Who Actually Polices Public Space? A Video Observational Study of Conflict De-escalation by Police Officers and Other Guardians

• In Event: WG-PLACE 1: Research on crime, place and time

Abstract

Today, tasks traditionally handled by the police, such as monitoring public space and ensuring public order, are increasingly carried out by other types of guardians (Jones & Newburn, 1998; Terpstra & van Stokkom, 2015). As a consequence, non-police professionals more frequently encounter conflict, aggression, and even violence (Bervoets & Eijgenraam, 2014). While previous research has examined professional definitions and the organizational structure of the collaboration between these groups (e.g., Abraham, 2021; Bervoets, 2013; Eikenaar & Stokkom, 2014; Montfort et al., 2012) little is known about how the presence of these guardians functions in practice. Although formal policies assign distinct roles and responsibilities to different types of guardians, it remains unexamined whether real-world intervention behavior actually conforms to these delimitations. To address this gap, this study investigates real-world intervention behavior of different types of guardians in the Netherlands, a country characterized by a highly fragmented yet collaborative law-enforcement structure (Terpstra & van Stokkom, 2015; van Steden, 2012).
Based on 188 recordings of naturally occurring conflicts in captured by CCTV cameras in Dutch public spaces, we systematically analyze who intervenes when a conflict erupts and how they do so. Here, we examine key factors such as the timing of interventions and the prevalence of different types of intervention strategies among the different groups. By examining the extent to which professional roles align with or deviate from formally assigned responsibilities, we thus aim to investigate the relationship between policy and real-world intervention.

Authors

• Mara van Dalen, NSCR

• Peter Ejbye-Ernst, NCSR

• Marie Rosenkrantz Lindegaard, NSCR and University of Amsterdam