POLICE SCIENCE AND FEYERABEND’S PERSPECTIVE ON SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE
Keywords:
police scienc, police sciences, feyerabend, against method, evidence-based policing, epistemological anarchismAbstract
There are ongoing discussions on the definition of Police Science (or Police Sciences, in Brazil). Despite that, its object seem well delimited: the whole policing activity and everything that may impact policing or public order. This extremely wide scope entails adopting multiple methodologies – “borrowed” from other disciplines, due to the lack of a methodology of its own. Notwithstanding the methodological variety, knowledge produced by Police Science must
take into account traditional knowledge, produced by the experiences of police institutions and their members, as well as ethical and legal aspects. That suggests that the adoption of a broader epistemology, such as Paul Feyerabend’s propositions, may have a large contribution to the production of knowledge in Police Science. Throughout this study, many aspects of Feyerabend’s epistemology were discussed and applied to Police Science studies. Four central ideas of his work were highlighted: epistemological anarchism, incommensurability, counterinduction and interactionism. Feyerabend’s points were contrasted to philosophical discussions on Police Science and some points of recent discussions on evidence-based policing. The conclusion was that the interaction between scientific knowledge and traditional police knowledge is indispensable for a scientific production of higher quality and applicability. This interaction may occur either through the immersion of academics in police departments, or law enforcement officers on academia. However, irrespective of the way interaction may happen, intellectual development of the police officers is necessary so that rapprochement is possible and fruitful.
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