The Critical Police Studies Network (CPSN) is a collaborative platform for researchers working on policing and accountability across European democracies and beyond. For us, critical policing studies means examining policing not as a neutral function of democratic governance but as a seat of power shaped by historical, political and social forces. We are interested in how policing practices are racialised and gendered, how police power is expanding through surveillance technologies and militarisation  and how oversight institutions struggle to ensure accountability. At the same time, we explore how communities, movements and civil society actors contest and reshape policing from below. We draw on diverse theoretical traditions, from political sociology, critical legal studies and democratic theory, to feminist, decolonial and abolitionist analyses. We work with a range of methods, including ethnography, legal analysis, comparative case studies and quantitative approaches.

The network brings together scholars from across Europe and beyond who share a commitment to rigorous, engaged research on policing. We aim to foster mentorship between early career and senior scholars, facilitate collaborative projects including conference panels, special issues and grant applications, and provide a supportive environment for navigating the methodological, ethical and pychological challenges that come with researching repressive institutions. We welcome new members from all disciplinary backgrounds who share this commitment.

The Critical Policing Network emerged from a call by two postdoctoral researchers, Dr. Melanie Sofia Hartvigsen and Dr. Charlotte Thomas-Hébert, both affiliated with the ERC-funded VINO project (Variation in Institutional Oversight of Police Misconduct) at Aalborg University in Copenhagen. Their founding impulse was to provide a supportive environment where scholars could address the methodological and ethical challenges inherent in researching repressive institutions. Recognizing the absence of a dedicated European network for critical police studies, they sought to create an interdisciplinary space built from the ground-up where early-career researchers could connect, share work, and collectively shape the field’s agenda from perspectives and social/institutional positions often marginalized in academia. The initiative was launched with a workshop in Copenhagen, bringing together 16 primarily early-career scholars from across Europe, with support from the Carlsberg Foundation.