Call for Papers: RGS-IBG Annual Conference, Edinburgh, 3rd-5th July 2012

The Policing of Insecurity: Policing places, policing people

Sponsored by Geographies of Justice Working Group
Format: 2 sessions with practitioner as discussant
Conveners:  Donna Marie Brown (University of Northumbria), Andrew Wooff (University
of Dundee), Liz Frondigoun (Glasgow Caledonian University), Diarmaid Harkin
(University of Edinburgh)
Over two sessions, we aim to critically examine and engage with the geographic dimensions to the policing of insecurity. We will unpack, elaborate and critique upon the role of insecurity and injustice as a driver of policy that aims to regulate spatial as well as human geographies. Given the diverse range of people and place based communities incorporated into policing, this session aims to open up critical debate about the conceptual, policy and practitioner dimensions of ‘community policing’.  By having a police Superintendent as a discussant, we hope to bring in to question how ‘community policing’ is conceptualised within policing policy, how it is delivered through policing practice, and what the consequences of this are for the diverse range of people and places constituting  communities. It will put a pressing contemporary issue under the spotlight and inspire an innovative discussion about the significance of the geographical dimensions of community po licing. 
 In addition we are keen to explore the other potential foundations to insecurity that may include changes to urban or rural populations, social and cultural relations within urban and rural settings, environmental or aesthetic indicators of ‘disorder’, “moral panics” (Cohen, 1980), the politics of regulating “threatening” persons or potentialities, and unpacking the role of the inequalities of age, class, or ethnicity.
We therefore welcome papers that address the following themes:
•        Geographies of policing
•        Spatial differences in policing methods
•        The role of the wider policing family in the policing of insecurity and (in)justice
•        The role of age, class, ethnicity, media and other social and cultural factors as dimensions to insecurity
•        Community policing
•        Surveillance and security
•        Architectural and environmental planning grounded in security concerns
•        Policing the aesthetics of the urban or rural environment for security dividends
•        CCTV and other ‘Situational Crime Prevention’ solutions
•        Policing diverse communities
•        Comparative policing research

Please send abstracts of 250 words to both Donna Marie Brown
donna.brown@northumbria.ac.uk  and Andrew Wooff a.j.wooff@dundee.ac.uk  by 18/01/11