‘Port of call’: Towards a criminology of port security

Abstract

While public and criminological interest in ports is remarkably scarce, they form an intersection of (images of) crime and crime control. Port security organizations and personnel are confronted with that intersection in their everyday work life. In this article I will highlight the possibilities for researching port security from a criminological starting point. By describing port insecurities and their regulation, I will conceptualize the late modern condition of security. After this, the theoretical promises of a criminological analysis of port security shall be discussed, for example, how recent developed thoughts on security consumption filter through at the specific geographical sites of the port. In moving towards a criminology of port security, I aim to set the focus on security in transnational spaces and transport, and to contribute to a critical engagement within the prioritized criminological theorization of the globalized security society.

Uitdagingen in publiek-private samenwerking in de aanpak van drugscriminaliteit in de Rotterdamse haven

“…We sluiten het artikel af met conclusies en enkele discussiepunten. (Eski 2011(Eski , 2012(Eski , 2016a(Eski , 2016b Een soortgelijke afkeuring was te vinden bij havenpolitieagenten en douanebeambten van beveiligingsbedrijven en beveiligers die de traditionele havenpolitie-en douaniertaken aan het overnemen waren: 'Wij, de havenpolitie, WIJ zijn verantwoordelijk voor de beveiliging, oké? Ik bedoel, een beveiligingsagent moet niet denken dat hij een politieagent is, om het bot te zeggen.'…”

“…Controle, toezicht en opsporing en een goede rechtshandhaving kunnen immers de handel belemmeren. Andersom kunnen flexibiliteit en snelheid in de transportsector op gespannen voet staan met betrouwbaarheid en veiligheid (Eski 2011).…”

Customer is king: promoting port policing, supporting hypercommercialism

“…As such, the ports of Rotterdam, Hamburg and Antwerp are crucial to these plans. This article elaborates on an ethnographic study done on frontline port policing and security in the first two of these ports of these ports, Rotterdam and Hamburg, undertaken from 2010 to 2016 (Eski 2011(Eski , 2012(Eski , 2016a(Eski , 2016b(Eski , 2018. It argues, based on findings on their policing struggles with management, colleagues and multiagency partners, as well as with the maritime business community and dangerous others (Hudson 2009), that they are fighting a (silent) fight against having to appear to police for commercialism.…”

“…A research lacuna exists in (critical) criminological understandings of port security (Zaitch 2002;Eski 2011;Brewer 2014). This gap is surprising given the manifest importance of ports in understanding EU border policing, and the fact that '[t]hroughout history, the structural growth of commercial maritime sites had boosted unique port security issues and the creation of various forms of public and private "dock policing" bodies' (Leloup 2015, p. 131).…”

Potencial forense de microvestí­gios biogeológicos em ecossistema costeiro do Brasil

“…Estudos forenses em ambientes costeiros do Brasil são de grande importância devido à localização de grandes centros urbanos e atividades portuárias, possíveis cenários de diferentes tipos de crimes (Eski, 2011). Um exemplo é a Região Metropolitana da Baixada Santista, que mantém desde os anos 80 o segundo lugar no Estado de São Paulo em questão de mortes violentas (Camargo, 2007).…”