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Source at https://doi.org/10.18261/issn.1894-8693-2019-01-05. Casestudien undersøker hvordan samlokalisering av nødmeldingssentralene til politi, brann og helse påvirker læring og utvikling av transaksjonsminnesystem (TMS) på operativt nivå horisontalt mellom etater. Datamaterialet er innhentet fra ni norske nødmeldingssentraler med ulike samarbeidsbetingelser og geografi og er kategorisert i modellene SAMLOK, SPREDT og NÆR. Analysen av kvalitative intervjudata, observasjons- og medlyttdata viser at læring i de ulike etatenes nødmeldingssentraler skjer situert i et praksisfellesskap mellom operatører under og i etterkant av hendelser. Samlokalisering i SAMLOK ga et teknisk-organisatorisk læringsmiljø horisontalt mellom nødmeldingssentralene som utvidet praksisfellesskapet og økte operatørenes TMS relatert til de andre nødetatenes behov, kompetanse og oppgaver. Nødmeldingssentraler som er SPREDT- eller NÆR-lokalisert, har et etatsspesifikk praksisfellesskap og begrensede muligheter til systematisk erfaringslæring og refleksjon på tvers av etatene. Ledere som møtes regelmessig, kan være pådrivere for erfaringsdeling og kunnskapsdeling horisontalt mellom nødmeldingssentraler. The case study investigates how co-location of police, fire and health emergency coordination centrals (ECCs) affects learning and development of transactional memory systems (TMS) at operational level between agencies. The data come from nine Norwegian ECCs with different cooperation conditions and geography, categorized in the models SAMLOK, SPREDT and NEAR. The analysis of qualitative interview data, observation and compliance data revealed that ECCs are communities of practice where learning takes place between operators during and after events. Co-location in SAMLOK provided a technical organizational learning environment that included the ECCs in an expanded community of practice that increased operators 'TMS on the needs, competencies and tasks of the other agencies’ emergency services. ECCs that are SPREDT or NEAR located have an agency’s practice community and limited opportunities for experience based learning between the agencies. SPREDT and NEAR did not systematic share experiences and reflect for development between agencies.

Police trainees have to be prepared for future job demands and challenges. Personality plays an important role in stress management. The first assessment of a longitudinal investigation was conducted among 103 Swedish police trainees to study their personality changes and mental health responses in first two weeks after intake. Fifty-two of these trainees, who participated in the second assessment, were included in the analysis. The Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) was used to measure personality, and the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) was used to measure mental health. A multiple regression analysis was performed with personality scores from the first assessment as independent variables and SCL-90-R scores as dependent variables. Over two years, minor changes were found in the police trainees’ personality characteristics, which seemingly fit the demands of policing and are potentially valuable in the trainees’ future careers. Personality characteristics are predictors of mental health at the end of university training.

Few would contest the value of academic freedom, i.e. the principle that researchers are free to ask critical questions and publish their findings without interference from the authorities. In practice, difficult questions may arise concerning both what questions should be asked and how they are answered. In this article, I take as my point of departure the Norwegian legislation, with some examples from other countries. The question of the researchers’ part in discussing heated questions and party politics is addressed. The article underlines the value of academic freedom as a guideline for the way researchers should deal with disagreement between each other: We should welcome disagreement and accept that, on any issue, the final word has not yet been said. An important topic is whether the rules of confidentiality for researchers should be clarified. Such a clarification could strengthen the researchers’ freedom to work with informants who are especially concerned about the risk of their identity being revealed.

European Union (EU) police and justice cooperation is based on EU legal frameworks. Some of these frameworks have an important impact on EU policing practice both generally and on cooperation regimes with the United Kingdom (UK) in particular. The UK involvement in EU police and justice cooperation could therefore potentially be endangered by the ‘Brexit’ – the UK referendum decision to leave the European Union. This decision was announced on 24 June 2016. Even prior to the Brexit, the UK already chose not to accept the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the enforcement powers of the Commission in relation to pre-Lisbon security measures under Article 10(4) of this Protocol. As an EU member, but not party to the EU Freedom, Security and Justice (FSJ) instruments, the UK had very limited options in participating in EU security measures, such as Europol, Eurojust or Joint Investigation Teams (JITs). A number of measures, including the three mentioned above, were therefore selected to be re-joined as they were considered crucial to UK security. With a Brexit and non-membership in the EU, but as signatory of EU FSJ instruments, the UK would be able to acquire ‘third party’ status to some of those measures. This is only the case, however, if the UK, similarly to Norway, is willing to (re-)adopt relevant instruments after exiting the EU. The UK is a medium-trust society. If the police were to be excluded from, for example, EU police agencies’ information exchange, this trust could be further eroded. This article compares the participation of the UK in criminal justice cooperation in the EU before and after Brexit in comparison with Norway’s participation in EU law enforcement. As Norway has long standing practice as a close third party and associate state of the EU, its experiences could be applied by the UK if the Brexit is put into practice. Furthermore, the article explores what the impact of the Brexit could be on the security situation in the UK, focusing in particular on JITs, the European Arrest Warrant (EAW), Europol and the Schengen Information System (SIS).

