•Functions of new (smart) security technologies only partly correspond with old ones.•New classification for smart security interventions based on their functions.•Building on existing infrastructure ...is crucial for a successful smartification.•Smart city security has serious implications for urban planning and governance.
The implementation of smart technology in cities is often hailed as the solution to many urban challenges such as transportation, waste management, and environmental protection. Issues of security and crime prevention, however, are in many cases neglected. Moreover, when researchers do introduce new smart security technologies, they rarely discuss their implementation or question how new smart city security might affect traditional policing and urban planning processes. This systematic review explores the recent literature concerned with new ‘smart city’ security technologies and aims to investigate to what extent these new interventions correspond with traditional functions of security interventions. Through an extensive literature search we compiled a list of security interventions for smart cities and suggest several changes to the conceptual status quo in the field. Ultimately, we propose three clear categories to categorise security interventions in smart cities: Those interventions that use new sensors but traditional actuators, those that seek to make old systems smart, and those that introduce entirely new functions. These themes are then discussed in detail and the importance of each group of interventions for the overall field of urban security and governance is assessed.
Encounters with the criminal justice system shape people's perceptions of the legitimacy of legal authorities, and the dominant explanatory framework for this relationship revolves around the idea ...that procedurally just practice increases people's positive connections to justice institutions. But there have been few assessments of the idea—central to procedural justice theory—that social identity acts as an important social-psychological bridge in this process. Our contribution in this paper is to examine the empirical links between procedural justice, social identity and legitimacy in the context of policing in Australia. A representative two-wave panel survey of Australians suggests that social identity does mediate the association between procedural justice and perceptions of legitimacy. It seems that when people feel fairly treated by police, their sense of identification with the superordinate group the police represent is enhanced, strengthening police legitimacy as a result. By contrast, unfair treatment signals to people that they do not belong, undermining both identification and police legitimacy.
Public confidence in policing is receiving increasing attention from UK social scientists and policy‐makers. The criminal justice system relies on legitimacy and consent to an extent unlike other ...public services: public support is vital if the police and other criminal justice agencies are to function both effectively and in accordance with democratic norms. Yet we know little about the forms of social perception that stand prior to public confidence and police legitimacy. Drawing on data from the 2003/2004 British Crime Survey and the 2006/2007 London Metropolitan Police Safer Neighbourhoods Survey, this paper suggests that people think about their local police in ways less to do with the risk of victimization (instrumental concerns about personal safety) and more to do with judgments of social cohesion and moral consensus (expressive concerns about neighbourhood stability, cohesion and loss of collective authority). Across England and Wales the police may not primarily be seen as providers of a narrow sense of personal security, held responsible for crime and safety. Instead the police may stand as symbolic ‘moral guardians’ of social stability and order, held responsible for community values and informal social controls. We also present evidence that public confidence in the London Metropolitan Police Service expresses broader social anxieties about long‐term social change. We finish our paper with some thoughts on a sociological analysis of the cultural place of policing: confidence (and perhaps ultimately the legitimacy of the police) might just be wrapped up in broader public concerns about social order and moral consensus.
Abstract
Some immigrants can be reluctant to cooperate with the police due to experiences of social exclusion and discrimination. Procedural justice scholars argue that people cooperate with police ...when they feel the police are just and fair because such treatment motivates identification with social categories that police represent. In this paper, we consider whether immigrants in Australia respond favourably to procedurally just treatment from police because it enhances their identification with both Australia and the police. Using survey data from 903 Vietnamese, Middle Eastern and British immigrants, we demonstrate an association between police procedural justice and both modes of identification. We also find that both identities mediate the relationship between procedural justice and cooperation. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Much policy discourse concentrates on the contribution police make to keeping people safe. Often, this means minimizing fear of crime. Yet, more expansive accounts stress the extent to which ...deeper-rooted forms of security and belonging might also be important 'outcomes' of police activity. Using data collected from a survey of residents of a mid-sized English town, Macclesfield in Cheshire, we consider the extent to which evaluations of policing are associated with (1) a 'shallow' sense of security-roughly speaking, feeling safe-and (2) a 'deeper' sense of security-being comfortable in, and with, one's environment. Focussing more accurately on the forms of safety and security police can hope to 'produce' opens up space for consideration of the ends they seek as well as the means they use.
Abstract
We explore the relevance of procedural justice theory for understanding the relationship between police and marginalized groups and individuals. Analysis is based on ethnographic research ...into the policing of the street population in an inner London borough through shadowing policing patrols and embedding observation within the homeless community. Police–street population relationships appear characterized by: (1) a structural context of extreme disempowerment; (2) a micro-sociological dimension relating to the exercise of authority and (3) a dynamic power relationship characterized by ‘the game of cat and mouse’. The nature of interactions within this context and the extreme marginality of the street population alter the weight placed on fairness perceptions and the extent to which police activity can affect legitimacy and compliance.
This paper extends Tyler's procedural justice model of public compliance with the law. Analysing data from a national probability sample of adults in England and Wales, we present a new ...conceptualization of legitimacy based on not just the recognition of power, but also the justification of power. We find that people accept the police's right to dictate appropriate behaviour not only when they feel a duty to obey officers, but also when they believe that the institution acts according to a shared moral purpose with citizens. Highlighting a number of different routes by which institutions can influence citizen behaviour, our broader normative model provides a better framework for explaining why people are willing to comply with the law.
It is often assumed that immigrants in countries such as the United Kingdom will report lower levels of trust in the police. Immigrant communities are thought 'difficult to police', and minority ...groups frequently experience problematic relationships with police. Yet, there has been little empirical investigation of this issue in the United Kingdom. In this paper, data from the Crime Survey of England and Wales are used to explore the relationship between immigration and trust in the police. Results suggest that trust is higher among immigrants than among the UK-born population, although there is important variation by time since arrival and experience of policing. Trust in the police is also higher in neighbourhoods that have more immigrants. The paper concludes with some reflection on the nature of trust in the police.
Abstract
Interest in the political economy of crime goes back to sociology’s founding fathers, but the nature of the relationship between restrictive social security systems and crime remains ...contested. This paper exploits exogenous variation in the introduction of Universal Credit (UC) to local areas across England and Wales to address this question. We first use fixed effects models, with a range of controls, to show that as UC enrolments increase in a given area, so does the crime rate. We then use interrupted time series analysis to show that, despite UC being rolled out at different times in different places, its introduction in each local area coincides with a positive shift in the trend in crime. These findings hold for total crime, property crime and violent crime. Borrowing from Strain Theory and Routine Activities Theory, we suggest that changes to the pool of motivated offenders may help to explain these correlations.
Accounts of the social meaning of policing and of the relationship between police and citizen converge on the idea that police behaviour carries important identity-relevant information. Opinions of ...and ideas about the police are implicated in the formation of social identities that relate to the social groups it represents - nation, state and community. Procedural justice theory suggests that judgements about the fairness of the police will be the most important factor in such processes. Fairness promotes a sense of inclusion and value, while unfairness communicates denigration and exclusion. Furthermore, positive social identities in relation to the police should on this account promote cooperation with it. This article presents an empirical test of these ideas in the context of the British policing. Data from a survey of young Londoners are used to show that perceptions of police fairness are indeed associated with social identity, and in turn social identity can be linked to cooperation. Yet these relationships were much stronger among those with multiple national identities. Police behaviour appeared more identity relevant for people who felt that they were citizens of a non-UK country, but for those who identified only as British there was a weaker link between procedural fairness and social identity, and here legitimacy judgements were the main 'drivers' of cooperation. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.
PDF
