about the logics of policing in XXth century Belgium. From the end of WWI, the gendarmerie – ‘a ‘full’, national and military police force – became the heart of police apparatus in Belgian Democracy. The gendarmerie grows in terms of means and missions. Consequently, gendarmes are involved in all administrative police missions, dealing with ‘risks’ to maintain and restore the law and the public order in a changing Democracy. The gendarmes’ policing must deal with this new situation. The use and the limits of violence is one difficult question of this dynamic. In the first half of the XXth century, criticism’s against gendarmes’ intervention, methods, weapons and material means are numerous. Gendarmerie is seen as to violent, as a ‘too powerful’. In the same time, we can observe professional debates and instructions about the scale of public legitimate violence.
In this paper, within the violence focus, I want to highlight both the transformation of Belgian Society and policing from the end of World War One to 1957 (marked by the vote of the “gendarmerie organic law”). I’ll more precisely investigate the question of weapons and equipment’s of the Belgian Gendarmerie (use, formation, tactics, but also debates or budgets), to discuss the use of legitimate violence transformation by this specific military police institution into a society in democratic transition. (Show less)

Dutch society is often characterised as tolerant and liberal. This view is only partially true if one focuses on bigger popular/civil disturbances in the 20th century in the Netherlands. The period from the end of the First World War to the 1980’s the country had its fair share of riots that had a distinctive influence on the Dutch police in terms of organisation, tactics and weapons. The threat of revolution in 1918 led directly to the creation of a military police specialised in quelling disturbances that were regarded as a potentially mortal danger to the existing order. These soldiers were armed with sabres, pistols, carbines and even machineguns. Their reputation was fierce and they were feared and loathed by civilians sympathetic towards communism. In the years before the Second World War municipal police forces trained also as military formations. The police introduced submachine guns even before the Dutch army did. After the war similar formations and tactics were continued. During the 1960’s it became clear that this form of repression had run its course and more subtle and modern answers to disturbances had to be found. The Dutch police tried to find different levels of force and de-escalation became the motto. April 1980 became a watershed when riots broke out in Amsterdam as the new queen ascended the throne. From this turmoil the Dutch police learned a lot. Riot police got better protection, better non-lethal arms, improved tactics and communications and information gathering. This way the police were better able to switch between different levels of force when needed. (Show less)