Nordisk politiforskning er et Open Access-tidsskrift. Hele tidsskriftet er tilgjengelig på Idunn: https://www.idunn.no/nordisk_politiforskning/2016/01 The expansion of the Norwegian DNA database in 2008, the so called «DNA reform», was founded on the belief that DNA increases the detection rate of volume crime significantly. We have conducted a study of Norwegian police registers to see what effects DNA actually has on detection rates in volume crime. The good news is that there is little doubt that DNA affects the detection rate. The overall detection rate for the criminal offenses we have studied in our selected police districts in the selected period was 8 %. In cases with a DNA profile the detection rate was 44 %. In cases with hits against the DNA identity register the detection rate was 81%, and in cases with hits against the DNA investigation register the detection rate was 62 %. However, the bad news is the very low proportion of cases where police gather biological samples which result in a DNA-profile and hits. This implies that no matter how high the detection rate is in cases with DNA profile, it will not affect the overall detection rate.

To what extent can we trust police research? In this paper, I use Brown’s (1996) typology of police ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ to delineate some of the methodological challenges to conducting research on the police. I argue that there has been a convergence between insider and outsider research in the context of key developments to police research and policing more generally. On the one hand, ‘outside’ police scholars are being incentivised to work more collaboratively with police organisations as part of knowledge-exchange funding schemes. On the other, the police have become increasingly driven by an evidence-based approach that encourages greater analytical capabilities of those on the ‘inside’. This blurring of outsiders and insiders brings a series of advantages to police research, including better access to the field, opportunities for knowledge exchange, wider dissemination of results and greater policy impact. But simultaneously, researchers now face a number of challenges, including a narrowing focus on policy-oriented research questions, as well as a possible erosion of research independence. I argue that in order to trust police research in this collaborative phase, researchers must be able to adopt a reflexive approach and ask wider questions than ‘what works’. The discussion is not limited to Nordic countries; nor is it specific to police research. However, the themes presented here are of critical importance in establishing trust in Nordic police research.

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Dette er siste tekst-versjon av artikkelen, den kan inneholde ubetydelige forskjeller fra forlagets pdf-versjon. The article examines the reasons fresh police students have for choosing police education and what kind of backgrounds they have. Previous research has indicated that police students’ social background has changed in that their parents have much higher education than before. Students’ perceptions of and attitudes toward police training and police work has, however, changed little, which can be seen as a paradox. This research has primarily analysed survey data. We have combined qualitative interview data with data from public administrative registers. First, we find that police students are not interested in academic and intellectual pursuits. Theoretical work in offices and in front of computers is considered negatively as boring, one-sided, and resulting in decay and the «fading away» of the employees. Practical work outdoors, however, has positive connotations. These kind of preferences and work values fit nicely with our analyses of the register data, which show that most police students are not children of academics. Our findings, thus, show far greater accordance between the students’ values, attitudes and beliefs, and their parents’ level of education than previous research has shown.

Summary A modern type of police organization was introduced in Sweden after the revolutionary movement of 1848. As always this was done with a keen eye on the development in the rest of Europe, and the new type of police organization was based on the most modern of all: the London Metropolitan Police. In this text the focus is on the social background of the policemen and its crucial significance for the development of the police and its social, cultural and political outlook. In the early years most policemen came from a working class background, while in later years, due to a direct strategy instigated by the authorities, they mainly came from a rural background and almost all had training as noncommissioned officers in the military service. This in turn led to increasing conflicts within the police ranks, with the most outspoken years of internal hostilities being in the first two decades of the twentieth century.

