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CPS 2012-4, nr. 25 115
On how a failing government creates an
intrusive police force
Cahiers Politiestudies
Jaargang 2012-4, nr. 25
p. 115-134
© Maklu-Uitgevers
ISBN 978-90-466-0504-2
Paul Ponsaers1 & Elke Devroe2
This article is a contribution to the discussion Jack Greene is launching in this volume. It is
a reflection on the relationship between the police and politics, starting from the premise that
peacekeeping has traditionally been the core activity of the police. We illustrate this theorem by
reference to the results of empirical research conducted in both the United States and Europe.
We conclude that the expectations of the political class regarding the police have completely
transformed over the last three decades, and the emphasis lies more and more on crime fighting.
However this is not based on a realistic vision of concrete police work which consists in essence
of preventive acts. This assertion is based on historical insights, from which it seems that the
police were expected to preserve the day-to-day peace and quiet of a neighbourhood. In this
paper we will clarify some causes of the change in political vision. First and foremost, a failing
government is an indirect cause of demand for the ‘strong arm of the law’. A government
that does not succeed in guaranteeing social justice for its population leads to riots, where
the population turns its back on the most apparent representation of the government, that is
the police, mostly followed by a zero tolerance policy. A second cause for the shift of emphasis
towards crime fighting is the economic crisis: police have become too expensive. Other security
professionals (even in the private sector) have taken over day-to-day contact with the population
and the police are reserved for large-scale crime fighting. This essay takes a close look at this
new relationship between the police and politics.
Introduction
The relationship between police and politics is not a statistical fact, but a dynamic flow
of mutual influence. In this paper, we raise a question about the fact that, although it
is not a part of the ‘core business’ of police work, politics – especially in Great Britain
and the United States – has emphasized the police role in crime fighting rather than
in ‘peacekeeping’ in recent years. Examples illustrate this question. In the 1993 Police
Reform White Paper (Home Office, 1993), the policy makers leave very little to the
imagination, when they say that: “The main job of the police is to catch criminals”, and
then add “In a typical day, however, only about 18% of calls to the police are about crime”.
This wrongly implied that the other 82% of their work did not matter. More recently, the
British Home Secretary, Theresa May, who is in charge of security and terrorism, said
1 Full time senior Professor at Ghent University, Belgium, Research Unit Social Analysis of Security.
2
Associate Professor criminology, Master of criminal justice, Institute of criminal law and criminology Leiden,
the Netherlands.
ON HOW A FAILING GOVERNMENT CREATES AN INTRUSIVE POLICE FORCE
116 CPS 2012-4, nr. 25
in a speech on January 30, 2012 that “The aim of our police reform is to equip the police to
face the future and make them more effective at fighting crime3”.
Closer to home, we want to comment on an important policy development in Belgium
that effects the priorities of the police, called the ‘Nationaal Veiligheidsplan’ (NVP),
literally translated as ‘National Security Plan’. Our discussion of this plan concerns
this exclusive crime fighting premise. Does this one-sided emphasis on crime fighting
also exist in Belgium and, if so, how can it be explained? We will not limit ourselves
to the Belgian context and our discussion will consider this evolution in a number of
different countries.
The contradiction is clear: public political debate about policing emphasizes crime
fighting, however only a minority of incoming calls to the police are crime-related (See
for Belgium: Dujardin & Verhage, 2011). Political discourse and police practice differ
profoundly. In the current dominant vision of the police, crime fighting and the police
have become synonymous. Nevertheless, in reality the core of police work lies in a daily
presence among and in contact with the general population; which means that the
police are often confronted with larger social issues than mere crime problems. It also
suggests that the police do not have the authority to deal with the causes of problems
within society. The police can, at the very most, limit the damage, urge, mediate, inform,
etc... Disorder and delinquency are symptoms of underlying problems in society, such
as (racial) discrimination, high unemployment, precarious life conditions, bad housing
conditions and the deterioration of the social web of urban life, which requires a much
wider political answer. “Crime isn’t a disease, It’s a symptom. Cops are like doctors that
give you aspirin for a brain tumour”: this Reiner quoting Raymond Chandler (2012).
The police ease tensions in the short term, but it is impossible for them to find a cure
for serious social diseases. To convert this very specifically to the Belgian situation:
problems in society cannot be solved in the ‘Kroontuinen4’, they have to be solved at
‘Wetstraat 165’.
Ultimately, the police can only contribute in a very limited way to social pacification,
which, in order to be successful, must rest on much wider political policy aimed at
social justice. This insight must prevail if we want to avoid nourishing unrealistic
expectations with regard to the police. A similar vision can only be seen through adequate
assessment of a specific interpretation of police work; what is called “peacemaking”
and “peacekeeping”.
