Policing and Social Media
Our research expertise spans digital policing, democratic policing, governance, and legitimacy. We are currently conducting research on police social media practices in two areas. The first relates to enhancing police communication and responsiveness in line with a democratic model of policing (publications forthcoming). The second, conducted with our colleague Dr Adam Aitken, relates to identifying best practices in connection to police engagement online before, during, and after mega-events and in particular, football matches (2023). Taken together, we are keen to better understand how social media and the online world can facilitate policing at a distance.
Publications:
Adam Aitken and others, Police Use of Twitter During a Sporting Mega-Event, Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, Volume 17, 2023, paad016, https://doi.org/10.1093/police/paad016
For more information, please contact Dr Liam Ralph or Dr Paul Robinson
Crime, Harm and Corruption in Special
Economic Zones
Dr Alexandra Hall's current research centres on the political and
criminogenic dimensions of special economic zones (SEZs). First, she is writing
up the findings from a recently completed ISRF-funded project, which is an
in-depth interdisciplinary study of the new Teesside Freeport development during
the first stages of its implementation. It seeks to understand how freeports
are designed and through what institutional support they gain traction; the
forms of criminogenic harm emerging in and around freeports; and how channels
of cooperation between key stakeholders and publics might be built to help
protect society and the environment. Second, she is working as a senior
researcher for the UNODC on the first Global Analysis of Crimes that Affect the
Environment, with a project specifically focusing on SEZs and criminal environmental
commodities and pollution.
Alex’s previous work on goods
that are illicitly traded and/or manufactured, undertaken with Centre member
Professor Georgios Antonopoulos, found that global SEZs play a key role in the
global supply chain of illicit medicines, tobacco, cocaine and counterfeit
goods. As SEZs continue to proliferate, with close to 6000 zones in operation
in the global economy today, increased knowledge of the criminogenic potential
of zone policies and how best to respond is of increasing importance.
You can read Alex’s criminological account of SEZs
written with Professors Georgios Antonopoulos, Rowland Atkinson and Tanya Wyatt
in a recent volume of the British Journal of Criminology here: https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article-abstract/63/2/265/6546433.
Coerced Debt in the Context of
Domestic Abuse
Recent studies have demonstrated that
diverse forms of economic abuse occur within intimate relationships – often
alongside other forms of physical, sexual and psychological abuse – with
serious consequences for women’s physical safety and economic security. Often
overlooked in this literature, however, is the role that debt plays as a means
of exercising coercive control. As consumer lending has permeated British life,
abusive partners have begun obtaining credit in the victim-survivors name
through fraud, force and misinformation. This abuse is now commonly referred to
as coerced debt and emerging research shows that the immediate and
long-term impacts for victim-survivors can be devastating – damaging their
credit records, depleting their savings, and compromising their ability to
access employment, services, housing and safety. Yet despite this knowledge,
very little is known about the nature, impact, and consequences of coerced debt
for victim-survivors in Britain, or the role it might play in trapping them in
abusive relationships. Consequently, policymakers, practitioners and financial
institutions are currently ill-equipped to take the necessary steps to protect
victim-survivors of coerced debt and prevent future incidents.
To fill this gap in knowledge, the
project uses semi-structured interviews with victim-survivors of coerced debt,
domestic abuse advocates, criminal and civil justice professionals and the
financial services industry to examine: (1) the occurrence of coerced debt in
abusive relationships; (2) victims’ experiences of coerced debt and the
consequences it has for their lives; (3) the links between coerced debt and
other forms of domestic abuse; and (4) potential legal and financial responses
to coerced debt in Britain. A feminist political economy framework guides this
study and informs the analysis, enabling the research team to engage with wider
questions about structural gender inequality, economic insecurity, neoliberal
reform, austerity and debt. This knowledge will feed into broader academic and
policy discussions about the importance of financial safety and economic
stability for victim-survivors of domestic abuse.
This project is
conducted by Dr Clare Wiper in the Department of
Social Sciences at Northumbria University. The project is funded by the British
Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant (2021-23).
