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The use of bodycams can lend to greater legitimacy, transparency, and accountability with regard to police-citizen interactions. However, they ought not be considered a panacea, and need to be understood in their fuller context. The footage they produce is not the only bearer of truth about police-citizen encounters, rather it ought to be considered as an additional perspective on what happens in such encounters.

Talı́ria Petrone is a federal deputy in Brazil (2019–2022) who has undertaken remarkable work on the defence of human rights, on gender and LGBTQIA+ agendas and on support for Brazil’s poor Black population. She has also become closely involved with topics related to security and police brutality in Brazil. In this interview, among other topics, she talks about her earlier career, the impact of death threats in her political work and her proximity to the politician Marielle Franco, who was murdered in 2018. The interview was conducted by criminologist Ana Mı́ria Carinhanha, based in Brazil, and urban criminologist Lucas Melgaço, based in Belgium.

This chapter is a tribute to the work of Sonja Snacken, who has dedicated a big part of her career in criminology to counter injustices in the criminal justice system. As a staunch defender of prisoners' rights, she has denounced and fought inhumane prison conditions as well as injustices in the penal system. However, her engagement with these topics goes beyond her ethnographic and activist approach. Her commitment is also reflected in her important participation in policy making and in her theoretical reflections on topics such as human rights, human dignity (Snacken, 2016) and justice in general. In her work, Sonja has paid special attention to alterity and the rights of those we could roughly call "the other." In her acceptance speech for the 2015 ESC European Criminology Award, she illustrates this idea when she says that in her trajectory she has "talked to victims of torture by police, physical ill-treatment by prison staff, lengthy isolation and inter-prisoner violence; to young mothers who had been on remand for two years without being allowed to receive visits from their small children" (Snacken, 2015, p. 10). In this text, we will pay particular attention to this last reference in her speech on gender and justice. Taking that as our starting point, we will reflect on the connections between justice, space, gender and prostitution. With these ideas in mind, we decided to enter into dialogue with her work while structuring this text in two main parts. First, inspired by her reflections on human rights and human dignity, we propose a conversation that highlights the spatial dimension of justice. In the same section we also briefly discuss how spatial injustice is particularly blatant when we look at public space and gender. In the second part, we exemplify our point by using the specific case of the Brussels red-light district. Through this example, we reflect on how a spatial approach can reveal inequalities and injustices by the way in which the authorities deal with prostitution.

Talíria Petrone is a federal deputy in Brazil (2019–2022) who has undertaken remarkable work on the defence of human rights, on gender and LGBTQIA+ agendas and on support for Brazil’s poor Black population. She has also become closely involved with topics related to security and police brutality in Brazil. In this interview, among other topics, she talks about her earlier career, the impact of death threats in her political work and her proximity to the politician Marielle Franco, who was murdered in 2018. The interview was conducted by criminologist Ana Míria Carinhanha, based in Brazil, and urban criminologist Lucas Melgaço, based in Belgium.

