Police science as an emerging scientific discipline
| Date | 01 September 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1461355720917413 |
| Author | Christof Nägel,Antonio Vera |
| Published date | 01 September 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Police science as an emerging
scientific discipline
Christof Na
¨gel
German Police University, Germany
Antonio Vera
German Police University, Germany
Abstract
This article examines the epistemological and in stitutional configuration of police science. O ur results indicate that
although police science fulfills the epistemological prerequisites for a scientific discipline, the corresponding
institutionalization, which is a necessary condition of its consolidation, has taken place only partially and in a few
Western countries. Institutional establishment of police science fails primarily because of the lack of a collective
definition of the field, but also because of deficits in the density of interorganizational contacts and the flow of
information. This has several theoretical, but also practical implications, mainly on the issue of institutional legitimacy,
which are discussed at the end of this article.
Keywords
Police science, emergence of scientific disciplines, philosophy of science, new institutionalism, institutional legitimacy
Submitted 04 Jun 2019, Revise received 13 Feb 2020, accepted 03 Mar 2020
Introduction
“Police Science is the scientific study of the police as an
institution and of policing as a process. As an applied dis-
cipline, it combines methods and subjects of other neigh-
boring disciplines within the field of policing. It includes
all of what the police do and all aspects from outside that
have an impact on policing and public order. Currently it is
a working term to describe police studies on the way to an
accepted and established discipline. Police Science tries to
explain facts and acquire knowledge about the reality of
policing in order to generalize and to be able to predict
possible scenarios.” (Jaschke et al., 2007: 23)
This definition, which emerged from a conference orga-
nized by the former European Police College CEPOL (now
the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Train-
ing) in 2007 on the theme Police Science Perspectives:
Towards a European Approach, assumes the existence of
such a scientific discipline, but also points out that it is not
yet fully established. In fact, research activities on a certain
institution or process do not automatically constitute a
scientific discipline. Furthermore, scientific disciplines are
not eternal: they can emerge, evolve, grow, shrink, split up,
and even disappear; and aside from this temporal dimen-
sion, scientific disciplines have spatial scope as the above-
mentioned conference theme illustrates. Some fields, such
as health science, have made significant progress in becom-
ing established scientific disciplines in past decades,
whereas others, such as information science, have been less
successful. Hence, this article investigates the emergence
of police science as a scientific discipline.
Epistemological discourse on the emergence of new
scientific disciplines has been conducted for many years
with little return. In fact, in the majority of cases, it has not
yet gone beyond the scope of explanatory sketches (Stock,
1989) or “first ordering schemes” (Lemaine et al., 1976).
Corresponding author:
Christof Na
¨gel, German Police University, Zum Roten Berge 18, 48165
Mu¨nster, Germany.
Email: christof.naegel@dhpol.de
International Journalof
Police Science & Management
2020, Vol. 22(3) 242–252
ªThe Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1461355720917413
journals.sagepub.com/home/psm
To continue reading
Request your trial