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European Journal of Policing Studies

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Issue 4, 2015 Expand all abstracts
Article

Introduction

Authors Antoinette Verhage, Lieselot Bisschop and Wim Hardyns

Antoinette Verhage

Lieselot Bisschop

Wim Hardyns
Article

Migrants as Police Officers

Introduction

Authors Fritz Sack and Daniela Klimke
Author's information

Fritz Sack
Prof. em. Dr. Dr. h.c. Fritz Sack is professor emeritus of criminology at the Universität Hamburg, Institut für Kriminologische Sozialforschung. He has studied sociology and economy at Cologne university and has held chairs in sociology and criminology of several German universities. He is co-author and -editor of the Kleines Kriminologisches (KKW) and numerous other works and articles. He is one of the leading writers in critical criminology (corresp.: sack@uni-hamburg.de).

Daniela Klimke
Prof. dr. Daniela Klimke studied sociology in Bremen. Together with Fritz Sack and Rüdiger Lautmann she was leading the Institute for Security and Prevention Research (ISIP) in Hamburg from 2002-2011. Currently she is a professor for criminology at the Police Academy in Nienburg. Her research focuses on the sociology of social problems and social control. She is a co-author and editor of the Lexikon zur Soziologie (corresp.: klimke@uni-bremen.de).
Article

Interculturalism in the Police

Diversity or Assimilation?

Keywords ethnic minority police officer, diversity, police culture
Authors Daniela Klimke
AbstractAuthor's information

    The German police force has so far largely been unaffected by the growing minority of migrants. In contrast to many large companies that have understood that diversity is rewarding, the police have operated as a closed shop towards migrants. Diversity management is a very recent concept in the German police forces compared to other countries. While the active police force largely expresses some resistance to the integration of migrants, police administration has understood that the integration of migrants into the police force is now of vital importance. However, this process is still hampered by the existing police and cop culture and, correspondingly, the rejection of anything foreign.


Daniela Klimke
Prof. dr. Daniela Klimke studied sociology in Bremen. Together with Fritz Sack and Rüdiger Lautmann she was leading the Institute for Security and Prevention Research (ISIP) in Hamburg from 2002-2011. Currently she is a professor for criminology at the Police Academy in Nienburg. Her research focuses on the sociology of social problems and social control. She is a co-author and editor of the Lexikon zur Soziologie (corresp.: klimke@uni-bremen.de).
Article

Professional Anomalies

Diversity Policies Policing Ethnic Minority Police Officers

Keywords ethnic categorization, police organization, police culture, ethnicity, in- and exclusion, discrimination, racialization, diversity policy
Authors Sinan Çankaya
AbstractAuthor's information

    This paper discusses how diversity policies within organizations contribute to paradoxical outcomes in face-to-face interactions. The findings are the result of a long-term ethnographic study on the processes of in- and exclusion of ethnic minority police officers in the Netherlands between 2007- 2011. Since the 1980s the Dutch police struggle both in terms of recruitment and retention of ethnic minorities. Various policy measures have been taken since then. The main argument is that diversity policies construct and perpetuate ethnic differences. This discourse impacts processes of in- and exclusion in everyday interactions, increases ‘groupness’ and leads to dilemmas in ways of feeling and acting among ethnic minority police officers. In specific situations, the norm images of a ‘good’ police officer, such as integrity, solidarity and neutrality, diametrically clash with the ideal images within diversity policies. Paradoxically, diversity policies within the Dutch police context sustain everyday inequalities for ethnic minorities, while striving for equality.


