Egbert Simon, Esposito Elena
Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany.
Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
Policing Soc. 2024 Mar 6;34(6):521-534. doi: 10.1080/10439463.2024.2326516. eCollection 2024.
The growing digitisation in our society also affects policing, which tends to make use of increasingly refined algorithmic tools based on abstract technologies. But the abstraction of technology, we argue, does not necessarily entail an increase in abstraction of police work. This paper contrasts the 'abstract police' debate with an analysis of police practices that use digital technologies to achieve greater precision. While the notion of abstract police assumes that computerisation distances police officers from their community, our empirical investigation of a geo-analysis unit in a German Land Office of Criminal Investigation shows that the adoption of abstract procedures does not by itself imply a detachment from local reference and community contact. What we call contextual reference can be productively combined with the impersonality and anonymity of algorithmic procedures, leading also to more effective and focused forms of collaboration with local entities. On the basis of our empirical results, we suggest a more nuanced understanding of the digitalisation of police work. Rather than leading to a progressive estrangement from the community of reference, the use of digital techniques can enable experimentation with innovative forms of 'precision policing', particularly in the field of crime prevention.
我们社会中日益增长的数字化也影响着警务工作，警务工作倾向于使用基于抽象技术的日益精细的算法工具。但我们认为，技术的抽象性并不一定意味着警察工作抽象性的增加。本文将 “抽象警察” 的争论与对利用数字技术实现更高精准度的警察实践的分析进行对比。虽然抽象警察的概念假定计算机化使警察与社区疏远，但我们对德国一个州刑事调查局的地理分析部门的实证调查表明，采用抽象程序本身并不意味着脱离本地参考和社区联系。我们所称的情境参考可以与算法程序的非人格性和匿名性有效结合，这也会带来与当地实体更有效、更有针对性的合作形式。基于我们的实证结果，我们建议对警察工作的数字化有更细致入微的理解。使用数字技术并非导致与参考社区的逐步疏远，而是能够尝试创新形式的 “精准警务”，特别是在预防犯罪领域。