De praktijkgids dient om de vele initiatieven om ingrepen te doen in de publieke verlichting door de lokale besturen op een wetenschappelijk verantwoorde wijze te ondersteunen. Meer bepaalt zoomt deze gids in op het probleem van weerstand bij de bevolking tegen de ingrepen. Burgers maken zich meestal heel wat zorgen over de impact van de vermindering van publieke verlichting op de criminaliteit en verkeersongevallen. Ze gaan ervan uit dat criminaliteit en verkeersongelukken zullen toenemen en rapporteren hogere angst voor beide fenomenen. In deze gids wordt zowel ingegaan op de resultaten van een wetenschappelijke literatuurstudie naar de reële effecten van een vermindering van publieke verlichting als dat er handgrepen worden aangereikt om op een participatieve wijze de burgers te betrekken en inspraak te geven bij een al dan niet lichtvermindering door de lokale besturen. De ontwikkeling van deze gids kadert binnen het Europees project SLIC (Smart Lighting Concepts). Door middel van het aanpassen van verlichtingssystemen, tracht het SLIC-project de CO2-uitstoot, afkomstig van openbare verlichting, drastisch te verminderen. Het SLIC-project heeft in haar vier partnerlanden (België, Frankrijk, Nederland en het Verenigd Koninkrijk), zeven pilootprojecten opgezet waarin verschillende mogelijke aanpassingen worden gedemonstreerd, gemonitord en geëvalueerd op CO2-uitstoot. Deze gids werd uitgewerkt in opdracht van Provincie West-Vlaanderen in het kader van het Europese project SLIC (Smart Lighting Concepts) door onderzoekers verbonden aan de onderzoeksgroep Crime & Society van de Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Het onderzoek liep van 1 september 2018 tot 31 december 2018., De praktijkgids die voor u ligt is het resultaat van een empirisch onderzoek dat kadert binnen het Europees project SLIC (Smart Light Concepts). Door middel van het aanpassen van verlichtingssystemen, tracht het SLIC-project de CO2-uitstoot, afkomstig van openbare verlichting, drastisch te verminderen. Het SLIC-project heeft in haar vier partnerlanden (België, Frankrijk, Nederland en het Verenigd Koninkrijk), zeven pilootprojecten opgezet waarin verschillende mogelijke aanpassingen worden gedemonstreerd, gemonitord en geëvalueerd op CO2-uitstoot. De aanpassingen aan de openbare verlichting waarvan sprake is in deze gids beperken zich tot ingrepen die tot doel hebben om te komen tot het verminderen van (het verbruik van) de openbare verlichting. Het verminderen van de openbare verlichting kan op allerlei manieren gerealiseerd worden, zoals het dimmen en doven (permanent, dan wel gedurende bepaalde tijdstippen, zoals tussen 23u en 5u). Er wordt in deze gids niet ingegaan op de effecten van andere scenario’s zoals het vervangen van klassieke armaturen door LED verlichting en het implementeren van technologische mogelijkheden zoals volgverlichting en sensoren. Deze gids is immers gebaseerd op wetenschappelijk evaluatieonderzoek. Helaas is er momenteel slecht zeer beperkt wetenschappelijk onderzoek over deze laatste scenario’s voorhanden. De gids is geschreven binnen de internationale tendens van burgerparticipatie en focust zich daarbij hoofdzakelijk op de meest ingrijpende maatregelen, namelijk het permanent of gedeeltelijk afschakelen van de openbare verlichting. De toepassing van deze aanbevelingen dient telkens binnen de lokale context geëvalueerd te worden, zoals ook verder in deze gids duidelijk zal worden. Deze gids werd uitgewerkt in opdracht van Provincie West-Vlaanderen in het kader van het Europese project SLIC (Smart Light Concepts) door onderzoekers verbonden aan de onderzoeksgroep Crime & Society van de Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Het onderzoek liep van 1 september 2018 tot 31 december 2018.

This study discusses the association between surveillance devices and public security production devices, producing (in)security as a result of multiple elements that are connected in socio-technical networks. It analyzes, therefore, some correlations between surveillance devices, practices and current concepts of public security related to crime control and prevention of violence. The high investments of public security agencies in technological surveillance devices for crime control and violent practices are the result of technical and political decisions and involve the configuration of socio-technical networks of actors, exercise of power and knowledge. The research is being conducted in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina) and Belgium (Brussels), through the method of the cartography of controversies and follows some controversies related to current conceptions of public security and the installation of surveillance devices considering the efficiency and effectiveness of their use, the release of funds or not by governments, the definition of areas to be monitored and the effects that may produce sociability and modes of subjectivity. Through the cartography of controversies, we seek to highlight actors, linkages and agencies involved in the power play, giving visibility to the associations of the actors and which are in dispute, assisting in the understanding of the contemporary practices of surveillance and construction and stabilization processes of socio-technical networks to the production of security. The study results could help in the understanding of complex and multifaceted issues that unfold in the analysis of current security agencies, demands of people moving in the analyzed urban areas, as well as the formulation, implementation and evaluation of public policies related to public security. The research is being conducted with postdoctoral fellowship from FAPERJ.

Information and communication technologies have fostered the existence of large public demonstrations in the current techno-scientific and informational period, while at the same time they have often served to monitor activists’ activities and to curtail the actions of certain citizens. Such scenario of intensive surveillance has been represented by metaphors like big brother and the panopticon. However, these metaphors on their own cannot explain the complexities of the current surveillance society. While the panopticon model represents the surveillance of “the many” by “one”, today there are many situations where “the many” watch “one”, or even, “the many” watch “the many”. The Orwellian model is incomplete as it centres the surveillance focus in the hands of the state, whereas other actors like companies and individuals play crucial roles in the current surveillance realm. Recent protests in Brazil show several examples in which the surveillance promoted by hegemonic agents is being countered not only by counter-surveillance practices but also by a growing synoptic visibility.

An excess of security may not only increase paranoia, but can also make the ‘otherness’ much harder. Lucas Melgaço comments on the reactions to the Brussels attacks on 22 March 2016.