Although the concept of “nodal orientation” has caused quite a bit of ink to flow among the police in the Netherlands, in Belgium strangely enough no one seems to think much of the concept (Bakker and Miltenburg, 2007). Furthermore, making enquiries about this concept in Belgian political practice appears to be frowned upon. Is “nodal orientation” yet another form of what Hoogenboom (2008) recently described as “fictional policing”? Referring to Reiner:“... both police and popular culture embody views of policing and its purposes which are at odds with the reality of police work. They exaggerate the extent to which policing is concerned with serious crime and overestimate the capacity of the police to deal with criminality by detection and deterrence” (Reiner, 1992). Is it merely a lot
of rhetoric with few concrete consequences for the police on the shop floor? (Hoogenboom, 2008). In this regard, Bob Hoogenboom also reminds us of the work of Klockars (Klockars, 1988). Just recently René van Swaaningen has emphasised the need to think in a more cosmopolitan and less parochial fashion in our lowlands (Van de Bunt, Spierenburg, & Van Swaaningen, 2007). He referred to all sorts of new “landscapes” that are gaining in importance. As such, there are “ethnoscapes” in which our social role is determined; “technoscapes” in which the type of work we do and its location is determined; “financescapes” in which money on global markets and stock exchanges changes ownership at high speed; “mediascapes” in which the technical, cultural and political possibilities of news gathering are determined; and “ideoscapes” in which our views on freedom, well-being, human rights, sovereignty and representation are realised. Referring to Castells (2000) and his renowned publication “The rise of the network society”, he highlights the existence of “global flows” that “knot” in a particular way. Hence, the term “nodes” or “nodal”1. According to van Swaaningen, research into the global movements of money flows, goods and people gives our knowledge of cross border crime and irregular migration a new dimension. This article aims to check some aspects of the “nodal orientation” in relation to a specific context. In particular we focus on a very local situation, namely that of the port of Antwerp. In the first instance we look at the theoretical foundation of a nodal orientation based upon notions of flows and nodal points in a network society. We pay particular attention to the social changes in late modern society (globalisation, information, etc.). Secondly, we take a moment to ponder the implications of this perspective regarding supervision and maintenance. For the intertwining of legal and illegal flows, the significant scale of global networks and the development of “critical infrastructures” confronts statically oriented supervisors with a number of challenges. Thinking in terms of networking can create new possibilities for prevention, monitoring and detection. In this article we pursue the question as to what extent the police are aware of the changed circumstances of their work. What are the implications of a nodal orientation within the contours of a democratic constitutional state? e zoom in on one operationalised aspect of the “nodal orientation” concept and pay attention to the cooperation and exchange of information between the police and other law and order maintenance and supervision authorities within the port of Antwerp which, due to its status as a world port, is one of the most globalised cities in Belgium. In global cities the urbanization / crime link is apparent (Findlay, 1999). We investigate whether, and to what extent, the police have structurally developed a policy to gain insight into the various flows (people, goods, money and information) that “knot” together in the port. The results from this research are largely based on a literature study, in which scientific literature was used on the one hand and a considerable arsenal of grey sources (amongst others, the internet, theses, magazine articles, policy documents) were consulted on the other. This work was complemented by numerous visits and interviews with privileged people who move within these “nodes”, in this instance , within the port of Antwerp. Therefore we used the snowball-method which resulted in twenty three interviews with people working for the police, customs and the municipal autonomous port company and who, due to the nature of their work, are strongly involved in the Antwerp port scene2.