As professor of Violence and Policing, I study various forms of violence in public spaces and how violence is used to enforce the moral and legal order. My research focuses on violence between (groups of) youth, threatening and violent confrontations between police and citizens, public disorder, vigilante violence and lynchings.

More information about Don Weenink

As professor of Violence and Policing, I study various forms of violence in public spaces and how violence is used to enforce the moral and legal order.

My research focuses on violence between (groups of) youth, threatening and violent confrontations between police and citizens, public disorder, vigilante violence and lynchings.

I see violence as the intentional infliction of bodily harm in order to change or end the other’s behaviour. Violence is therefore an attempt to dominate the body of another person that causes physical, emotional and mental pain and/or damage.

Violence, or at least the threat of it, plays an important role in guarding moral and legal boundaries. In many societies, the police are assigned an important role in maintaining order, based on the exclusive lawful right to use violence. Policing is not exclusive to the police however; groups of civilians, like vigilantes and lynchers, also use violence to maintain order.

I have published my work in internationally renowned journals such as Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, British Journal of Criminology, British Journal of Sociology, European Journal of Criminology, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency. Sociology, Policing & Society.

My research has been supported by among others a Veni grant from NWO, an ERC Consolidator Grant and I recently received an ERC Advanced Grant for my TURNINGVIOLENT research program.

The central question in the TURNINGVIOLENT research is how interpersonal conflicts between strangers in public spaces develop into physical violence, in particular one-sided violence against victims who no longer pose a threat to the perpetrators. The research is based on video analysis of conflicts between citizens and between police and citizens, coupled with video elicitation interviews with police trainers and martial arts trainers. For more information see the B1 and B2 parts of the proposal.

In addition to the ERC research, I am conducting a comparative study together with Laura Keesman on how European police forces deal with public disorder related to anti-government protest groups. This project is supported by Politie & Wetenschap.

Publications