Comparative Perspectives on Law Enforcement Decision-Making Processes and Their Complexities

Dear Colleagues,

In an era of globalization, our world is rapidly changing due to geopolitics, the recent pandemic (COVID-19), digitalization, and various types of threats to social order (e.g., war in Ukraine, the natural hazards in the Middle East, and what Ulrick Beck famously referred to as ‘the risk society’). These have transformed nearly every human activity, human decision-making process, and associated social and law enforcement practice as a result. If criminal justice systems are in some way institutional microcosms of wider social trends, it is crucial to capture their dynamics by highlighting the roles of comparative criminology and evidence-based practices used by law enforcement agencies, as well as other actors who shape specific criminal justice systems, including policing. We believe that by adopting a comparative stance regarding (i) various jurisdictions and police organisations, (ii) the role of cultural and legal contexts, (iii) the level of discretion applied, and (iv) extra-legal and legal factors that may drive decision-making processes, new information will be revealed. We believe that because such processes and the abovementioned factors are part of the multi-transnational, and interconnected, globalized systems that can raise ethical and methodological challenges, it is also important to highlight and reflect on these social trends when researching such topics. This is often explained as reflexivity, the process of reflection (on who we are, what we study, who takes part in our research, and why we decide to approach a specific agenda in a particular way).

Being a reflective researcher should prompt our critical thinking, leading us to question the validity and replicability of our findings—hence the knowledge created by us, the researchers. This, however, should also help us provide different recommendations to improve the research process further and offer new solutions that could be used in the future by others, thus complementing the role of comparative criminology and highlighting the role of decision-making and its complexities (i.e., its broad definitions, human errors that may lead to confirmation bias, wrong decision-making, abuse of power, or contributions to miscarriages of justice). All of the above may help us question the status quo and the effectiveness of law enforcement in general.

Given that decision-making can be approached from different angles, depending on the definition applied and the field of science we wish to represent (e.g., investigative psychology, comparative policing, or the law), in this Special Issue of Social Sciences, we invite papers from practitioners, students, and scholars who work in such areas and who can offer innovative methods or approaches to address the complexity of navigating decision-making processes based on certain decisions that must be made within a specific country or under a specific criminal justice model, in order to determine both policing and criminal justice outcomes and the social outcomes that result from such processes.

We warmly welcome authors from various countries to submit their work to us. Studies based on quantitative or qualitative empirical research, secondary data analysis, literature reviews, or theoretical models, surrounding the following topics/research themes are welcomed in particular:

• Law enforcement decision-making processes used to deal with offenders, (alleged) victims, or witnesses and the protection of their rights.
• The role of comparative criminology in shaping comparative perspectives on law enforcement practices or policy transfer in criminal justice.
• Evidence-based practices, policing models, institutional arrangements, and/or legislative approaches offered within a comparative context (e.g., European countries that are part of or outside the European Union, the United States of America, Canada, etc.) when determining criminal justice outcomes and applying discretion.
• Ethical issues and methodological challenges faced when exploring law enforcement decision-making.
• The role of reflexivity in researching a specific policing model or criminal justice system.

Dr. Monika Baylis
Prof. Dr. Ray Bull
Dr. Matt Long
Guest Editors

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• comparative criminology and policing
• law enforcement decision-making processes
• discretion
• ethical issues/methodological approaches in international criminal justice research
• comparative criminological reflexivity
• complexities of researching discretion
• policing models
• protecting the rights of the (alleged) victims
• witnesses or offenders
• confirmation bias
• abuse of power
• miscarriages of justice