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Series Editor's Preface

While the literature on police and allied subjects is growing exponentially its impact upon day-to-day policing remains small. The two worlds of research and practice of policing remain disconnected even though cooperation between the two is growing. A major reason is that the two groups speak in different languages. The research work is published in hard-to-access journals and presented in a manner that is difficult to comprehend for a layperson. On the other hand the police practitioners tend not to mix with researchers and remain secretive about their work. Consequently, there is little dialogue between the two and almost no attempt to learn from one another. Dialog across the globe, among researchers and practitioners situated in different continents, are of course even more limited.

I attempted to address this problem by starting the IPES, www.ipes.info, where a common platform has brought the two together. IPES is now in its 17th year. The annual meetings which constitute most major annual event of the organization have been hosted in all parts of the world. Several publications have come out of these deliberations and a new collaborative community of scholars and police officers has been created whose membership runs into several hundreds.

Another attempt was to begin a new journal, aptly called Police Practice and Research: An International Journal, PPR, that has opened the gate to practitioners to share their work and experiences. The journal has attempted to focus upon issues that help bring the two on a single platform.

Clearly, these attempts, despite their success, remain limited. Conferences and journal publications do help create a body of knowledge and an association of police activists but cannot address substantial issues in depth. The limitations of time and space preclude larger discussions and more authoritative expositions that can provide stronger and broader linkages between the two worlds.

It is this realization of the increasing dialogue between police research and practice that has encouraged many of us-my close colleagues and I connected closely with IPES and PPR across the world-to conceive and implement a new attempt in this direction. I have embarked on a book series, Advances in Police Theory and Practice, that seeks to attract writers from all parts of the world. Further, the attempt is to find practitioner contributors. The objective is to make the series a serious contribution to our knowledge of the police as well as to improve police practices. The focus is not only on work that describes the best and successful police practices but also one that challenges current paradigms and breaks new ground to prepare police for the twenty-first century. The series seeks comparative analysis that highlights achievements in distant parts of the world as well as one that encourages an in-depth examination of specific problems confronting a particular police force.

The current book is the product of a unique collaboration between an academic psychologist and two serving police officers who have, over a number of years, brought together their particular areas of expertise in order to develop effective methods of policing HBV. Honor-Based Violence: Policing and Prevention (Karl Anton Roberts, Gerry Campbell, and Glen Lloyd), will fulfill a long-felt need as a source of understanding, guidance and appropriate response to law enforcement officers as well as others who are working in the sphere of honor-based violence (HBV). Readers will find a wealth of information for understanding how to recognize HBV as well as how to provide support and sustenance to the victims, families and communities affected by it. True, HBV has been continuing since the hoary days of yore but only in recent times it has become a matter of concern to law enforcement and related agencies in the Western countries because of the cross-cultural movement of people across the globe. This is a timely contribution befitting the Advances in Police Theory and Practice Series.

It is hoped that through this series it will be possible to accelerate the process of building knowledge about policing and help bridge the gap between the two worlds: the world of police research and police practice. This is an invitation to police scholars and practitioners across the world to come and join in this venture.