Abstract

DURAO, Susana. The Production Of Police Maps: Practices And Policies Of The Portuguese Urban Police. Intersecciones antropol. [online]. 2009, vol.10, n.1, pp.43-61. ISSN 1850-373X.

This paper aims to question the transformation of the street-level Portuguese police mandate. The first part focuses on the main organizational and functional characteristics, of the public security system over the last thirty years. Transformations in the policing model are also discussed, which assume that society is relatively pacific with low crime rates. Finally, the police mandate is analysed from the perspective of the routines of daily life in Lisbon's police precincts and the production of cognitive police maps that take form in the three most implemented police patrol services: on foot, in automobiles, and in one local program. On the one hand, police follow the axes of a pro-social policing. On the other hand, there is an increasing axis of an anti-criminal activity, even if the reasons for this are unclear. Even if there is a great plurality of police work and skills (that have increased through the dynamics of proximity), as is documented in the paper, it is nonetheless possible to detect a wider standardisation in policing practices in urban areas that inscribes them within the narrow logic of "the fight against crime"

Keywords : Policing; Cognitive maps; Professional skills; Proximity.

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