Call for Papers

Preparing Law Enforcement for the Digital Age

CEPOL European Research & Science Conference
08 - 10 June 2022

Mykolas Romeris University, Vilnius, Lithuania

The Digital Age – often referred to also the Information Age – took off in the late second half of the 20th century and its ramifications are now impregnating almost all spheres of public and private life. The Digital Age is signified by a ubiquitous use of and reliance on networked information, distributed, disseminated, and consumed by a myriad of stationary and mobile devices, reshaping mundane everyday routines as well as shifting boundaries of data-based scientific discovery and intervention. As societal practices have been moulded and created by transformative digital dynamics, so have been the institutional bodies supposed to enforce the laws of modern society, foremost the police, but also other state authorities. The emergence of new forms of criminal behaviour in the last half century has coincided with new tools and methods at the hand of law enforcement to control and curb those. While the Digital Age has been with us contemporaries for a while, it might be too early to claim it has been coming of age, as new perils and fresh promising tools and methods are catching the attention of experts and the general public alike: omnipresent cyber-threats in the global news and bourgeoning cybercrime on any societal level and scale, increasingly initiated by organised crime, stand against the grand hopes attached to artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing or enhanced interoperability at the disposal of law enforcement. Those are clear markers that the digital age is still evolving, posing an array of novel challenges.

That is not to say, that more traditional analogue problems for law enforcement in advanced democratic society have disappeared. Controversial policing tactics and inadequate police behaviour has conquered global and Europeans news recently raising serious questions in regard to fundamental human rights and justified expectations by civic society towards the conduct of the law enforcement agencies acting on their behalf.
The recent pandemic global crisis has stressed the importance of digital tools, processes and instruments for our economies, our daily life and how this has and will change and shape the challenges and opportunities for law enforcement in the next decades.

CEPOL was established as the “European Police College” 20 years ago in 2001 with the aim to join forces on a European level in preparing law enforcement officials through training and education for tackling the challenges of the various manifestations of crime. Looking out for scientific knowledge developed within and outside the habitats of law enforcement agencies and reaching out to experts at universities, bringing together law enforcement practitioners, educators and expert scholarship, has been an essential pillar of the agency since. CEPOL Research & Science Conferences have been one of the rare European events over the last two decades, where scholars and professionals are meeting for exchange and evaluation of scientific findings, lately in an online-first format on the “Pandemic effects on Law Enforcement Practice and Training”.
Therefore, CEPOL, the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training is pleased to invite research-based papers for presentation at the next CEPOL European Research & Science Conference, organised in cooperation with Mykolas Romeris University of Lithuania.
Concerned specifically with the learning of law enforcement officials in Europe and with the transfer of scientific, evidence- and research-based insights and findings from the academic to the professional sphere, CEPOL invites contributions to its conference-event based on empirical studies on a variety of aspects and topics of policing and enforcing the law in the Digital Age.

The conference organisers are inviting for the following topics and tracks:
• Training and education of law enforcement officials IN and FOR the Digital Age
• Challenges of Artificial Intelligence for law enforcement in the Digital Age
• Challenges for Cross-Agency and Cross-Border Cooperation and Coordination in the Digital Age
• Challenges of Fundamental Rights and Civic Expectations towards law enforcement and law enforcement officials in the Digital Age
• Open Corner: The Digital Age for Law Enforcement

Abstracts of papers (max. 350 words) for presenting in one of the tracks shall be submitted via the conference homepage at https://conference-digital.cepol.europa.eu. **
Submissions will be assessed by a Programme Committee and presenters will be informed about acceptance in due time.
The conference language is English**. There is no conference fee, but prior registration and acceptance by the organisers is obligatory.

Key dates:
15 Feb Conference page re-opens for submissions
15 Mar Deadline for paper-submissions
01 Apr Programme Committee informs about acceptance of proposed papers
15 May Finalisation of Programme
08-10 June Conference, Vilnius (LT)

This Call for Papers closed on 2022-03-15 23:59 (Europe/Vilnius).