No abstract

I denne artikkelen utforsker jeg politispaneres profesjonsblikk. Ved å gjøre dette, utvikler og lanserer jeg begrepet spaningsblikket. I artikkelen drøftes hva spaningsblikket er, hvordan det formes og utvikles. Spaningsblikket handler om hvordan politiet bruker blikket til å se, lese, følge og gi mening til de person(er) de observerer. Spaningsblikket er et fokusert, skjult blikk det kan vaere krevende å se med. Det kan vaere både et proaktivt og et reaktivt blikk, ettersom det benyttes både for å oppklare og for å forebygge kriminalitet. Spaningsblikket aktiveres når man har et objekt eller en sak man skal innhente relevant informasjon om. Artikkelen søker å gjøre eksplisitt og artikulere, samt begrepsfeste, noe av den tause kunnskapen som er på spaningsfeltet. Dermed vil artikkelen bidra til økt fenomenforståelse om spaning og å belyse en viktig arbeidsmetode i politipraksisen det er generelt lite innsyn i og som det har vaert lite forskning på, men som i økende grad benyttes. Det empiriske grunnlaget for artikkelen er kvalitative dybdeintervjuer med polititjenestepersoner som spaner på mobile vinningskriminelle, og er komplementert av noe deltakende feltobservasjon.

This article analyses ambiguity and complexity in proactive policing practices and identifies the paradox that despite the focus on increasing proactivity, police work remains strongly reactive. Drawing on a set of Norwegian case studies of policing in different domains, the article shows how under an overarching objective of ‘combating crime’, the distinctions between non-coercive (mainly proactive) forms of prevention or (mainly reactive) methods such as investigation or intelligence are seen as unimportant. This creates a demand for professionals working across different crime types, leading to a shift towards high policing in everyday life and tension between experts and generalists. Other, unintended consequences include a fragmentation of tasks and a more general and abstract way of policing. The result is pluralization and multiagency partnership strategies, where the police conduct high-policing tasks and external actors conduct low-policing tasks. These findings point to the emergence of new forms of hybrid of policing.

No abstract

In this article, we empirically explore directed surveillance as bodily practice—material bodies observing other material bodies. Such low-tech police surveillance practice (Haggerty 2012) relies on a police officer’s body as a tool and medium for information gathering. The theoretical framework used in this article is inspired by Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception and the body (Merleau-Ponty [1945] 2005). The empirical starting point for our analysis is in-depth interviews with police officers conducting directed surveillance of mobile organised crime groups, supplemented by some observations. Findings illustrate how police officers conducting directed surveillance have internalised advanced perceptual and bodily skills that enable them to keep an optimal distance from the subject of their surveillance, suppress bodily responses, stay in character to protect their cover story, and appear relaxed when they are, in fact, vigilant. With this article we aim to contribute to increased knowledge and more precise discussions concerning the tacit and corporeal aspects of directed surveillance.