Paramilitary Style Policing - Literature review Example

POLICING The war on terror represents a fundamentally new challenge for policing. In this geopolitical climate, police must consider whether getting tough on terror involves jettisoning the ‘soft’ community-policing model. 1. Introduction In the public imagination, the policing of terrorism are often seen as being “synonymous with espionage and skullduggery” (Newburn 2003, p.467). Perceptions of the uncommon nature of terrorism activities coupled by images of specialist military units and political speeches further fortified such images in the public mind. Actually, according to Newburn (2003, p.467) the state regard terrorist actions as a form of criminal activities and therefore an affair for the state’s agencies of law and order, the police and the criminal justice system. Community policing is the “orthodoxy for cops “(Samaha 2005, p.206). A paramilitary model of counter-terrorism policing, one that was derived from the suppression and criminalization model is gradually changing the ‘soft’ community-policing model. However, the model has been criticized as representing the “antithesis of community” (Pickering et. al. 2008, p.20) because community-based policing takes a number of forms but is generally appeasing in nature rather than coercive approach in police work. 2. Paramilitary Style Policing Inherent in this type of policing is the great value placed on ‘public order’ and violation of that order is a crime. This means even if an act is not legally defined as criminal but seen as a defiant of such ‘order, great attention and resources are accorded to it (Hodgson and Orban 2005, p.110). Community policing, Cronkhite (2008, p. 464) explains, had broad acceptance and public trust was strong but it was shattered on September 11, 2001. Although not yet universal within law enforcement or felt with consistent intensity, there is a recognition that for the first time since the second World War, policing is being conducted as if the United States and its allies faces “a foreign threat with its own borders” (Cronkhite 2008, p. 464). Aside from assuming greater responsibility for investigation bank robberies and other federal crimes, local police officers must be ready to spot suspicious activities that might relate to terrorism. They are the first responders in a bombing or other form of attacks and work closely to the federal law enforcement. However, local police is criticizing the federal agencies for failing to share important information regarding local suspects (Cole and Smith 2004, p.153). If the goal is to manage and decrease the long-term terrorist threat, many held that replacing a community-policing model with one based on the excessive use of force is inappropriate and likely to spread the threats. This is because according to Pickering et. al. (2000, p.20), significant substantiation suggest that paramilitary style counter-terrorism policing models have served to politicize and mortified communities and consequential to the alienation of the population from the state and law enforcement system. 3. Community Policing and Terrorism “Police cannot fight crime alone and must rely on communities” (Millie and Das 2008, p.119). Many are concerned that the terrorist-oriented mission and close associations with military and intelligence agencies will accelerate the militarization and isolation of state and local police forces, rather than bringing them closer to the police-community partnerships that serves as the source of legitimacy for community policing in the past (Weisbud and Braga 2006, p.65). Moreover, the laws that gave these extensive powers to the police to investigate and avert terrorism are in themselves seems ineffective in reducing terrorist threats. This is because cruel or inequitable powers increase the possibility of creating an environment contributing to the spread of terrorist sympathies and in some occasion, terrorist networks (Pickering et. al. 2000, p.20). Its implementation has not changed the structure and operations of national policing so much as it has tainted its rhetoric. The evidence of its effectiveness resides primarily in it’s “capacity to make public less fearful of crime, while doing little to reduce crime itself’ (Weisburd and Braga 2006, p.65). Those who support coercive police work believe that the philosophical ideal in community policing, which has been a “dominant policing philosophy since the 1990s” (Purpura 2007, p.289) such as winning the hearts and minds of the community, will not be effective against terror, as we cannot reason with terrorists. However, this is an extremely narrow view considering that community-police partnerships work best when they are structured to encourage information sharing from all parts of the community (Millie and Das 2008, p.116). Moreover, Smith and Henry (2007, p.20) argues that police legitimacy is more likely to be restored where the police are responsive to calls from all members of the public, committed to professional codes of conduct that stress impartiality and fairness, and aware of the importance of the symbolic dimensions of policing. 4. Hard Policing and Human Rights Issues The shift to community policing has not been simple for most police services because the existing culture according to Millie and Das (2008, p.118) has shown discrete partiality for action orientation and a lack of fascination in ‘soft’ policing with which community policing has been recognized. The U.S. and U.K. governments have also remains immovable in what they termed the ‘war on terrorism; and ‘soft’ policing measures have tended to die away into the backdrop as an unmistakably ‘harder’ policing attitude has taken precedence with predictable objections from civil liberties and human rights groups (Burke 2004, p.257). “Terrorism will foster the demise of community policing” (Pastor 2006, p.191). The integration of functions and increasing police powers are significant issues in trying to achieve equilibrium between the threats of terrorism and the threat from national security intelligence. However, the unification of criminal justice and military functions also signifies that a greater range of ‘military’ and human rights issues are also issues for criminology (Deflem 2004, p.208). The insight of maintaining community policing becomes obvious when indicting offenders as victorious prosecutions depend on information. Therefore, the mutual trust that is present in a community-police relationship can help clarify matters that are vital in an investigation (Obi et. al. 2007, p. 216). “|Community policing has both conventional crime prevention and outreach meanings” (Fielding 1995, p.43) and in matters of terrorism, police can still assume paramilitary role because officers do not perform both roles