Call for abstracts

2019-04-04

Call for abstracts for the pre-arranged panel

Urban geographies of policing and social control 

for the Eurocrim 2019 conference in Ghent.

Convened by: Lucas Melgaço (VUB), Anna di Ronco (University of Essex), Mattias de Backer (KULeuven) and Lior Volinz (VUB).

Policing, understood not only as the practices of police institutions but more broadly  to include the role of other state and non-state agents in law enforcement, and social control are eminently spatial practices. However, it is not rare that criminologists either ignore the crucial importance of spaces of the city in their analysis, or, when they address space, they limit it to mere container of social practices. Complex issues of spatiality and territoriality are often reduced to locations and spatial correlations. In this panel we intend to discuss how space matters to criminology, particularly when approaching issues of policing and social control. We encourage papers on, yet not limited to, the following themes:

  • Patterns and issues of police deployment and patrolling
  • Urban Community policing;
  • Policing and Gentrification;
  • Neighbourhood watch;
  • The role of neighborhood on policing and social control;
  • Crime displacement;
  • Public order, incivilities and public spaces;
  • The spatiality of protests and urban conflicts;
  • A critical approach to Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design(CPTED) and to Situational Crime Prevention;
  • Space and predictive policing; police use of surveillance technologies and their connection with space;
  • Policing spatialities and territorialities;
  • The territorial organization of police; Coordination and communication between police structures (e.g. federal and local levels);
  • The spatial component of fear of crime;
  • Nightscapes and nightlife regulation;
  • Urban securitization and militarization;
  • Security discourses around smart cities.

Deadline:

Abstracts proposals must be submitted by April 10, 2019. Propositions should be sent, accompanied by a short bio, to lucas.melgaco@vub.be, a.dironco@essex.ac.uk, mattias.debacker@kuleuven.be and lior.volinz@vub.be. Acceptance/rejection of abstracts will be communicated to authors on April 13, 2019.

A special issue of Criminological Encounters will be organized under the same title and will be published by December 2019. Full proposition must be sent by August 1st, 2019.