We will discuss empirical results in the next section. In the section that follows ‘A lot of
politics – Few police and back’ the relation between politics and police is studied on the
basis of numerous riots that have taken place. The 1981 riots in Brixton are connected
with the more recent riots in London (among others) and the riots in the Belgian district
of Kuregem. The fourth section examines the Belgian National Security Plan. We will
finish with a section titled ‘Description and Prescription’, which contains a number of
critical observations and open questions about the future role of the police.
3 http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/media-centre/news/home-secretary-police-reform (last visit on February 23,
2012).
4 The headquarters of the Belgian Federal Police is located in the ‘Kroontuinen’ or ‘Crown Gardens’.
5 ‘Wetstraat 16’ is the address of the official residence of the Belgian Prime Minister.
ON HOW A FAILING GOVERNMENT CREATES AN INTRUSIVE POLICE FORCE
CPS 2012-4, nr. 25 117
1. Empirical consciousness
Empirical social-scientific research on the police started in the 1960s on both sides of
the Atlantic, and had a striking demystifying function. At that moment, public opinion
beliefs primarily held that the police were, in particular, engaged to apply the penal law,
serve summons and make arrests. However research has shown that those activities
weren’t the only ones that the police concerned themselves with.
The research showed that police seemed to occupy themselves particularly with “peace-
making” and “peacekeeping”, which was about their day-to-day presence in and contact
with the population: the police had to talk, inform, mediate, warn and put people in their
place. Most importantly, the police did much more than pay attention to delinquency
on its own. Research has shown that the police’s main occupation was controlling
day-to-day small disorders and petty crime rather than the more spectacular public
order maintenance and fighting against more serious and complicated types of crime
(Banton, 1964; Sherman, 1973; Skolnick & Bayley, 1986; Holdaway, 1984; Cain, 1973;
Goldstein, 1977; Ericson, 1982). Interventions with blue flashing lights, blaring sirens
and screeching tyres, such as the American police dramas led the population to believe,
were in fact the exceptions.
Social-scientific research starting from the 60s developed challenged the mythic view of
the ‘crime fighting’ police force. Instead, there was the empirical discovery of a whole
range of services, which were offered to persons in difficulties who made an appeal
to the police for that reason. The police seemed to act primarily as “peace-“ and not as
“law-“ officers. Cumming, Cumming & Edell (1965) wrote about “The policeman as
philosopher, guide and friend”; Punch (1979) about “the secret social service”.
That research also explained the existing contrast between the theoretical level of police
management and daily police practice on the shop-floor. Contrary to dominant beliefs
social scientists have shown that the police do more than simply maintain public order
(at demonstrations or riots) or use measures to tackle crime (increasing clearance
rates and search operations). Scholars observed that the “street-level bureaucrats” were
particularly involved in keeping the social peace (Ericson & Hoggerty, 1997), most often
in a very reactive manner.
To a large extent police work involved giving emergency aid and incident-driven inter-
ventions very similar to that provided by emergency medical or fire departments. This
realisation was deadlocked in an unproductive discussion about the so-called “service
and police care” and “enforcement of the law” (Shapland & Vagg, 1988; Reiner, 2010),
as if enforcement (including, exceptionally, with force and violence) was not naturally
part of the service provided.
The first social-scientific research on the police in different countries, seemed to show
that the police targeted the prevention of, and intervention of small-scale types of social
unrest and the restoration of social order (and, in between, a less dominant category, of
fighting delinquency). This kind of social-scientific research was late to establish itself
in Belgium. Nevertheless, in Belgium there are a number of directive publications on
the matter (Vandevoorde, Vaerewyck, Enhus & Ponsaers, 2003; Ponsaers, 2007; Verwee,
Hendrickx & Vlek, 2009; Ponsaers, 2009; Easton, Ponsaers, Demarée, Vandevoorde,
ON HOW A FAILING GOVERNMENT CREATES AN INTRUSIVE POLICE FORCE
118 CPS 2012-4, nr. 25
Enhus, Elffers, Hutsebaut & Gunther Moor, 2009; Van den Broeck, 2010; Verwee, 2012),
which corresponds, in general, to the findings of Anglo-Saxon research and confirms
its relevance in that jurisdiction as well.
