Policing the North

Abstract

Nordic police studies have grown considerably in the last 15 years and especially recently. Researchers from many institutions and disciplines have contributed. There are three main lines of research. In the strongest, on police practice and culture, the concept of the “police gaze” has been central. Studies show a liquid culture with great variation depending on gender, age, how the culture is situated, and forms of resistance to change. The second line, mostly an Anglo-American import, concerns new theories and methods. Concepts such as zero tolerance, problem-oriented policing, and community police have been influential on symbolic and rhetorical levels, but less so on practice. The third line is research on the difficulty of police work and different models for controlling the police. Nordic police are heavily influenced by the Scandinavian welfare model. The model has been under considerable pressure and its weakened position has influenced the police. There may be a distinctive Nordic version of the new penalism, characterized by a harsher tone in policy debates and a large increase in surveillance in which the police play an important role but also by a reserved use of imprisonment.

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