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European Journal of Policing Studies

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Issue Online first, 2023 Expand all abstracts
Article

The Qualitative Analysis of the Perceived Abilities, Skills and Characteristics of Turkish Crime Investigators

Keywords police, criminal investigation, investigator, professionalism, strategic management
Authors Burak M Gönültaş, Ivar Fahsing, Emek Yuce Zeyrek Rios e.a.
AbstractAuthor's information

    A study combining interviews and the repertory grid analyses explored Turkish investigators’ views on what it takes to be an effective investigator. Experienced Turkish police officers (n = 286) from seven different cities dealing with high-harm, low-volume crime investigations were asked to describe what differentiates the effective investigator from the less effective one. A total of 1,819 skills, abilities and personal characteristics (SACs) described could be clustered under three main categories, namely “personality and general knowledge”, “investigative and analytical abilities” and “management and cooperation skills”. A vast majority of SACs identified were quite unspecific and provided only a general indication of a relatively low ability to describe the deeper and underlying functions involved in the job. They view their job mostly as a form of art which can only be mastered through mentorship and job experience. In this study, the variety and vastness of skills, abilities and characteristic in the data indicate that the investigators seem to acknowledge the complexity and the difficulty of modern-day criminal investigations. Thus, we reached inferences from the findings, and they are discussed in relation to levels of professionalism, strategic staff management and previous research from other cultures and jurisdictions. The findings of this research can assist with the development of a cross-cultural and cross-jurisdictional and evidence-based policy for the selection and development of investigators.


Burak M Gönültaş
Burak M. Gönültaş is Professor at the department of Social Work, Sivas Cumhuriyet University, Sivas, Turkey.

Ivar Fahsing
Ivar A. Fahsing is Professor at the department of Criminal Investigation, Norwegian Police College University, Oslo, Norway.

Emek Yuce Zeyrek Rios
Emek Yüce Zeyrek-Rios is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Letters, Psychology Department, Mardin Artuklu University, Middle East Techical University, Ankara, Turkey.

Esra Çetinöz
Esra Çetinöz is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security Sciences, Department of Crime Studies of the Turkish National Police Academy, Ankara, Turkey.
Article

What Are They Doing in the Dark?

Police Strategies and Working Methods in Fighting Crime on the Tor Network

Keywords dark web, tor, ACN, criminal investigation, law enforcement
Authors Bram Emmen, Christianne Poot and Wouter Stol
AbstractAuthor's information

    The dark web is creating difficulties for traditional policing. Previous studies have focused on users, but very little is known about law enforcement dealing with the core challenge of Anonymity Communication Networks: absent and anonymous suspects whose locations and identities are effectively hidden behind encryption. Based on 14 interviews with Dutch police officers and public prosecutors, enriched with a media analysis of 45 Dutch newspaper articles, we come to a model of Dutch law enforcement dealing with Tor cases. We observe that the police are adapting to the new reality of Tor use. However, they still work within their set framework which does not always match the needs for policing Tor cases. We additionally note a more prominent place for the strategy of disruption which may create the need for additional legal grounds.


Bram Emmen
Bram Emmen is PhD candidate at the Open University of the Netherlands.

Christianne Poot
Christianne Poot is Endowed Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Wouter Stol
Wouter Stol is Endowed Professor at the Open University of the Netherlands. Funding: This work was supported by NordForsk [ grant 80512] within the call for collaborative research projects on Society, Integrity and Cyber-security and is part of the “Police detectives on the Tor network” project.
Article

Digitalization and Local Policing: Normative Order, Institutional Logics and Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Strategies

Keywords digitalization and local policing, normative order, institutional logics, street-level bureaucrats’ strategies
Authors Jan Terpstra
AbstractAuthor's information

    This article focuses on the question of how the local police operate in the age of digitalization. In what respects has digitalization changed the nature of local policing and policing? What processes and circumstances are relevant here? In this article a theoretical framework is presented to understand how local operational police officers use digital instruments and tools. This framework consists of elements derived from both institutional theory and the street-level bureaucracy approach. The relevance of this theoretical framework is illustrated by empirical findings from several studies on digitalization of the Dutch local police, especially a study conducted in three local teams. Four different forms of digitalization of the Dutch local police are investigated: the processing of information, the use of social media, the use of real-time intelligence and of mobile applications, and the new visibility of the police. Three theoretical concepts prove to be especially relevant for understanding how operational police officers use and adapt digital instruments and tools: their normative order, their institutional logic, and the strategies the police officers, as street-level bureaucrats, use to cope with the constraints related to digitalization.


Jan Terpstra
Jan Terpstra is emeritus Professor of Criminology, Faculty of Law, Radboud University, Nijmegen.
Article

Machineries of Knowledge Construction: Exploring the Epistemic Agency of Digital Systems in Policing

Keywords Epistemic agency, actor-network theory, control rooms, Twitter, police systems
Authors Guro Flinterud and Jenny Maria Lundgaard
AbstractAuthor's information

    Understanding the contours and dynamics of police knowledge production necessitates consideration of not only the roles of organizations and humans but also the various technologies that are employed by the police. This article explores two digital technological systems used by police control rooms in Norway, namely their internal system for call handling, control and command, and Twitter, the social media platform. The control room is understood to be an epistemic culture, and we elucidate the systems as machineries of knowledge construction. Using the novel framework for interviewing digital objects from Adams and Thompson’s, Researching a posthuman world, this article scrutinizes how digital systems shape and define what becomes knowledge, uncovering and exploring how such systems have epistemic agency. The origins of the systems – one police-developed, the other not – have laid the basis for the systems’ affordances and the epistemic cultures they work within. While one works as a mostly friction-free system based on, and enhancing, internal police logics, the other is disruptive, laying a foundation for others to criticize and challenge the actions and logics of the police.


Guro Flinterud
Guro Flinterud is a senior researcher at the Norwegian Police University College.

Jenny Maria Lundgaard
Jenny Maria Lundgaard is an Associate Professor at the Norwegian Police University College. The authors have contributed equally to this article.
Book Review

Comparative Policing: An honest attempt

Authors Paul F.M. Ponsaers
Author's information

Paul F.M. Ponsaers
Dr. Paul F.M. Ponsears is Professor emeritus of Criminology, at Ghent University, Belgium.

General Open Call

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Open Call
European Journal of Policing Studies Special Issue on Plural Policing in Cyberspace: Entering the Grey Zone

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