Policing in Smart Societies

Antoinette Verhage is Professor of Criminology at Ghent University, Belgium, and a member of the Institute for International Research on Criminal Policy (IRCP). Her research and teaching activities focus on police and policing, integrity and deontology. She is a member of diverse international editorial boards and of the Flemish Centre of Policing and Security. Marleen Easton is Professor and Head of the UGent research group ‘Governing and Policing Security’ (GaPS), Belgium, and Adjunct Professor at the Griffith Criminology Institute, Australia. She is President of the Belgian Innovation Network for Security (vzw Iungos) and is an active member of the Flemish Centre of Policing and Security. Sofie De Kimpe is Professor of Criminology at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium, and a member of the Crime & Society research group (CRiS). Her main research expertise is qualitative and ethnographic research in police and policing. She is Chair of the EU COST ACTION POLICE STOPS and an active member of the Flemish Centre of Policing and Security.

• Chapter 1: Introducing Policing in Smart Cities: Reflections on the Abstract Police.- Chapter 2: Abstract police organisations: distantiation, decontextualisation and digitalisation.- Chapter 3: Reflections on the Abstract Police using the perspective of ideal-types.- Chapter 4: Technology and Police Legitimacy.- Chapter 5: Plural Policing and the Abstract Police.- Chapter 6: Do we need discretion? Police decisions and the limits of the law.- Chapter 7: The Abstract Police: An exploration of the concept in the Belgian local police.