exposure of citizens and investments to crime prevention. Moreover, they deal with whether the city has certain systems in place aimed at reducing the opportunity or attractiveness of criminal behavior, preventing crime from happening, helping offenders and affected parties reconcile and reducing recidivisms (Silva and Morera, 2014). Effective and transparent policing plays an important role in instilling the aspect of safety in the residents. An effective force that is trusted by its citizens can help prevent civil unrest and instigate order during times of emergency. The main foci of both the indicators that are relevant and studied in the context of Trondheim are: • • •
To what extent is policing effective in the city? To what extent do the citizens trust the police? What are the technologies utilized to deter crime? And how are they incorporated into the city’s environment?
Both indicators involve extensive research on the available literature and semi-structured interviews with the stakeholders – the research personnel at NTNU, Police department and the residents of the city (national and international). Being a subjective study in nature, certain inferences to statistics were also made to confirm the validity of the answers, which will be presented in the findings of the study.
2.3.
Findings of the study
The findings of the study on two indicators of goal 5 of CRF – “Effective measures to deter crime” and “Competent policing” are divided based on three major heads: • • •
The literature study – involving reports published by the police department The semi-structured interviews with the research personnel at NTNU and the police station The semi-structures interviews with the students – native and the international community
To understand the ways in which police deter crime in Norway, it is only natural to look at how they are trained to face various adversities. Through the literature study, it is understood that the police in Norway are trained in The Norwegian Police University (PHS) – a central educational institution for the police department – which has its own board and directors as the governing body. This university has the responsibility for providing basic education (Bachelor) for those wishing to serve in the police. In addition to Bachelor courses the university also provides further education and training for those already employed in the police. PHS offers its research in four main areas (Politihøgskolen, 2014): 1) 2) 3) 4)
police organization, culture and behavior police strategies, practices and methods police challenges police as a social institution
The ongoing research uses methods connected to social sciences, psychology, sociology, criminology etc. identifying its multi-disciplinary nature towards finding relevant solutions to various issues and cases as faced in the area. With such a background, the police are well-trained in addressing challenges and working towards upholding order and security in the society. While this is the background of almost every police officer in duty, the situation however differs from one context to another. The techniques of policing, according to the ongoing research includes, proactive policing – controlling a situation rather than just responding to it – and predictive policing – which involves various technologies that collect data regarding crime from past databases and analyze or rather predict the spaces susceptible to crime or terror incidences. Since the attacks in 2015 in Paris, Norway has been actively taking steps or reforms towards introducing information and communication technologies and making them a central part in detecting crime. The police department in Oslo uses a program called as SARA (scanning, analysis, responsive assessment) as preventive policy which deals with the cases of pick-pocketing. At the moment, the police departments have a central database assessing crime at a national level, instead of analyzing the districts as a singular entity. This can be attributed to the fact that none of all regions have the same criminal activity, meaning different districts will require wide-ranging technologies to deter crime. 5
