“Algorithmic Governance and Cultures of Policing: Comparative Perspectives from Norway, India, Brazil, Russia, and South Africa (AGOPOL),” Nr. 313626

Project No. 313626
Project title: „Algorithmic Governance and Cultures of Policing: Comparative Perspectives from Norway, India, Brazil, Russia, and South Africa (AGOPOL)“
Project manager in MRU: prof. dr. Aurelija Pūraitė
Project title: from 2021-04-01 to 2024-03-31
Project coordinator –Work Research Institute (AFI)

Summary – This project will build knowledge on how advances in artificial intelligence are shaping policing in different cultural, political, legal and economic environments. Police departments around the world are deploying Artificial Intelligence (AI) to support decision-making in crime and disorder prevention. The use of digital technologies and the growing role of private security, technology and consultancy companies are transforming policing and the ways in which social order and security are maintained, law is enforced, and crime is prevented and investigated. However, there is little understanding of this ongoing radical transformation of policing cultures. To change this, AGOPOL has brought together a team of 15 renowned scholars and researchers from the fields of cultural and area studies, anthropology, criminology, sociology, history, literature and law. The project is based on qualitative and ethnographic research on policing in Norway, Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa. Drawing on these cases, we will analyse the global cultural transformation of policing as a consequence of the interconnected processes of data processing, securitisation and commercialisation of security. The analysis will reveal the various consequences of algorithmic governance for society, police forces and those policed: from the transformation of knowledge cultures and organisations to algorithmic injustice and its impact on legitimacy and public trust. A comparative cross-cultural analysis of policing as a global digitised project is planned.

The project is funded by the Norwegian Research Council.

More about the project: here