The use of predictive policing to control fisheries crime

Abstract

Shifting the gaze to ‘more-than-human’ governance of crime control: The use of predictive policing to control fisheries crime

Digital criminological research has shown that there is little scientific evidence that the application of predictive policing in crime control works and, moreover, can lead to individual human and social harms (Van Brakel, 2025 Ugwudike, 2022). However, up till now research has focused on the deployment of such technologies in urban contexts. When shifting the gaze to non-urban contexts the crime control assemblage changes significantly. The eco-socio-technical contexts, whether urban, rural, forested, or marine, shape the nature of potential harms, extending beyond those affecting humans alone such as animals, habitats, geomorphic figures and ecosystems but also the agencies conducting the control such as non-profit organisations, climate activists, and private companies. This implies that when studying the harms and governance of predictive policing in such contexts we need to consider these ‘other’ agencies, that are currently left out of criminal law. Building on the premise that harms of algorithmic surveillance such as predictive policing should be understood as rhizomatic (Van Brakel and Govaerts, 2025) and drawing on insights from ‘more-than-human’ geography (Lorimer and Hodgetts, 2024) we will present a case study of the use of predictive policing to control fisheries crimes to analyse the potential ‘more-than-human harms’ and how these insights can inform the governance of crime control at sea.

This talk is part of the series "Critical Data & Surveillance Studies" organized by Professor Azadeh Akbari.

 

Date & Time

The talk will take place on April 22, 2026, at 4:30 p.m. at the Seminarhaus, room SH 2.106 (Campus Westend, Goethe University).

It is also possible to join the talk online via Zoom.

 

Photo by Lianhao Qu auf Unsplash

Bio

Rosamunde Van Brakel

Rosamunde Van Brakel works as an Assistant Professor and postdoctoral researcher in criminology at the Faculty of Law & Criminology at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). Since 2021 she teaches and coordinates the MA course Legal, Ethical and Social Issues of Artificial Intelligence. Currently she is co-PI of the FWO-SNSF Weave project INFRASEC –Infrastructuring International Security: A comparative analysis of algorithmic passenger security and she is involved as promotor for the VUB in the EU HORIZON Salvus (Ensuring Safer justice outcomes in online, including undercover, child sexual abuse investigations) project. Previously she has been co-PI of the FWO project: Smart Video Surveillance in Smart Cities: Deconstructing Security and Surveillance Discourses and the IBOF Project Future-proofing Human Rights. Developing thicker forms of accountability. Previously, she set up and coordinated the VUB Research Chair in Surveillance Studies (2019-2023), co-founded and was executive director of the non-profit organization Privacy Salon and managing director of the international ) Computers, Privacy and Data Protection Conference (2014-2021 and Co-Director Surveillance Studies Network (2019-2023).

Nandor Knust

Nandor Knust is PI of ECO-CRIM-NET – a global network for the monitoring and investigation of crimes against ecosystems and interims professor of ‘law and society’ at the Fulda University of Applied Science. He is a legal scholar educated in Frankfurt and Paris in the fields of Public International Law and Criminology and gained practical experience during his time at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and working with international, regional and non-governmental organisations within the field of human rights, atrocity crimes and transitional justice. Before moving to the Arctic University of Norway to work as an associate professor within an interdisciplinary project on the use of new technologies to combat transnational organized crime - he was head of the ‘Section International Criminal Law’ at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law, deputy coordinator of the International Max Planck Research School on Comparative Criminal Law, – as well as coordinator of Max Planck Law: a network of nine different Max Planck Institutes.