Main description:

This book critically examines how countries across Europe have dealt with the COVID crisis from a policing and security perspective. Across the chapters, contributors from different countries examine the data, press coverage, and provide professional observations on how policing, law enforcement, police powers and community relations were managed. They focus on how security and governmental actors often failed to align with the formal scripts that were specifically designed for crisis-management, resulting in the wavering application of professional discretion and coercive powers. Their different approaches were evident: in some regions police were less dominantly visible compared to other regions, where the police used a top-down visible and repressive stance vis-a-vis public alignment with COVID rules, including the imposition of lockdown and curfews. Some contributors draw on data from the COROPOL (Corona Policing) Monitor which collated data on crime, plural policing and public order in Europe and around the world during the early phases of the COVID crisis. Overall, this book seeks to provide comparative critical insights and commentary as well as a practical and operational understanding of security governance during the COVID-19 crisis and the lessons learned to improve future preparedness.

Contents:

1. Introductory Chapter: Presenting a Conceptual Framework for Critical Analysis and Mutual Comparison.- 2. Looking Back at the Data: Reconstruction Chapter: Ferwerda et al.- 3. Security Governance and Policing of COVID-19: Dutch versus the Obedient Germans and Belgians? Eric Bervoets and Monica Den Boer.- 4. Security Governance and Policing of COVID-19 in the Nordic Countries?.- 5. Security Governance and Policing of COVID-19 in Central and East-Europe? Andrej Sotlar, Branko Lobnikar, Krunoslav Borovic, Irena Cajner Mraovic, Gregor Wenda.- 6. Security Governance and Policing of COVID-19 in South Europe: Fines, Street Surveillance, and Police Violence Amidst a Total Lockdown. Prospective author: Anastassia Tsoukala.- 7. Security Governance and Policing of COVID-19 in the Atlantic Archipelago: An Orderly Affair Amidst the Brexit Divorce? Prospective authors: Saskia Hufnagel, Queen Mary University London and Ben Bradford.- 8. Concluding Chapter: Summary of Principal Findings and Lessons to be Learnt, by the Editors, Eric Bervoets and Monica den Boer.