Preliminary Programme

Wed 12 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Thu 13 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Fri 14 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Sat 15 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00

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Friday 14 April 2023 16.30 - 18.30
G-12 CRI12 Modernizing the Police
B32
Network: Criminal Justice Chair: Eveline Bouwers
Organizers: - Discussants: -
David Cox : Quis custodiet ipsos custodes - Who Guards the Guards? Offending by British Prison Officials 1853-1948
On 23 May 1872 Major R. F. Hickey, Governor of Dartmoor Convict Prison wrote to his deputy, Captain Bell, 'I regret to have to inform you that it will be necessary for me to have your groom (Williams by name I believe) apprehended on a charge of a very serious ... (Show more)
On 23 May 1872 Major R. F. Hickey, Governor of Dartmoor Convict Prison wrote to his deputy, Captain Bell, 'I regret to have to inform you that it will be necessary for me to have your groom (Williams by name I believe) apprehended on a charge of a very serious nature, and I request your cooperation in forwarding the ends of justice.' This was the result of information received that Thomas Williams had trafficked tobacco to a convict in return for a payment of 6d. The very next day Williams appeared before Tavistock Magistrates Court, where he was found guilty and fined £2 without costs. The Tavistock Gazette's headline was 'Another case of trafficking with convicts', suggesting that this was not an isolated case. This paper therefore discusses what happened when prison officials in the British convict and local prison systems themselves fell foul of the criminal law. Using a selection of case studies and a wide range of historical sources, it investigates some of the numerous cases of criminal activity reported in the provincial and metropolitan newspapers of the era. Prison officials were obviously meant to be above reproach, but this paper will highlight and discuss several examples of bad behaviour ranging from petty offences of fraud through serious sexual assault up to charges of both manslaughter and murder. Suspected offenders ranged from prison guards, chaplains and prison governors. The paper looks at how the offences first came to light, how the suspects were dealt with by the courts and what happened to them post-trial. It is hoped that this research will shine a light into a somewhat dark and previously under-researched corner of the British penal system. (Show less)

Anja Johansen : Raising Policing Standards in London and Paris 1879-1913? Between Allegations of Police Malpractice and Re-construction of Police Legitimacy and Public Trust
Historical police scholarship over the past decades has discussed the rise of professionalisation and improved professional standards in European police forces from the 1860s to the First World War, with the London Met perceived as the ‘gold standard’ of modern professional policing, both in the UK and among police reformers ... (Show more)
Historical police scholarship over the past decades has discussed the rise of professionalisation and improved professional standards in European police forces from the 1860s to the First World War, with the London Met perceived as the ‘gold standard’ of modern professional policing, both in the UK and among police reformers across Europe. A broad range of features have been identified as indicating ‘modernisation’ and ‘professionalisation’ (quality of recruits, professional training, technical equipment), which emerged to a greater or lesser extent in most police forces in Europe and North America.
This paper argues that not enough focus has been paid to significant variations in the concepts, structures and procedures that shaped the power relations between police and the public – collectively or individually – in terms of meaningful police accountability to the public, construction of police legitimacy, and building public trust. These features are elusive and difficult to investigate except through comparison, yet they are crucial in understanding power structures around police-public relations, some of which have persisted into the 21st century.
This paper explores key differences between the construction of police legitimacy and public trust in London and Paris through analysis of the handling of allegations of serious and systemic police malpractice. It focuses specifically on procedures and practices that allowed or prevented investigation of alleged police malpractice, and explores the dissimilar construction in London and Paris of police’s public image and public relations. (Show less)

