Special Issue: Crime Prevention and Community Resilience from IPES 2014 in Sofia
It is a great pleasure to present the Special Issue (SI), 17.2, entitled, Crime Prevention and Community Resilience; Multi-Dimensional Perspectives. It is an embodiment of the post-conference efforts that uniquely characterize the meetings of International Police Executive Symposium, IPES. Participants are encouraged as well as goaded to continue the work started at a meeting in which they hear presentations of papers, key note addresses, take part in roundtables, and engage in various forms of intellectual and cultural activities over a period of five/six day in a hectic pace.
Crime Prevention and Community Resilience is the fruit of dedicated post-conference efforts of the global participants of the 25th meeting of IPES that took place in Sofia (Bulgaria) on this very exact theme which was chosen by the Host of that IPES Meeting, namely, the Government of Bulgaria. The selection of the theme for the Sofia Meeting by the Bulgarian Host was in keeping with IPES practice and tradition. The Host selects a topic of importance for their country so that they can hear various international perspectives on their chosen topic relating to public order, safety and security including the methods, devices and measures that have worked best in some countries in confronting and resolving challenges. Thus, IPES Meetings facilitate exchanges of best practices for all participating institutions and countries as well as, most specifically, for the host country. IPES religiously keeps the interest and the wishes of the Host in the forefront.
Presented in this SI are views from around the world, multidimensional perspectives: The United Kingdom, by an English academic who teaches in the British University in Hanoi; Australia, by two academics from two different universities in the country; South Africa, by a police practitioner- turned –academic; the USA, by two academics and one police practitioner; Indonesia, by an Executive Director of Global Center of Well-Being in Djakarta which is also involved in law enforcement capacity building and finally, from Thailand, by an American Academic of Thai origin and a Graduate of the National Institute of Public Administration in Thailand. Two of the papers were not presented at the meeting: One was selected from the general stock of forthcoming papers of Police Practice and Research: An International Journal (PPR). The journal is affiliated with IPES. Another paper is by an American academic who was invited for the issue by the Guest Editors who, too, represent two principal dimensions of IPES, research and practice. Professor Lemieux is an academic directing George Washington University’s police program and Owen Hortz is a police executive from Queensland Police Department. They were both very enthusiastic participants of the meeting in Sofia.
The papers included here were peer-reviewed from among the papers presented in Sofia and evaluated as the most suitable ones for PPR. The rest of the papers are being published in a book very soon. These laudable intellectual endeavors have been possible as IPES meetings are conceived as high class, exclusive, and purpose-driven retreats which facilitate a sizeable group of police practitioners and researchers from all continents of the world to live together for 6 days in luxurious hotels where they are provided with fully free hospitality, besides full exposure to local culture and institutions of criminal justice, sightseeing trips, indigenous cuisine, exotic experiences and so on so that the participants carry with them lasting impression of professional encounters, intellectual stimulation and a refreshing sojourn.
In this issue, readers will find an invitation next meeting of IPES which will be hosted in Washington DC by George Washington University (August 8–13, 2016). We are expecting a big slice of the globe in the meeting, researchers and practitioners, who will assemble in a most congenial venue, to discuss, debate, interact and exchange views on issues of research and practice in policing as they delve more deeply into the topic of the meeting; ‘Urban Security: Challenges for the 21st Century Global Cities’. This meeting, too, will contribute a SI of PPR with the selected papers and, an edited volume with the bulk of the papers.
Founding Editor-in chief, Police Practice and Research: An International Journal, PPR,
http://www.tandfonline.com/GPPR
Founding President, International Police Executive Symposium (IPES, www.ipes.info)
Edited at the Office of the International Police Executive Symposium (IPES, www.ipes.info)