AFTER WORK SEMINAR:
Politi(k) i en ”terrortid”
Decision-making in the Police Control Room
Jenny Maria Lundgaard, PhD, forsker ved Politihøjskolen i Oslo
When an operator at the police control room answers an emergency call, the content of the call may vary from non-significant to serious and critical. The control room receives, interprets, and assesses all calls, and decides whether police response is required, and coordinates and leads that response.
Based on substantial ethnographic fieldwork at various police control rooms, mostly in Norway, but also in Scotland, Lundgaard will present her findings on the various factors shaping and determining the control room practices. She poses the fundamental question: How do one create structure in the dealings with what is by nature both unpredictable and uncertain?
The backdrop of Lundgaard’s study is the critiques of the police’s handling of the terrorist attacks on July 22, 2011 in Norway. Subsequently, the focus on “police preparedness” was a significant reason for later changes in the police, control rooms included. The focus on preparedness is visible in the everyday practices of the control rooms, which in turn leads to several dilemmas. At the same time, the control rooms have become more professionalised, and their work more specialized. Lundgaard will present her findings on how one tries to create structures to ensure the handling of all the variations and complexities the control room faces continuously, not just in the present, but also the imagined futures, futures that can turn out never to take place.
The Radicalization Discourse – a Radical and Alarming Change in Norwegian Security Policies
Sissel Haugdal Jore, PhD, Lektor og centerleder ved Center for Risikostyring og Samfundssikkerhed, Stavanger Universitet
During the last decade, there has been a growing focus on preventing individuals from becoming radicalized in most Western countries. Also in the Nordic countries, ‘radicalization’ has emerged as a concept and phenomenon to classify, understand and prevent trajectories toward terrorism. The increased focus on radicalization is a trend that the Nordic countries share with most countries worldwide. However, even though an increasing number of hazards and threats against Nordic security are global in character, global threats, such as terrorism, always have local interpretations.
In this lecture, the practices of societal security are approached through the case of counterterrorism.
Counterterrorism serves as an example on how societal security practices are perceived, carried out and organized in the Norwegian context. We investigate the radicalization discourse that currently dominates the Norwegian official communication on terrorism. The aim is to investigate the assumption about terrorism in the radicalization discourse and examine how this discourse is similar and how it diverges from previously Norwegian discourses on terrorism. We conclude that although the radicalization discourse is a continuation of the historical perspective of seeing terrorism as an extreme form of communication utilized by marginalized groups, this discourse diverges from the previous terrorism discourses by focusing on individuals as the locus of change where social- psychological factors are considered the causes and social harmony and measures associated with the Norwegian welfare state are proposed as the solutions to prevent terrorism. The radicalization discourse represents a radical change in Norwegian terrorism discourse that justifies the values and means that the Norwegian welfare state is founded on as counterterrorism means and legitimizes the use of counterterrorism measures that previously have been seen as threats to civil liberties.
Seminaret finder sted d. 27. november kl. 14.00-16.15
på Københavns Professionshøjskole, Sigurdsgade 26, 2200 København N, lokale B086 Tilmelding til Kira Vrist Rønn, kivr@kp.dksenest d. 25. november