simultaneously. In a study conducted by Brewer (1991) according to Fielding (1995, p.43), reveals that even in divided societies, there are areas where ‘routine’ policing still occurs, although where ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ policing co-exist they inspire each other. The human rights, freedoms acts, codes, and policies are more than just principles and goals. According to Kazarian et. al. (2007, p.80), these are tools designed to change a culture that is beleaguered by human rights violations, complaints, inquiries, court actions, disciplinary hearings, and penalties into a culture that values safeguards equal treatment and protection under the law. In relation to this, a police culture in which all police officers protect the letter and the spirit of human rights laws and are dedicated to the indispensable values of justice, respects, acceptance, and well-balanced coexistence is a police community that suits the dignity of the profession. However, the predicaments for law enforcement authorities, as we mentioned earlier, who are empowered by law to protect national security and civil order and participate in the war against terrorism, is that they are expected to partner with the very people and communities that they serve and protect but they consider as potential threats to national security. Therefore, current law enforcement is being squeezed by two essentially aggressive means of policing. One is democratic policing that venerate the necessity of law and order over the significance of civil liberties and the other is “democratic dictatorship policing’ (Kazarian et. al. 2007, p.80). 5. Democratic Policing As with any restructuring, transformation will not come straightforwardly. For instance, issues on how far the police should widen their role beyond crime fighting to solving other social problems. They may oppose committing themselves to daily activities that highlight roles other than the crime-fighting roles that have attracted to careers in law enforcement (Cole and Smith 2004, p.153). Community policing is a remarkable deviation from customary policing as it follows a “long term strategic approach” (Fleming and Wood 2007, p.92) instead of giving impermanent solution to the problem. It is not just crimes and arrests but leadership, partnership, consultation and building trust within the institution and with the public. Thus, the new role of policing terrorism must also build a secure bond between police and the public. This is because pursuit of a safe society is done through actions, which also demonstrate interest for a fair and liberal society (Villiers and Adlam 2004, p.159). One must realize that in the absence of normal policing, paramilitary organizations act as investigator, prosecutor, judge and jury, and they carry out their own sentences. For instance, warnings are sometimes given before shootings or beatings but even offensive due to process guarantees are mostly dispensed with in favor of summary proceedings. The paramilitaries softened in expression, as ‘community police’ should never replace the time-tested ideals of the real community police, as doing so would encourage brutality (Hall 1997, p.5). According to Winkler (2005, p. 168), there were efforts within established democracies to advance community control over forms of policing delivered locally. To move formal and informal conceptions of the police role toward a service orientation rather than focus in a more limited fashion on crime fighting or the control of orders as the basic job of the polices. Governments advanced the after-the-fact reaction to threats, crime, and disorder instead of stressing prevention. They prepare to protect the state and regimes rather than supporting the goal of policing as providing for the welfare of communities. They had been actively seeking to move discredited, useless, atrocious, and authoritarian policing system toward more democratic forms. Democratic policing technique that tilts too deeply neither toward state defense and probable repression, inequity, and subjective, politically restricted actions nor toward the protection of rights that make impossible the attainment of the nominal social order required for people to live their lives with some confidence that their safety and welfare is protected. The threat of terrorism and the need by societies and states to handle the fear that terrorist might attack people wherever they are, as well as the objective realities of terrorist actions and plans had and will persist to have a detrimental consequence on the ability to preserve democratic forms of policing. This is because engaging the police in anti-terrorist work will weaken and bend democratic policing. For instance, it will reinforce the power of the state and its interference into and power over the lives of people. It will tilt the equilibrium of order versus the rights in support of peace and security. More importantly, it will augment the supremacy and independence of the police and will tempt them to engage in exploitation of their powers and discriminate against particular social groupings. Thus, democratic forms of political life and societal order are unlikely to be stable unless “the police behave democratically” (Winkler 2005, p.168). 6. Conclusion Jettisoning or abandoning ‘soft’ community-policing model is never a solution to the threat of terrorism as tough policing method is an antithesis of community and it is not conciliatory. Replacing ‘soft’ community policing with one identified with excessive use of force is not suitable and more likely to increase the threat and alienate the population. Police crime fighting depends on police-community partnership, which is the source of their legitimacy for community policing in the past. The notion the philosophical ideal in community policing is ineffective against terror is an extremely constricted outlook as community-police partnership works best when they share information. Although governments believed that ‘soft’ policing is obsolete and fading, the wisdom of maintaining community policing that is based on mutual trust is still possible as police can assume conventional police work and paramilitary role. Study shows that hard and soft policing can co-exist and motivate each other. Although it is not easy but the long-term effect of this combination would benefit the public significantly. This is because community policing is more than just crimes but leadership, partnership, consultation, and trust between the institution and the public. Therefore, policing terrorism must also forge a close bond between the police and the public because the absence of conventional but accepted and democratic form of policing would encourage repression and discrimination 7. 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