Dette er siste tekstversjon av artikkelen, den kan inneholde ubetydelige forskjeller fra forlagets pdf-versjon. Domestic violence is especially challenging for the police to deal with precisely because these crimes occur in close relationships. The proximity between the victim and the perpetrator represents a problem for the police at a number of levels. Violent relationships may have been going on for years without anyone knowing about it. In order to make a criminal case the police often have to penetrate a wall of shame, guilt and close ties to the perpetrator. It is also challenging for the police to deal with a tragic, complex and sometimes confusing life story, and simultaneously document and transform it into a written report as a basis for a criminal case. It is well documented that the police experience powerlessness, frustration and despair in dealing with family conflicts, which probably can be traced to lack of knowledge and understanding of this reality. Should the police therefore classify domestic violence as a special field? Domestic violence as a discipline is already specialized to some extent in the police organizations – particularly through the system of family-violence coordinators, domestic violence contacts and specialized investigation teams at some police stations in Norway. In addition the police have also developed some problem-oriented projects like the “Drammen-project” (especially directed against abuse in minority communities) and the SARA-project (Spousal Assault Risk Assessment guide). One danger of further specialization is however that only a few police officers will dear to handle this field. The number of domestic violence incidents reported to the police annually is so large that any police officer must be able to handle them in a satisfactory manner.

Summary: Normalizing the abnormal This article deals with some aspects concerning the use of police methods known under many names. These methods is often said to be new, even if most of them have a long history, as untraditional or extraordinary, hidden, secret and deceptive methods of intelligence, investigation, surveillance or even crime prevention. The main questions analyzed in the text is how does these methods affect policing and the police role in modern societies. What do we know about the effects of these methods, not only on crime, but also on the society and the justice system? The challenges and necessity in relation to research and scientific knowledge on secrete and deceptive methods are raised in the last sections of article. «What once occurred infrequently and was viewed with disdain as a characteristic pf continental despotism is now routine administrative practice.» (Fijnaut og Marx, 1995 s. 14)

Summary The police as a social institution and the use of police force are often on the agenda of public debate. Thus, police training is regularly in the media spotlight, too. This article presents fresh research on what police practitioners think about the Norwegian police university college as a basis for police practice. The police university college is, in accordance with guidelines from NOKUT (Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education), required to ensure the quality of its education. By two tests, the police university college has obtained knowledge about how graduated police officers and their superiors consider police training. These surveys are conducted by using questionnaires (questback) in the internal police net. This study presents qualitative data on police officers’ views on police training that will enable them to perform operational policing. The police leaders who emphasize general knowledge and skills for police work, give both education and the graduates good references. When it comes to specific skills for using force in time-critical situations, the graduates are placed in a critical light.

Summary The purpose of this text is to discuss the function of police humour, especially in the group of patrolling policemen. The discussion is primarily based on a literature study combined with data from qualitative interviews and participant observations. Basically «joking relationships» are considered a form of play which gives the individuals involved a relative freedom from responsibility. In terms of dealing with frustration with work including resistance against authorities, internal joking can be considered a form of parenthesis behaviour, i.e. it expresses parts of the personality that are suppressed through demands of authoritative and correct behaviour in the outer world. Joking can be seen as a form of diversion, partly through making distance to anxiety provoking situations, partly through rejecting aggressive situations to more neutral ones. Furthermore joking is a way to devalue the world around, to idealize the police collective in order to relieve feelings of guilt, and enhance emotions of moral superiority. In terms of internal relationship joking can be seen as ways of strengthen group cohesion. This is done by marking a boundary to different outgroups. Humour can be a way of establishing norms and giving sanctions for non-accepted behaviours, to investigate what is accepted in the group, to express feedback, to deal with conflicts, distribution of power and status and a mean of socialisation of new members.

The ambitious policy in Denmark on having a 100% renewable energy supply in 2050 requires radical changes to the energy systems to avoid an extensive and unsustainable use of biomass resources. Currently, wind power is being expanded and the increasing supply of electricity is slowly pushing the CHP (combined heat and power) plants out of operation, reducing the energy efficiency of the DH (district heating) supply. Here, large heat pumps for district heating is a frequently mentioned solution as a flexible demand for electricity and an energy efficient heat producer. The idea is to make heat pump use a low temperature waste or ambient heat source, but it has so far been very unclear which heat sources are actually available for this purpose. In this study eight categories of heat sources are analysed for the case of Denmark and included in a detailed spatial analysis where the identified heat sources are put in relation to the district heating areas and the corresponding demands. The analysis shows that potential heat sources are present near almost all district heating areas and that sea water most likely will have to play a substantial role as a heat source in future energy systems in Denmark.

Book review

Energy systems with high degrees of renewable energy integration require on the one hand energy scenario making and energy system analyses for the optimal design of systems and pathways and on the other hand well-established criteria for decision-making and for characterisation of energy system suitability. This article has a threefold objective, it reviews the application of a given energy system simulation model – EnergyPLAN – analysing its application on geographic level as well as the types of simulations or scenario analyses performed on the model. Secondly, it reviews the types of performance indicators applied in said energy systems simulations and thirdly it reviews and details existing advanced energy system performance indicators and proposed additional indicators.