Sinan Çankaya
Dr. Sinan Çankaya has earned a Bachelor’s degree in Cultural Anthropology (University Utrecht) and a Master’s in Conflict Resolution (Bradford University, with honours). His Ph.D thesis (Tilburg University) focuses on the inclusion and exclusion processes of Turkish-, Moroccan- and SurinameseDutch police officers. From 2007 to 2011, Çankaya conducted several researches for the Amsterdam Police Force. Currently, Çankaya conducts a research on security guards in semi-public environments, commissioned by The Hague School of Applied Sciences (corresp.: sinan_cankaya@hotmail.com).
Article

Minority Police Officers in the French Police

The ‘Republican tradition’ and the Workplace Experience of Minority Officers

Keywords Police, security, minorities, ethnicity, discrimination, France
Authors Jérémie Gauthier and René Lévy
AbstractAuthor's information

    This article discusses the situation of police officers from visible ethnic minorities within the French National Police Force. Part one deals with the main ideological and institutional factors responsible for the longstanding refusal to consider the issue of ethnicity in the police institution and goes on to describe the more pragmatic attitude prevailing within that institution in recent years, in spite of some resistance. Part two describes the tangible problems encountered by officers from minority groups as uncovered in a field study conducted in the Paris area.


Jérémie Gauthier
Jérémie Gauthier is a researcher at the Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin. His main research topics are police discrimination and racism in France and Germany. He is currently working on policing and knowledge issues in France and in Germany (corresp.: gauthier@cmb.hu-berlin.de).

René Lévy
René Lévy is a senior research director at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) and a former director of Cesdip. He is currently director of the European network Groupe européen de recherche sur les normativités (GERN) and of the journal Crime, Histoire & Sociétés/Crime, History & Societies (Geneva: Droz). He has written extensively on the sociology and history of policing, on police discrimination and also on electronic monitoring.
Article

Ethnic Minority Recruitment and Policing Ethnically Diverse Neighbourhoods in Germany

Keywords Police, police-citizen relations, urban social control, policing diverse societies, police recruitment
Authors Daniela Hunold
AbstractAuthor's information

    The purpose of the article is to discuss how ethnic minority recruitment could improve police-citizencontacts in socially disadvantaged neighborhoods in Germany. Therefore, research results concerning ethnic minority recruitment of German police forces as well as outcomes of an ethnographic study in one western German city focusing on police-juvenile relations in deprived neighborhoods are taken into account. The article details how the recruitment strategies of the German police prevent cultural diversity by targeting to the increase of police efficiency in ‘problematic’ neighborhoods using multicultural competences. In consequence, current recruitment strategies seem to result only in ethnic minority police officers that do not have these multicultural competences. The article further considers how socio-economic diversity and local experience could have a bigger positive impact on effective neighborhood policing than ethnic diversity. It concludes that these aspects should be taken into account for police recruitment and personnel strategies.


Daniela Hunold
Dr. Daniela Hunold holds university degrees (German diplomas) in social geography and criminology. She worked at the Institute for Security and Crime Prevention in Hamburg from 2006 to 2009. Her research was focused on obstacles of inner ethnical diversification of German police organizations and requirements of police work in countries of immigration. From 2009 to 2014, she worked on her PhD thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law in Freiburg i.Br. She conducted ethnographic studies within the Cologne police workforce and examined the relationships between police officers and juveniles in urban spaces. At present, Daniela Hunold is a post-doctoral researcher at the German Police University in Münster. Her research interests focus on police violence and geographies of policing (corresp.: hunold@posteo.de).
Article

Colouring or Changing the Belgian Police?

About Faces and Ways of Policing

Keywords Police organization, migrants, integration, community policing
Authors Sybille Smeets and Carrol Tange
AbstractAuthor's information

    In this paper, produced in the framework of an internal seminar regarding the place of migrants in the police, for the first time the available knowledge regarding the inclusion of ‘migrants’ in the police forces in Belgium is assessed through a review of political, scientific and professional sources. The analysis encompasses the terms used to describe this population, for example as ‘new Belgians’, the evolution of the context and the motives given since the nineties to the development of initiatives aimed at increasing the presence of those particular citizens amongst police forces, as well as the debates on those issues. The presentation of the concrete modalities of this integration, based on the previously stated knowledge and its obvious limitations, focuses on the known outcomes of those initiatives and the gap between what is said and what is done. It is therefore a first step towards a better understanding of a recurrent issue. As such, it might contribute to further debates, whether in the political or the professional fields.


Sybille Smeets
Sybille Smeets is researcher at the Centre of criminological researches and Professor at the School of Criminology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). She has a Doctorate in Criminology and a Master Degree in Political Sciences. Her main research topics include police function, policing, local prevention policies in Belgium and Europe and the links between security policies and Welfare State (corresp.: ssmeets@ulb.ac.be).

