On the 27th of May, the University of the beautiful city of Utrecht hosted Composite’s second workshop this year. Representatives from all ten country teams gathered to discuss the research project so far. In the focus of the highly interactive one-day workshop stood the first interview phase and the country reports of Work Package 1. Between January and April, over 400 interviews with police officers from all ranks were carried out by the country research teams. This is an impressive feat especially because these interviews are complemented by another 100 interviews with mayors, state prosecutors, members of parliament and members of the emergency services; in short “stakeholders” in police work. The workshop participants juxtaposed the results of their country reports to establish a common understanding of how current changes in the political, economic, social, technological and legal conditions are having an effect on police work in the ten countries. Amongst the most important trends which, according to the interviewees, affect police work in all countries are fragmenting social cohesion, public budget restraints and Europeanization. The latter affected new EU-members such as Rumania and the Czech Republic in very different ways than Germany or Italy, while budget cuts have different reasons across the participating countries and vary widely from country to country. In the next few months, a comparative report will be developed and submitted to the EU-Commission as COMPOSITE’s next Deliverable.  

The workshop was important because it allowed all country teams to discuss not only the results so far but also any difficulties that had arisen with respect to the interviews and the analysis. Moreover, the researchers set out clear guidelines and timelines for the next steps of their work in COMPOSITE. And, of course, the workshop gave space to all participants to develop their positive working relationships.