Pre-crime and policing of migrants: Anticipatory action meets management of concerns

Abstract

In 2015 the Norwegian police initiated its first national intelligence project—Operation Migrant. One central aim was to predict crime challenges related to increased migration to improve future resource allocation. Based on qualitative interviews with those managing the operation, this article foregrounds the question of how attempts to reduce uncertainties and manage what is perceived as migration-related threats and risks, shape not only ideas of risk in policing of migration but also influence the importance of precautionary logic in regular policing. First, we analyse how knowledge production built on risk management and sharing of risk intelligence products are co-produced by intelligence staff and decision-makers. Thereafter, we discuss paradoxical outcomes of a calculated and precautionary logic applied to policing migrants. Concretely, the article focuses on how anticipatory knowledge practices seem to enlarge the space for probabilities, making it even more complex and contested to reduce and control uncertainty.