Sirpa Virta
Professor of policing and police management at Tampere University, Finland. I am also an Adjunct Professor at National Defence University, in Helsinki, and a Visiting Professor at Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia. I have published a lot of articles and book chapters since 2000, mainly about community policing, security governance and police management. I have also been involved in CEPOL conferences as lecturer, course manager and organiser since 2001.
Sessions
The police face new kind of public order challenges due to the COVID19 pandemia. Individual health security behaviour in public spaces, obedience of quarantine rules, curfew and restrictions of movement should be controlled by the police. Politicians and authorities ask for help and assistance from the police, in order to be able to implement national and local orders and restrictions. The emerged practical challenges for the police are many, including legal issues, resources and skills. Confusion and uncertainty indicate also more fundamental conceptual and theoretical question of what is public order and how it should be policed today? What kind of implications this development has to police training and education?