Despite the research, the public persists in believing that the police are primarily crime
fighters. There seems to be little Belgian research about the calls citizens make to the
police (so-called “call taking”) and the nature of the incidents in question (cfr. Wad-
dington, 1993). Nonetheless, we would argue that the police are primarily emergency
service providers. The concept of an “emergency department police” is much closer to
reality than a “force” that combats delinquency (Reiner, 2007).
There was increasing talk in the 1970s of a “fire brigade policing”, and it was generally
pejorative, due to its emphatically reactive nature. Researchers described police work as
a multifunctional job, a job without sharp borders. Police action is driven by incidents
and is a completely reactive event. People were considered as numbers, as ‘cases’, in
a sea of ‘urgent’, ‘more urgent’ and ‘most urgent’ cases, giving police work a touch of
cynicism, far from a real commitment in society. Today, it seems that the baby has been
thrown out with the bathwater. It has been forgotten that the central policing role is as
an emergency service in an ocean of societal difficulties (including delinquency, but
not primarily), which implies an exceptionally important social function (Reiner, 2012).
2. Historical consciousness
In the official policy discourses of several European countries (e.g. the UK and the
Netherlands), there is increasing emphasis on crime fighting as the core police duty
and that the police have a primary role in crime control. The fact that the government
in the past had another conception of the police task has been lost. Some historical
consciousness is required.
Sir Robert Peel (February 5, 1788 – July 2, 1850), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
from December 1834 to April 1835, and for a second time from June 1841 to June 29,
1846, gave shape to the organisation of the police in the city of London: the Metropolitan
Police (with its residence Scotland Yard). Peel wrote a number of guidelines in order to
found a police corps in London. He came up with a bill (that became a law afterwards)
under the title of “Bill for Improving the Police in and near the Metropolis”. At the basis
of this bill were nine principles described by Sir Robert Peel
6
. The first principle is clear:
“The basic mission, the reason why the police exists, is the prevention of crime and
disturbance”. When Sir Richard Mayne became the Chief of the London Metropolitan
Police (1829-1868) he rephrased Peel’s principles. His reformulation formed the basis
for the functioning of modern police services in the UK. The main guidelines were
adopted from Peel, especially the first principle: “Preventing crime and disturbance,
as an alternative to suppression by means of military intervention and the strictness
of legal punishments”. Generally, these principles remained effective until Sir Robert
Mark rephrased them once more in his “Blue Book” in 1970. He wrote: “The primary
objective of an efficient police is the prevention of crime.” Afterwards he wrote: “The
primary objective of an efficient police is crime prevention; then the clarification and
6 See: www.magnacartaplus.org/briefings/nine_police_principles/.htm (last visit on February 19, 2012).
ON HOW A FAILING GOVERNMENT CREATES AN INTRUSIVE POLICE FORCE
CPS 2012-4, nr. 25 119
punishment of the perpetrators when crime was committed. All efforts of the police
have to be aimed at these goals7”.
Prevention was therefore the prime role of the new police under Peel. However, it
was then a much wider and less clearly defined assignment than the current idea of
crime fighting. Mayne talked in this context about safeguarding the “public peace”.
Furthermore, he did not much emphasise big disturbances such as riot, but about the
preservation of daily peace and quiet in urban communities.
The existing Belgian police system is an inheritance of the Napoleonic (French) Age
rather than one inscribed with Anglo-Saxon views about police. Nevertheless, we have to
remember that in the Napoleonic view, two important ranges of duties were attributed
to the police, especially in connection with (1) the administrative police and (2) the
judicial police. The history of the Belgian police reveals that the existing police system
was principally shaped through the development of an order maintaining administrative
function and only much later attracted the additional judicial function. Moreover, we
want to make clear that this last function gained attention because the magistracy, rather
than the government, insisted on it. While Belgium declared its independence in 1830
(Witte, 1992), it had to wait until 1919 before a judicial police force was established and
until 1957 before a “Special Investigation Brigade” was founded by the ‘Gendarmerie’.
At the time of the 1998 reform of the existing Belgian police system, only 88 municipal
police forces (out of 589) had a criminal investigation service at their disposal (Van
Outrive, Cartuyvels & Ponsaers, 1992).
The law on police duties
8
(De Raedt, Berkmoes, De Mesmaeker & Liners, 2012) describes
the police in an institutionally protecting and regulating function, which is aimed at
making fundamental rights possible and to prevent disorder or re-establish the order.
