European Journal of Criminology

A key challenge for public criminology is the translation between concepts employed in policy discourse and those used by social scientists. Given that concepts constitute social problems and they can have multiple meanings for policy-makers and social scientists, then deliberation about what they signify matters in understanding how these actors can talk to, rather than past, one another in framing policy discourse about crime and revealing alternative policy agendas. This challenge is accentuated in the comparative context of European criminology, which is characterized by competing tendencies to generalize about problems of ‘Freedom, Security and Justice’ and to recognize the variegated problems and cultures of control across Europe. In this context, the presumption of universality can mistranslate concepts of crime and control by obscuring contextual insight, while the presumption of particularity can inhibit cross-cultural dialogue and deliberation. The paper explores this challenge in relation to the concept of ‘urban security’, which is prevalent in the policy discourse on social crime prevention, particularly in Central and Southern Europe. To establish the provenance, prevalence and significance of this concept, the paper discusses findings from a policy Delphi that structured deliberation about the meaning of urban security among criminologists sampled from the European Society of Criminology and policy-makers sampled from the European Crime Prevention Network. It concludes with reflections on the value of deliberative methods, such as the policy Delphi, for the cross-cultural validation of criminological constructs in comparative research.

This article presents a study on urban security management in the capitals of the former Yugoslav republics (FYR): Ljubljana (Slovenia), Zagreb (Croatia), Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Belgrade (Serbia) and Skopje (FYR Macedonia). The article presents crime, natural disasters and other security threats in the region using semi-structured interviews with municipal security experts and officials as well as university researchers who deal with or manage security issues in the respective cities. The main findings show that collaboration between the various state and local organizations is necessary for the provision of safety and security in urban settings. Competencies, knowledge, skills and integrity are required for urban security managers and all partners in safety and security provision practice.

Urban security has emerged as one of the key priorities in political and public life in Greece over recent years, and especially since the country fell into financial crisis in 2009. This article offers an unprecedented overview of the challenges, actors and expertise in the management of urban security in Greece, drawing attention to the political tensions that envelop them. The first section focuses on the phenomena considered to constitute core challenges for urban security in the country: from common crime, immigration and urban poverty and degradation, to social unrest, policing, far-right militias and vigilantism. The various state and non-state actors engaged in the management of urban security are then outlined, and the relationship between expertise and official policy-making is critically assessed. Objective and subjective forms of insecurity are shown to be highly contentious, responses to such insecurities are found to produce insecurities in their own right, and constraints upon non-technical expertise are identified as limiting the scope of pertinent state policy.

In this paper, the meaning of the ‘governance of security’ in Belgium and the Netherlands will be explored. It is argued that the role of the mayor is substantial in both countries. This is why this article focuses explicitly on the political leadership of the mayor. The first section provides a comparison between Belgium and the Netherlands, contrasting their different constitutional-legal settlements and the relationship of these two cultures of control in the two countries. The consequences for which authorities and actors are ‘responsibilized’ for undertaking strategies of urban security governance are discussed. In a following section, the paper examines the current and potential challenges for governing urban security across both countries. In the final section, the dilemma of politics and science as drivers of policy responses to urban security problems is considered, identifying in particular certain deficits in mayoral expertise and training. The paper concludes that, despite a common tendency in comparative politics to group the ‘Low Countries’ together (given their strong historical and cultural connections), a powerful contrast is highlighted between the effects of federal and unitary constitution-legal settlements on policy responses to urban security.

This paper begins by outlining and critiquing what we term the dominant anglophone model of neo-liberal community safety and crime prevention. As an alternative to this influential but flawed model, a comparative analysis is provided of the different constitutional-legal settlements in each of the five jurisdictions across the UK and the Republic of Ireland (ROI), and their uneven institutionalization of community safety. In the light of this it is argued that the nature of the anglophone community safety enterprise is actually subject to significant variation. Summarizing the contours of this variation facilitates our articulation of some core dimensions of community safety. Then, making use of Colebatch’s (2002) deconstruction of policy activity into categories of authority and expertise, and Brunsson’s (2002) distinction between policy talk, decisions and action, we put forward a way of understanding policy activity that avoids the twin dangers of ‘false particularism’ and ‘false universalism’ (Edwards and Hughes, 2005); that indicates a path for further empirical enquiry to assess the ‘reality’ of policy convergence; and that enables the engagement of researchers with normative questions about where community safety should be heading.

The article describes and evaluates the development of urban security management in Finland since 2002. The evaluation is based on governmental safety and security strategies, 228 local safety plans from 2002 and the security strategies of the 10 biggest cities in 2012, along with interviews with risk managers or security managers, police chiefs and other experts. New security professions and professionals, such as security managers, have emerged in cities; the trend is towards regional safety and security management; crime prevention has been replaced by a broader concept of the co-production of security by state and municipal authorities (networks, strategic partnerships); contingency planning, civil protection and preparedness have been reconciled with local safety planning processes (in some cities). In addition, the military is looking for a new role in society. It is also argued that European Union membership and EU strategies are now such important drivers of development that Finland is moving from the so-called ‘Scandinavian model’ towards the ‘European model’ of security governance.

After a short description of the broad field of urban security problems in Germany and a concentration on aspects of crime and disorder, the main institutions responsible for taking action on these problems – the police, local authorities and social services – are discussed. The institutional responsibilities are differentiated in terms of their statutory duties, and the individual competences for undertaking managerial responsibilities in this field are analysed against the background of the higher education system for training in public services in Germany. The need for collaboration in Crime Prevention Councils and Public Order Partnerships will be sketched out. The skills that already exist and those that are additionally needed for managing urban security are discussed along with the appropriate role of higher education in equipping managers with these skills.

This article examines comparative developments in the politics, policies and practices in public safety and crime prevention across Italy, Portugal and Spain. The article begins by plotting the relatively recent history of what may be termed ‘the preventive turn’ in this region of Europe. It is argued that systematic thinking and coordinated policy and practice regarding crime prevention and public safety remain limited and fragile, with notable exceptions in some cities (such as Barcelona) and regions (such as Emilia-Romagna) across the three countries. Overall, the progress of local safety and security programmes in southern Europe is uneven and fragmented when compared with much of northern Europe. In turn, the current pressures on these countries’ governmental capacities and resources in the light of the profound economic crisis they are undergoing are discussed and their implications for progressive as against repressive urban security management assessed. The article then compares the major areas of convergence and divergence across the three countries.