Abstract police organisations: distantiation, decontextualisation and digitalisation.

Terpstra, Jan; Salet, Renze; Fyfe, Nicholas R.

Abstract

Over the past years, police organisations in many Western European countries have witnessed a range of important changes. To gain a better understanding of these changes, a new ideal-typical concept was introduced: the abstract police. Both in their internal and external relations, the police have become more at a distance, more impersonal and more decontextualised. Several factors have contributed to this process, such as organisational-scale enlargement, standardisation, digitalisation of police work and changing views on police organisations and police work. The rise of an increasingly abstract character of the police may also be understood as the unintended outcome of a process of hyper-rationalisation. Finally, this chapter deals with some of the questions that have been raised by the concept of the abstract police.

Citation

TERPSTRA, J., SALET, R. and FYFE, N.R. 2022. Abstract police organisations: distantiation, decontextualisation and digitalisation. In Verhage, A., Easton, M. and de Kimpe, S. (eds.) Policing in smart societies: reflections on the abstract police. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan [online], pages 9-26. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83685-6_2

• Online Publication Date: Jan 23, 2022
• Publication Date: Dec 31, 2022
• Deposit Date: Nov 15, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 15, 2024
• Publisher: Springer
• Pages: 9-26
• Series Title: Palgrave's critical policing studies
• Series ISSN: 2730-535X; 2730-5368
• Book Title: Policing in smart societies: reflections on the abstract police
• ISBN: 9783030836849
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83685-6_2
• Keywords: Policing; Organisational change; Policing and technology; Abstract police; Digitalisation
• Public URL: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1965632