The formal goal of the police is thus, in the Belgian context, to preserve social and public
order. Apart from that, it is conspicuous that the reform of the police in Belgium, by
no means influenced the interpretation of these police duties, but only referred to a
number of organizational aspects of the existing police order. The administrative police
is ‘the whole of assignments by virtue of law that are given with an eye on preserving the public
order, the public peace, the public safety and the public health, which contain the power to
impose restrictions on the individual rights and privileges
9
’. The public peace means the
absence of disorderliness and disturbances in public places, the public safety means the
absence of dangerous situations for people and goods and includes crime prevention
and assistance to people in danger. The public health means the absence of disease by
preserving hygiene and by safeguarding a qualitative environment. As different as the
Anglo-Saxon roots may be in comparison with those of an existing Napoleonic police
system, both types of system converge on the same primary duties. The formally stated
emphasis lies strikingly close to what the police in fact do, according to the research
described earlier. Paradoxically in public debate police are dominantly represented as
crime fighters.
7 Idem.
8 Law of August 5,1992 on policing.
9 Advice State Council about the rough draft of the law on police duties (the law of August 5,1992 on policing,
B.S. December 22, 1992), Parl. St. Kamer, 1990-1991, no. 1637/1,
ON HOW A FAILING GOVERNMENT CREATES AN INTRUSIVE POLICE FORCE
120 CPS 2012-4, nr. 25
3. A lot of politics, few police – and back
3.1. Brixton disorders revisited (UK)
Between April 10 and April 12 1981, the so-called Brixton Disorders occurred, with a sad
climax on ‘Bloody Saturday’ (Ponsaers, 2011). More than eighty people were arrested.
The area of London where the riots occurred, Lambeth, was a territory with serious
social and economic problems. The whole of the UK suffered from a serious economic
crisis; ethnic minorities especially were hit by high unemployment and terrible living
conditions. The months before the uprising were characterised by increasing ten-
sion between the police and ordinary citizens. The police and ethnic minorities were
understood in oppositional termes and the police semployed stop-and-search powers
extensively in Operation Swamp 81.
Michael Bailey was stabbed during the riots on April 10, 1981. When he was checked
by the police, bystanders thought that he was the victim of police violence. Which was
the flashpoint that started the riots. Large groups turned against the police. In reply, the
police increased presence on the streets. The tension intensified the following night.
People threw stones in the direction of the police cars. Conflicts escalated and the area
of unrest became wider. Police were injured, some severely. Shops were burgled, police
cars set on fire, fire fighters pelted with stones and bottles. A number of both black
and white citizens tried to negotiate between the police and the troublemakers. The
attempts failed and bars, shops, businesses, schools and other buildings were destroyed.
Hundreds of residents did not dare leave their houses. It took some time before the
police forces regained control.
The government ordered an inquest after the Brixton Disorders. The research was led by
Lord Scarman, and gave rise to the Scarman Report, which was published at the end of
November 1981. Scarman concluded that “complex political, social and economic factors”
were the cause of “the development of the tendency of violent protests”. The report led to new
legislation (the Police and Criminal Evidence Act) in 1984, of which an independent
Police Complaints Authority was the result. The main objective was the recovery of public
confidence in the police. After all, it is noteworthy that Lord Scarman made himself
familiar with the use of the words of Sir Robert Peel once again in his report about the
Brixton Disorders. He also mainly wrote about the prevention of disorders and he put
this higher on the priority list than “the enforcement of the law”.
Scarman’s recommendations for tackling racial discrimination and the deterioration
of the city centre, however, were not executed and riots re-occurred. When a new
Commission was established in 1998, as the result of the poor conduct of the police in a
murder investigation, it was recognised, in the Macpherson Report
10
, that Scarman’s rec-
ommendations from 1981 had been completely ignored and remained unimplimented.
The Brixton Disorders and the Scarman Report were the most important sources of
inspiration for the development of the Community (Oriented) Policing (COP) philosophy
in the UK. Similar riots and independent research reports from Northern Ireland and
10 Called after Sir William Macpherson who was the chairman of the Commission. The report showed that the
judicial research was led by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), was not objective, and that the corps was
‘institutionally racist’.
ON HOW A FAILING GOVERNMENT CREATES AN INTRUSIVE POLICE FORCE
CPS 2012-4, nr. 25 121
the USA revealed that law-and-order police action was completely bankrupt and the
search for a community-directed police project became international (Ponsaers, 2001).
There were also a lot of riots in a number of big American cities in the 1960s. It was the
period of Black Panther and the militant civil rights movement. The police frequently
acted very hard-handedly, resulting in a spiral of violence and counter-violence. The
remedy seemed worse than the trouble, and in certain city districts the police were
seen as the biggest enemy to social peace. There were a couple of real “no-go-areas”,
where the police could no longer go (Skolnick & Fyfe, 1993). There was much media
attention. Local politicians lost the political support of African American community
groups, and many intellectuals were also critical of police conduct.
