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Catching and Targeting: Risk-Based Policing, Local Culture and Gendered Practices

NCJ Number
212607
Journal
Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Dated: 2005 Pages: 128-146
Author(s)
Helene Oppen Gundhus
Date Published
2005
Length
19 pages
Annotation
This article explores cultural and practical aspects of the growing use of information and communication technology (ICT) in policing, focusing on how ICT is used as a crime prevention instrument in Norwegian police work and culture.
Abstract
Today’s policing strongly relies on the use of information and communication technologies (ICT). In exploring how grand theories concerning risk management in policing are translated, negotiated, and filtered by actors at the local level, and the interaction between the new discourses and established culture, structure, and practices, this article will draw on two Norwegian case studies to shed light on how risk-based policing is shaped by the context and established culture that ICT is introduced in. The two case studies will assist in exploring how the different police cultures are selecting and negotiating the risk discourse in local contexts. The police officers’ resistance to the extensive use of ICT, as well as how the police culture is responding to the new management structures and what the interaction can tell about police culture, particularly gendered practices and professional judgment, are discussed. The two case studies underpin a 2003 argument that at the micro-level, change in police practices can be variable. References