Carrol Tange
Carrol Tange has graduated in criminology and philosophy. He is researcher at the National Institute of Criminalistics and Criminology (NICC) and assistant at the School of Criminology of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) regarding criminal policy matters. His main research domains are the implementation and evaluation of public safety policies, pretrial instruction and detention practices, as well as the everyday field work of frontline officers and the impact of the development of management in justice and police organizations (corresp.: catange@ulb.ac.be).
Article

Minority Police Officers’ Contribution to Police-Ethnic Minority Conflict Management

Keywords conflict management, German police, intercultural conflict, ethnic minority police officer, Turkish minority
Authors Catharina Decker and Joachim Kersten
AbstractAuthor's information

    Encounters between the police and citizens with migration background are prone to conflict. In order to guarantee intercultural competent policing, police services are staffed with officers who have a family migration background. Drawing on conflict competence literature, we examined the resulting benefits and costs for police-ethnic minority conflict management by employing personnel with an ethnic minority family background. The sample of our interview study comprised 14 German police officers. The interviewees reported on the role of colleagues with a Turkish family background as either conflict resolvers or conflict intensifiers. Data suggest that police officers with an ethnic minority background significantly contribute to intercultural conflict resolution. Minority police officers’ conflict intensification can be framed as being a point of friction. We conclude that minority police officers are beneficial to police-ethnic minority conflict management and suggest continuous monitoring of minority police officers’ roles by police authorities. This is the first study on intercultural conflict management in policing, explaining the conflict resolving and intensifying contributions of minority police officers.


Catharina Decker
Catharina Decker has been researcher in the EU-funded FP7 project COREPOL. As a trained psychologist she has been doing research at the German Police University since 2008. Moreover she is vice-director of the RespectResearchGroup. Currently she is finishing her PhD at the University of Hamburg and the Kuehne Logistics University examining the effects of respectful leadership (corresp.: decker@respectresearchgroup.org).

Joachim Kersten
Joachim Kersten is professor at the Police Science Department of the German Police University. He has been the coordinator of the COREPOL project which is funded by the European Commission. In the past 45 years, his research led him to Canada, the USA, Australia, and Japan. He has published several books and scientific articles on youth crime, gendered violence, and police accountability.
Article

Problems of Framing and Implementing Multi-Ethnic Policing

Keywords multi-ethnic policing, Rotterdam Charter, budgets, ethnic minority police officer, strategic framing
Authors Ruediger Bredthauer
AbstractAuthor's information

    Despite all efforts to implement multi-ethnic policing, the under-representation of migrants as police officers is still a reality. The present paper questions the process to shape and proliferate multi-ethnic policing as well as the resulting effects of the first European transnational document – which covers almost all aspects of related policing – in order to gain further insights into the possibly disturbing or stimulating factors of implementation. One factor identified is ‘framing’, whose potential relevance is briefly evaluated using some recent examples concerning migration and policing. For the sake of this article, framing may be defined very basically as a well-directed multidimensional attempt to persuade relevant audiences of one’s own interests and may prove to be important in all fields of strategic action of policing. The winning or losing in budgetary competitions provides or diminishes resources for all kinds of police tasks and especially those targets who are marked as ‘unnecessary’ in the face of budgetary cuts. This is especially true concerning the transfer of social and democratic values into the police. Therefore ‘framing’ is probably one of the most essential strategic instruments for decision makers in the police to achieve their relevant goals in a dominantly neoliberal and increasingly populist environment.


Ruediger Bredthauer
Ruediger Bredthauer holds a traditional diploma in political science and has served as a lecturer and senior lecturer at police school, university and police academy and as a scientific advisor in the staff of the Hamburg police commissioner mainly in matters of non-violent conflict management, minority relations and different objectives of basic police research as probable consequences of demography for domestic security and policing (Frevel & Bredthauer, eds., 2010). He is now a post-job doctoral candidate at the University of Cologne. His recent research focuses on the genesis, function and relevance of neoliberal and neoconservative frames (corresp.: r.bredthauer@hamburg.de).

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