SCCJR Seminar: Policing Dreams

Policing Dreams

Professor Clifford Shearing, Griffith University & University of Cape Town

Chaired by Dr Julie Berg, University of Glasgow

Clifford Shearing’s talk, entitled ‘Policing Dreams’, utilises Arturo Escobar’s concept of ‘grand designs’ to trace the contours of contemporary policing, within the Anglosphere, out of which the policing that will characterise the 21st Century is emerging. Shearing will argue that, unlike the policing of the 20th Century, these developments in the governance of safety and security will be shaped less by grand ideological designs and more by the shifting, and unprecedented, socio-material landscapes that are transforming human societies.

Professor Clifford Shearing holds positions at the Universities of Griffith, Cape Town and Montreal. A principal focus of his academic work has been on widening criminology’s boundaries, with a primary focus on ‘security governance’. His policy and applied work has been concerned with enhancing safety. Shearing’s research and writing has become increasingly centred on criminology’s responses to the challenges of the Anthropocene.