Police work in security zones. Response, assessment, and effects.

About the project

Reducing gang-related crime is a growing priority for society’s decision-makers, where the extended use of coercive measures appears as a key strategy. Yet, it is remarkable that research on police stop-and-search methods is limited. This issue is complex: Which individuals are subject to police checks? How do routine checks differ from those performed in special security zones? What effect does it have on crime? How do citizens interact with these measures? And what effect does it have on citizens’ trust in the police? It is crucial to understand how such checks can be conducted in a way that strengthens the police’s legitimacy.

The project has undergone ethical review, Dnr 2024-05060-01.

Two sub-projects

This research project includes two sub-projects.

Stop-and-search

The first aims to explore the dynamics of stop-and-search within and outside security zones. By integrating power theory and sociological perspectives on policing, including interviews with police and citizens, observations of control practices, and analysis of the Police Authority’s documents, the project strives to provide a deeper understanding of these processes. Based on Foucault’s power analysis, which regards power and resistance as practices that flow between actors, the project will contribute to a theoretical and empirical understanding of stop-and-search practices, and offer insights that can improve police work and its relationship with society. By examining experiences from the perspectives of both the police and those being policed, the project will generate new knowledge that can shape future guidelines and practices within the police service.

Security zones

The second sub-project focuses on identifying the effects of security zones. By comparing areas where security zones are introduced with areas that have similar levels of gang violence but where security zones are not introduced, the study will quantitatively examine how security zones affect police work and crime and their connection to trust in the police. This includes quantifying how police work is affected in security zones, and how many more personal checks and vehicle checks a security zone entails. In the next step, effects on crime will be identified, partly the gang violence that the security zones target, but also crime more generally. It is also conceivable that security zones are sometimes unpopular and met with protests, which is why outcomes in the form of violence against officials, violent riots, or sabotage against emergency services will also be examined. To gain a deeper insight into how security zones are experienced, the project will also work with surveys and semi-structured interviews with key persons in areas with security zones and similar areas where security zones have not been implemented to get a picture of how both security zones and police work and the situation in the area more generally are experienced. In summary, the project will use observations, interviews, document studies, and statistical analyses to provide answers to questions about how security zones are used, how they are perceived, and what effects they have.