Voluntary policing in Sweden: media reports of contemporary forms of police–citizen partnerships

Abstract

Many Western-style democracies have witnessed a general shift in the distribution of crime prevention responsibility, away from the state and increasingly to citizens themselves. Civil society is today more and more often called upon as an additional policing resource. This article explores the phenomenon of voluntary citizen participation in policing in Sweden, based on an analysis of 9280 news-media articles. One state-sanctioned (the Volunteers of the Police) and one autonomous civic (Missing People Sweden) initiative were examined, from their respective start until 2017, to understand the role played by police-citizen partnerships in the establishment and legitimation of voluntary policing forms in Sweden. A high degree of integration between police and volunteer work was found, enabling not only effective citizen participation, but also having an influence on police operations. The more effective and publicly visible the voluntary policing bodies were, the more pressure there was on the police to defend its legitimacy, ally itself with the volunteers and regulate the latter's activities while holding them responsible for their actions. Arguably, however, with the police-citizen relationship being one of integration and mutual dependence, the division of labour and the accountability of both parties risk becoming blurred or even confused.

Police volunteers in the Netherlands: a study on policy and practice

“…Police unions tend to consider volunteer schemes as a threat to job security, and paid officers may think that average citizens should not have easy access to sensitive information and intelligence (Gravelle andRogers 2009, Bullock 2017). A further caveat is that volunteer police are, by their nature, unable to achieve the degree of experience that paid officers have, and this raises questions about their professional status and personal confidence (Wolf et al 2016, Uhnoo andLöfstrand 2018). There are risks involved in 'buying in' police volunteers, because, despite their being trained and despite their wearing uniform, they are not regarded in the same way as fully-fledged officers.…”

Blurred boundaries and legal uncertainty in police–volunteer partnerships

“…Loader 2000, Button 2002, Taylor 2007, Yarwood 2007, Crawford 2008 and explored empirically (see, e.g. Shapland and Vagg 1988, Crawford 1998, Sagar 2004, Bullock 2017, Uhnoo and Hansen Löfstrand 2018, van Steden and Mehlbaum 2019. We add to the scholarly literature by exploring how relationships between the police and citizen volunteers unfold in practice, specifically shedding light on the management of boundaries, the blurring of boundaries and implications in terms of legal uncertainty.…”

“…volunteers destructing evidence, obstructing police work, breaching confidentiality, and resorting to vigilantism (Fredricksen and Levin 2004, Sagar 2004, Ayling 2007, Sharp et al 2008, Uhnoo and Hansen Löfstrand 2018. From a union perspective, introducing citizen volunteers is seen as threatening the job security of police employees (Bullock 2017, Uhnoo and Hansen Löfstrand 2018, van Steden and Mehlbaum 2019. While citizen volunteers are generally positive about their involvement and what they do, they feel under-used and not included in the police subculture, and express a wish to work for, not only with, the police (Millie 2019, p. 11).…”

“…Already in the 1980s, neighbourhood-watch and night-patrol groups were introduced (Hörnqvist 2001). Though, in contrast to those traditional types of voluntary policing, VP and MPS are characterised by a high level of interaction and close collaboration with the police (Uhnoo and Hansen Löfstrand 2018), and were chosen with the objective to illuminate how mutual dependencies in police-volunteer partnerships are managed in practice and the implications thereof.…”

Do IT Tools Help Develop Community Policing? Lessons Learned from the Implementation of The National Security Threat Map in Poland

“…Policing is now being widely offered by institutions other than the state, most notably by private companies and by communities on a volunteer basis. Moreover, during the first two decades, we have experienced a strong drive to reshape police management in new directions, such as community policing (Brogden & Nijhar, 2005;van Eijk, Steen, and Verschuere, 2017;Terpstra, 2008;Karlovic & Sucic, 2017), problem-oriented policing (Reising, 2010;Cordner, 2014), strengthening municipal policing (Donnelly, 2013;Maillard & Zagrodzki, 2017), pluralizing of policing (Bayley & Shearing, 1996) and, last but not least, volunteer engagement (Uhnoo & Löfstrand, 2018;Longstaff et al, 2015).…”