The "23rd Kolloquium zur Polizeigeschichte" will be organized this year by the new Lectoraat History of the Police of the Dutch Police Academy. It will take place from Thursday July, 5th till Saturday, July, 7th in Warnsveld, a small town near Zutphen. The main theme will be ‘Police and crime: detectives, criminal investigation and public images of crime fighting’. Apart from that, there will be an opportunity to present papers on other themes in police history.
For more than two decades, the Kolloquium zur Polizeigeschichte meets once a year to discuss new findings in historical and social-scientific research on the police. These meetings offer a good opportunity for especially young researchers to present their work to an international, interdisciplinary audience.
Policing has always comprised a variety of activities, (criminal) investigation being probably to most salient one. Originating in espionage, diplomacy and private bounty hunting, criminal investigation developed during the nineteenth century into a specific form of policing. It soon attracted public attention, for example as a result of the publication of the memoirs of the first head of the Sureté Nationale François Eugene Vidocq. The special kinds of knowledge that it required, gave the profession of detective a high social standing and laid at the end of the 19th century the social foundation for criminology, forensic sciences and detective stories. During the 20th century, criminal investigators played a leading role in the professionalization of policing and in transnational police cooperation. In the 1970s, criminal investigation got a new impetus when the US-government started its ‘war on drugs’. In some countries this changed the public image of policing. The fight against organized crime and terrorism urged police forces to change their modes of operation and to intensify international cooperation.
Papers for the Kolloquium can be devoted to themes like:
- The profession of detectives
- Crime fighting
- Private investigators
- Forensics
- The image of detectives in literature, movies, TV etcetera.
- International cooperation in policing
- Political policing
Apart from the main theme, it will be possible to presents papers on other themes in police history. Travelling expenses cannot be reimbursed. For those who present a paper, lodging will be arranged.