Aim: Keeping up with the international law enforcement literature sometimes runs the risk of bringing together disparate topics in a single publication, as the theme of this issue of the Observer demonstrates. We can be convinced that, while our war-torn planet is giving priority to the centralised state police model, municipal police forces and community policing, which continue to be models at the forefront of strengthening local public security, must not lose their importance. Civil associations, which are an essential part of local security, are not far removed from the principle of decentralisation, and in our country they are embodied in the civil police. At the same time, migration flows, which have become a global phenomenon since 2015, continue to preoccupy the practice of law enforcement administration as well as theory. Only while the former sees illegal migration as a security and cultural threat, the latter cannot forget the humanity-driven protection of refugees. Nor can the fight against terrorism be left off the agenda, especially where these dramatic conflicts are accompanied by the rearrangement of different civilisational cultures. Lastly, the future role of artificial intelligence, for example in areas such as justice, cannot be ignored. Methodology: The authors of the studies primarily rely on empiricism to present the regularities of their research subject, but they also draw on methods tried and tested in the social sciences, especially in sociology, such as interviews and various questionnaires. There is also a lesson to be learned from the fact that the literature, mainly in English, also tries to develop a clear conceptual apparatus, as we have seen in the case of police research in Hungary. Findings: In his review of community policing, Kálmán Etter writes: ‘The publication reveals a specific form of organisation, in which community policing is a group of a few professional police officers and civil servants, operating in individual towns or in the urban areas of larger cities.’ Zsolt Lippai sums up the efforts of citizens to ensure public safety and the tasks of police science: ‘The increasing involvement of non-state actors in the creation of security and the use of methods other than those traditionally used in what might be called “traditional” policing have given rise to a number of theoretical and practical questions which police researchers are called upon to answer.’ Bernadett Bacsó draws attention to a little-studied consequence of migration: ‘In recent years, migration, especially migration driven by young men, has changed the gender balance in destination countries, as this trend leads to a lack of potential female partners.’ The main aim of the study was to build a picture of what Americans think about current issues such as national security, terrorism, counter-terrorism policies, immigration and religion. Tamás Pressburger cites the perceptions of US citizens about terrorism, but also what motivates these views: ‘Based on the experiment, the author concludes that when white subjects are informed that whites are projected to become a demographic minority in the United States by 2060, they are more likely to endorse the use of torture against suspected terrorists.’ Katalin Erdélyi's review highlights the controversial role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the administration of justice: ‘The author's conclusion in this excellent article is that the coexistence of AI and human judges risks a covert transfer of decision-making power.’ It could also be argued that the computer cannot take over the formation of internal judicial convictions because only humans can do that. Value: The modern rule of law makes humanity a core value. The studies to which issue XIII of the Observer draws attention, not infrequently accompanied by concern, represent this value system.
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May 25, 2024
János Sallai 
