Contemporary criminology has long theorised surveillance as the cornerstone of social control. From Bentham’s Panopticon to Foucault’s disciplinary society, and from Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of the “synopticon” to other surveillance studies, the prevailing assumption holds that the totalising gaze of the state and its apparatuses produces order, compliance, and the internalisation of norms. Yet armed…
Category: Zero Tolerance Policing
Dmytro Yagunov: The Imperial Digital Panopticon: When ‘Big Brother’ Goes from Metaphor to Reality
An experiment has been launched in Moscow to exercise total control over migration flows, going far beyond traditional administration. Speaking live on TV Centre and Moscow 24 television channels, the mayor of the imperial capital, Sergei Sobyanin, effectively described a system that realises the darkest predictions of George Orwell in his immortal novel 1984. While…
Britanica: Police Brutality in the United States
Police brutality in the United States, the unwarranted or excessive and often illegal use of force against civilians by U.S. police officers. Forms of police brutality have ranged from assault and battery (e.g., beatings) to mayhem, torture, and murder. Some broader definitions of police brutality also encompass harassment (including false arrest), intimidation, and verbal abuse,…
UNDP: Transforming Police in Сrisis
When danger strikes, people often turn to the police. But in many parts of the world, that’s not an option, either due to mistrust, abusive practices, or simply because the police are out of reach. In crisis-affected regions, effective and accountable policing is critical for individuals and communities to feel safe. The International Day of Police…
Report Finds That Gardaí Violated Garda Policies and Human Rights Obligations When Policing Protest
The Irish Network of Legal Observers has today published its first report on a recent protest which took place in the vicinity of Dublin’s port tunnel on Saturday 4 October 2025. The new Network, which is co-convened by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) and the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the University…
Dmytro Yagunov: How to Return Trust to the Police in Postwar Ukraine
During the war, the Government had the priority to combat against Russian occupiers, where a traditional peace-time issue of human rights approach has been replaced with humanitarian law. There are grounds to believe that Ukraine will have a generation of police officers grown up on the long distance from procedural justice and human rights. We can also presume…