Springer Handbook on Policing in Central and Eastern Europe

Tracing two decades of changing police practices in 20 countries of Central and Eastern Europe, this book provides country-by-country entries on police organization, crime trends, police and the media, current and emerging trends in policing, and more. From the Back Cover Policing in Central and Eastern Europe has changed greatly since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Some Central and  Eastern European countries are constituent members of the European Union, while others have been trying to harmonize with the EU and international requirements for a more democratic policing and developments in accordance with Western European and international policing standards, especially in regard to issues of legality and legitimacy. Changes in the police training system (basic and advanced), internationalization of policing due to  transnationalization of crime and deviance, and new police organizational structures and agencies have impacted new cultures of policing (from exclusively state to plural policing). This timely volume examines developments in the last two decades to learn the nature of these changes within Central and Eastern Europe, and their impact on police culture, as well as on society as a whole. The development of police research has varied widely throughout Central and Eastern Europe: in some countries, it has developed significantly, while in others it is still in its infancy. This work allows for a transfer of ideas and models of police organization and policing, with an aim to provide consistent and comparable data across all of the countries discussed. For the twenty countries covered, this systematic work provides: short country-based information on police organization and social control; crime and disorder trends in the last 20 years with an emphasis on policing, police training and police educational systems; changes in policing in the last 20 years; police and the media; present trends in policing (public and private, multilateral, plural policing); policing urban and rural communities; recent research trends in research on policing; and future developments. About the Author Gorazd Meško, Ph.D., is Professor of Criminology and Dean in the Faculty of Criminal Justice and Security, University of Maribor, Slovenia. He has been a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge (1995, 2011-2013) and Oxford (1996, 1999), as well as a visiting professor at Grand Valley State University, Michigan, USA (2000). He conducted a post-doctoral research (OSI-HESP) on crime prevention at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, UK in 2001. In addition, Gorazd Meško is a member of the scientific board of the International PhD in Criminology at the Catholic University in Milan, Italy. He also serves as the editor in chief of the Journal of Criminal Investigation and Criminology (orig. Revija za kriminalistiko in kriminologijo) and a member of the editorial board of the Policing – An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management. His research fields are crime prevention and provision of safety/security, policing, comparative criminology, fear of crime, and crimes against the environment.   Charles B. Fields, Ph.D., is Professor of Criminal Justice and Police Studies in the College of Justice and Safety at Eastern Kentucky University, Kentucky, USA. He has a B.A. (1980) and M.A. (1981) in Political Science from Appalachian State University, and a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice Theory (1984) from Sam Houston State University, USA. He has taught for the past 28 years at several universities in the United States, and was Department Chair of Criminal Justice at the California State University, San Bernardino, and Corrections and Juvenile Justice Studies at Eastern Kentucky University. He has been a visiting lecturer at several institutions in Finland. He is a member of numerous regional, national, and international professional associations and has published 11 edited bo