Evaluating (semi)-autonomous systems in policing and
national security: a new framework based on the concept of ‘intelligence’
This ongoing project presents a new matrix framework for
evaluation and grading autonomous systems used by police forces in England and
Wales, based on lessons from existing processes designed to define and assess
‘intelligence’. It is crucial that models safeguard rather than undermine
fundamental freedoms. Research visits were carried out to get input from
seasoned police officers on our draft matrix. There has been a keen interest
from police forces, as well as key stakeholders from the Police Digital Service
(PDS), Centre for Data and Analytics (CDAP), and the National Police Chiefs’
Council (NPCC). This project was awarded funding by Northumbria University’s
‘Seed Funding’.
For more information, please contact Prof. Marion Oswald, Luke Chambers (PhD
Candidate), or Angela Paul (PhD
Candidate).
Visible Policing: the Affective Properties of Police Buildings, Images and Material Culture
Over
recent decades there has been what many have called a 'visual turn'
within the social sciences. Within visual criminology important research
agendas have developed on prisons and community punishments, the fear
of crime and punitiveness, and media representations of crime and
deviance. Against this context, it is difficult to understand why
policing has not also been more significantly subjected to research that
is theoretically and methodologically informed by the visual. One of
the reasons why this lacuna is particularly puzzling is that there is a
long-standing body of work within the sociology of policing that
emphasizes the significance of symbolism, that police embody state
sovereignty, and that there are strong performative and communicative
dimensions to police activity. Police uniform and patrol cars, for
example, together with ceremonial flags and regalia, are considered
significant to public perception, trust and legitimacy. Analysis of
these is further developed in this study but wider dimensions of
visibility are also included. The location, design and architecture of
police buildings, material cultural representations of policing in
children's toys, and social media imagery of policing are among the
novel dimensions of police visibility considered in this research. No
previous study has considered these broad terms or tested public
perceptions of these different dimensions using visual research methods.
In policy terms, visibility in policing has been
primarily addressed in narrow terms regarding the potential for patrol
officers to provide reassurance to anxious publics. In the context of
recent policy debates about future deployment of diminishing resources
there have been frequent commitments to the provision of visible
frontline policing. Against a background of funding cuts imposed in the
years after 2010, government ministers have tended to claim that such
reductions could be focused on aspects of policing that would not reduce
visible police presence. Opponents, however, have argued that spending
cuts ought to be reversed in order to preserve frontline services. From
whatever side of the debate, the provision of visible patrols has been
presented in terms of staff on foot or in vehicles as a physical
presence in public space. Building upon an emerging body of research in
sociology, criminology, media, cultural studies, and human geography,
this project examines the nature and impact of visible policing through
the study of a wider range of activities and material practices that
increasingly shape perceptions of policing, but have been neglected in
research terms. Three strands of visibility are identified:
- The symbolic power of police stations. This is particularly important
since the architecture of the police estate changes as new properties
(often in new locations) adopt contemporary forms and as pressure on
resources leads to co-location with other agencies in shared premises.
- The symbolic properties of police material culture, including
ceremonial uniforms, flags, badges, tourist souvenirs, and children's
toys. This strand will incorporate analysis in terms of the
organisational and professional identity of police staff as well as
public perceptions of legitimacy.
- Police visibility in social media, incorporating official police
accounts as well as those owned by individual officers, staff
associations and other networks. These will be considered in terms of
their impacts on the public, including whether the police play an online
role analogous to real world patrol, for example, in providing for
public reassurance.
Photo elicitation and photo
narrative techniques will be used to generate data that will address the
key research questions and also provide a body of visual material that
will inform focus group discussion. Visibility will be enhanced through
the dissemination of findings via a dedicated website, a public
exhibition and via production of a documentary film.
The
project runs until 2021. It is funded by the Economic and Social
Research Council and run in conjunction with Edge Hill University and
the Open University. For more information contact Liam Ralph, or visit www.visiblepolicing.com