In March 2024 we conducted an interdisciplinary workshop on policing, cities and digitalization with the support of CAIS. The aim of the workshop was to invite criminologists, sociologists and urban scholars to think broadly on the ways digitalization, big data and new technologies change and challenge policing cities. The departure point to the workshop was that digital tools reshape police practices in the urban arena and reconfigure the interface between the physical and the digital spaces in police work. In addition, digitalization facilitates and decentralizes law enforcement actions. Finally, digitalization promotes novel modes of representation, data-collection, communication and interaction that challenge police, and introduces new spaces for negotiation that transform police-community relations. Hence, policing the urban arena in the digital age produces a multitude of new research questions we wished to discuss in the workshop. In this presentation we will present the theme of the workshop, the main topics and questions raised and the outcome of the workshop.
