An Interview with Bostjan Slak - Fulbright Scholar Studying at MSU
December 16, 2024
Bostjan Slak is a Fulbright Scholar studying at the Michigan State University School of Criminal Justice for the Fall 2024 semester.
What originally interested you in studying Intelligence?
It is a rather classic story. Growing up, I wanted to be a police officer, and then this, with years, transformed into being a spy… as all kids, I was influenced by the media, the social environment and the zeitgeist in my childhood years.
Toward the end of secondary school, I learned that the Faculty of Criminal Justice and Security at the University of Maribor had courses on intelligence, so for me, it was a natural choice. I went there with the idea that I’d get the necessary knowledge, and after my bachelor's, I’d apply for some intelligence jobs. However, when I started my studies, I fell in love with research. If my classmates were not happy doing papers, I, in contrast, just loved it when there was a stack of books in front of me, and I had to read numerous papers to shape an idea or argument and then develop an empirical way to test it.
One of my teachers, Dr. Frangež, encouraged me to present some of my papers at a conference. This had, for me, some sort of evidence that I’m not too bad at it. I completed my bachelor's degree in 2009, in a time of economic recession, and because the options for employment was minimal, I decided to go on a postgraduate program since I also liked the idea of diving even more into research and deepening my knowledge. Then, I started working with Dr. Dobovšek as a student tutor, and he included me in numerous projects on organized crime. I used the knowledge from all my courses on intelligence with the combination of criminological theories to understand the development and elements of organized crime. This helped me be included in an international project on organized crime infiltration in legitimate economies. Where, again, knowledge about the intelligence process, seeking alternative sources, doing information verification, etc. helped to get empirical evidence to get empirical insights.
The position of Assistant to the Chair of Criminal Investigations opened. I applied and was selected, and then started working a lot in this regard. Especially learning from practitioners, detectives, and investigators; learning and researching their thinking processes. After completing my PhD, I started teaching courses as well. One of them was criminal intelligence, which is law enforcement intelligence. I was a natural choice for it since I knew both the criminal investigative processes and intelligence. While I admit that, growing up, I did have a misperception about intelligence, studying it showed me its potential. Most importantly, it is proactive, and one of the reasons why I want to do research is to develop solutions that will prevent safety and security problems and not to be only a reactive bandage on a problem.
Why did you choose to come to Michigan State University as a Fulbright Scholar?
If you want to research law enforcement intelligence, there isn't any choice other than MSU. Undoubtedly, one of the first reasons for this is that Professor David Carter works at MSU, and he is a renowned expert in this field. Then, the courses MSU offers in law enforcement intelligence, analytical thinking, crime analysis, and other related subjects are truly encompassing. While the University of Maribor offers a fraction of the courses taught at MSU, there are similarities between our two faculties, so the chances of applicability of my new insight and knowledge gained here are higher than in comparison if our schools were not so similar. MSU School of Criminal Justice has a legacy, and if there were a chance to come to the best and learn from the best, I wanted to take it. And now, I feel truly lucky to have this chance.
How has working here at MSU as a Fulbright Scholar helped you as a researcher?
It helped tremendously and in numerous ways. In the first 10 minutes of the meeting, Dr. Chris Melde (Director of the School of Criminal Justice), I received insightful information that was later used in a deliverable for a project that we're doing on drug prevention in schools. In today's era, there is sometimes too much data and information, and discussions with experts help to find good, useful information, not just a haystack of information but barns of information. So, I got an enormous amount of new insights.
Some were directly connected to research reasons that brought me here, others are of importance to me because they connect to the subjects that I cover or in which I have a research interest. In essence, to see first-hand how Americans perceive law enforcement or security issues. It's quite different from reading about it in papers or watching the news, which is biased in one way or another. There is richness if you come to some insights through discussing events that you could see firsthand. There is so much insight that one can get from a discussion on a topic to which you come from a natural flow of conversations on something that either happened here or you read in local newspapers, seen on your campus, at events.
Much of what we do every day has some sort of imprint on the matter of security. From traffic, visiting museums that have their own police, shopping, and elections – sooner or later, there is an element of security in it. These everyday discussions thus bring you to something connected with security and intelligence, providing context to the matter. For scholars such as me, this contextual and situational awareness is important for doing proper research that will have field relevancy and not just be published and archived.
It also helped me with other important matters in higher education. One of the best new insights that I got was on the topic of mentorship. I learned a lot from discussing MSU's approach to mentoring PhD candidates and how your PhD courses are run. And since it’s no secret that development in scientific fields strives to be like the system you have in the United States, insight into this is of great value.
Another thing is that you get to meet your peers. Scholars. Researchers whose works you previously read. And now you have a chance to talk to them in person. But truth be told, I couldn’t utilize the full potential for the chance to talk to all the scholars here at MSU as my visit was just too short.
What is the most fulfilling thing about your work?
My work, in essence, is comprised of two parts. One is research, and the other one is teaching. In all honesty, I’m one of the lucky ones who enjoys his work. I didn't know that research is something that I would like, but when you read a ton of papers, develop a course of empirical testing, and then you go down that course, collect data, transform it into something practical, and then you give it to practitioners in the field to improve their work. There is something in this.
It doesn’t mean that you need to change the whole approach to how things are done. Sometimes, it is enough to just give them the notion that if they change A to B, it will have an impact. Or to say, “So we did the research, we analyzed all cases related to this, and here is a list of what works and what doesn’t.” Usually, practitioners do not have time to get into the state of the art research and read from the latest papers, but if we want papers to be relevant, we have to include practitioners. I see myself as that link between practitioners and scholastic work.
The thing that I never thought I would do was teach, but here and everyone who has ever done this can relate … when the lecture is going well, according to your plan, …your vision … when the questions of students are engaging and the discussion fruitful. When there is a “good vibe” there is fulfillment in that. You feel that you accomplished something when you leave the lecture room. Even though perhaps it doesn't seem that way, teaching has its share of responsibility. If you do it poorly, you can taint the experience or kill the motivation and perhaps stop someone from achieving their full potential. However, we’re equipping the new generation with the knowledge and skillset, especially critical thinking skills, that are needed more every day.
What is next for you as a Fulbright Scholar?
Fulbright is partly already laid out for you as you are expected to disseminate your new knowledge. I have already taken some steps in this regard. I’ll have a presentation in January 2025 about Law Enforcement Intelligence at an event and then I have presentations at several national and international conferences.
This newly gained knowledge will then be included in various papers. Since I have learned so much about different aspects of criminal justice research and teaching, I’ll share the insights with my colleagues. Due to my few months of absence, the first thing I will do is catch up with all the classes that I teach, and that will fill my time for the next couple of months. My newly acquired knowledge will be incorporated into those classes and into new research undertakings to improve the state of knowledge in law enforcement intelligence in my home country. What I'm most hopeful about is that my Fulbright visit to MSU will help to deepen and expand the research cooperation between my home faculty and MSU.