Joanne Klein : English Police in the Age of Social Media
With the advent of social media, English police authorities have to decide how to use these new platforms. This paper will explore how a sample of police authorities have responded to social media, in particular studying how specific authorities use Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to communicate with the public, ... (Show more)
With the advent of social media, English police authorities have to decide how to use these new platforms. This paper will explore how a sample of police authorities have responded to social media, in particular studying how specific authorities use Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to communicate with the public, and how the public responds to their posts. Two major categories of communications exist. First, social media is used to promote positive community relations. Such posts tend to appear on Facebook and Instagram since they rely on pictures. To create a friendly public image, authorities post pictures of police officers engaged in community outreach and also make frequent use of photos of police dogs and horses. More specifically, authorities reach out to minority groups, such as the LGBTQ community, promoting an image of police officers supporting and protecting minority rights. Second, social media is used for getting out information on crime and public order. They promote law-enforcement campaigns, such as raising awareness of knife crimes. Public appeals are made for help in solving specific crimes or finding missing persons. Finally, generally through Twitter posts, they get out information on specific events, such as severe weather warnings, road closures and accidents, and terrorist attacks. My research will sample English police authorities’ social media presence, exploring how different authorities make use of social media platforms and what areas of outreach they emphasize. Exploring how the public responds to police authority posts will provide some idea on how effectively social media works in specific areas, such as in public appeals or in minority outreach. (Show less)

Stefan Nyzell : The Malmö Police, 1874-1965
The purpose in this paper is to present the findings from an ongoing research project investigating the police in Malmö (the third largest city in Sweden) from the implementation of a modern police force in the 1874 local reforms until the national reforms of 1965 and the making of the ... (Show more)
The purpose in this paper is to present the findings from an ongoing research project investigating the police in Malmö (the third largest city in Sweden) from the implementation of a modern police force in the 1874 local reforms until the national reforms of 1965 and the making of the Swedish police as a national force. Thus, the Malmö project is case-study of a localized police force in Sweden before the nationalization reforms.The perspectives in the project is to study the local police in Malmö from both a social- and a cultural perspective - including organization, work conditions, union issues, the introduction of women policing, etcetera. (Show less)

Sergio Vaquero Martínez : Modernizing the Police: The Role of Policemen in the Great Reform of the Government Police in Spain, 1905-1912
The historical research on the administration of public order in Spain has identified the origins of the modern police in an ambitious and discontinuous cycle of reforms applied from 1905 to 1912. The most significant measure was the Law of Reorganization of the Government Police, approved on 27 February 1908, ... (Show more)
The historical research on the administration of public order in Spain has identified the origins of the modern police in an ambitious and discontinuous cycle of reforms applied from 1905 to 1912. The most significant measure was the Law of Reorganization of the Government Police, approved on 27 February 1908, which has been conceived by some scholars as the true foundational rule of the institution. This thought is due to the improvements and advances that this law implied for the professionalization of the police. The rule reinforced the irremovability of policemen, regulated their administrative career, increased their salaries, established their recruitment by public examination, delimited the age of retirement, ratified the recent creation of the police school and made possible to purge several unqualified members of the rank and file.
The few monographic studies that have addressed the Spanish police during these years have certain inadequacies. Firstly, most of this research has been written by police officers. These works are very valuable from a technical point of view, although they lacked a more critical and better contextualized perspective. Secondly, the state of the art has been dominated by a ‘from above’ approach, which focuses on the police as a public institution. For this reason, it privileges the study of state sources as laws, decrees and regulations. Thirdly, the explanatory power conceded to the anarchist terrorism has led to understand the reform as a simple government’s reaction against the major terrorist attacks, disregarding other key factors rooted on the police field itself. Finally, the examination of this reformist cycle has been performed from a national, narrow view, without making comparisons with other European police agencies that were far more modern.
All of these problems have been essentially motivated by two methodological biases that are very common in the current research on the topic. On the one hand, the police has been understood as an object rather than a historical subject. From this perspective, it is not a social group with distinctive beliefs, values, conditions and experiences, but some sort of instrument that mechanically enforce the authorities’ commands. On the other hand, police journals have been barely exploited as historical sources. These documents are unique means to comprehend the organizational culture, social composition, labor conditions and professional claims of police officers. Emphasizing the role of the police as an actor in the political and social processes of that period, this paper analyzes the policemen’s involvement in the great reform that brought modernity to the Government Police. The aim is to consider four interrelated issues: their discourses on the police reorganization and the weaknesses of the government reforms, the arenas where they operated and the actors they contacted to expose their claims, the practices that they performed to express their grievances, and the effective impact that their proposals and protests had on the policies that shaped the modernization of the Spanish police. (Show less)



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