American politicians looked for an alternative solution, especially where African
American were more numerous and thus important for re-election, and this solution
became known as “crime fighting” by the white middle class. US politicians stressed
that the police had to take up a position with the “problematic” community groups and
recover the contact that had broken off, or perhaps never been there in the first place.
Some scholars pointed out that the police rarely received information about these
problematic residential areas. The thought gained ground; if they were in pursuit of
greater effectiveness (impact on the society problems), then efficiency and fairness
would be necessary (Eck & Rosenbaum, 1994).
Things heated up again in various parts of the UK in mid-August 2011: large groups of
troublemakers roamed through the streets and looted along the way. There was growing
criticism once again about the hard-handed conduct of the police, which only led to
even bigger numbers of policemen on the streets, and even firmer tactics by the police,
directed by the government. The riots once again took place against a background of
municipal poverty, economic recession and high unemployment.
There had been considerable changes, since the riots of 1981 and 1985, by the police
in the UK. As a consequence of the Scarman-report new directives were introduced
concerning stop-and-search and arrest practices. The education of policeofficers was
improved and more ethnic minorities were hired. There was much effort on a social
level, especially in the area of urban modernization. However the fundamental problems
of a fast growing underclass, as a consequence of unemployment, bad education and
living conditions, etc. remained. Once the economic recession hit in 2008, the cocktail
seemed more explosive than ever.
It is clear that the riots in the UK are an illustration of the fact that the primary adminis-
trative function of the police is more fraught at present and that policy does not succeed
in ameliorating the causes of social unrest. Or to say it in a different way: the British
Conservative-Liberal coalition needs to succeed in taking away the causes of the unrest
(tempering poverty, influence employment, improve the spending power), so that the
police will no longer be obliged to intervene in such an intrusive way and can re-dedicate
themselves to “peacekeeping”. Neoliberal thought grows even harder under the pressure
of the current economic crisis. The issue focuses around the stalemate that the police are
employed as crime fighters who are hired in to knock down the dissatisfaction about a
failing government. Next, we will study a Belgian case of displeasure and police action.
ON HOW A FAILING GOVERNMENT CREATES AN INTRUSIVE POLICE FORCE
122 CPS 2012-4, nr. 25
3.2. Belgium: Kuregem revisited?
A similar scenario occurred at the same time in the Brussels district Kuregem, which
similarly had a long history of riots. Kuregem is situated in the city of Anderlecht, in
the west region of Brussels11. About 40 % of its residents are younger than 25 years old,
with an average age of 31. The unemployment rate in the region is approximately 36 %.
The mobility of the population in the district has been high, but more recently it has
stagnated because current residents are no longer wealthy enough to leave the district.
The most severe riot in Kuregem broke out in November 1997 sparked by the shooting of
a supposed drug dealer (Saïd Charki) by the ‘Gendarmerie’. Youngsters from Kuregem
and its surroundings rioted and it took days before emotions in the district calmed
down. Since then, public order incidents occur on a regular basis. A brawl broke out in
Kuregem between hooligans and migrant youngsters in May 1997, that eventually turned
into violence against the police. The police buildings in Brussels South were pelted with
stones by a group of youngsters after an intervention in a bar in Kuregem in June 1997.
On August 1, 2009, riots broke out between youngsters and the police in different
districts of Molenbeek and Anderlecht, including in Kuregem, after an intervention that
got out of hand. Riots also began on November 20, 2009 between immigrant youngsters
and the police in the municipalities of Anderlecht and Vorst. Young people claimed they
were the target of the violence of the police, which had already been used against the
nearby prisoners at Vorst, when the jailers went on strike. A prisoner accused a constable
of insulting the prophet Mohammed and residents of Anderlecht set up a peaceful
demonstration, although it was not announced, nor permitted by the administrative
government. The police were well informed about the demonstration because they
monitored the mobile SMS traffic. The local police tried to control the demonstration,
but failed and the disturbance left a trail of destruction across the district of Kuregem.
The police commissioner’s office was set on fire and destroyed by a ‘Molotov cocktail’.
The police wanted to get the district back under control quickly after the riots of 2009,
and so operation ‘Octopus’ was put into action, introducing a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy
aiming to ensure that every violation of the law would lead to a quick sentence. The
police moved from a method of order preservation to a method of law preservation and
took up a position as crime fighter. The police pushed the boundaries of the Belgian
criminal justice system, shifting their relationship with the public prosecutor office
and the court which were not used to act at short notice and at the request of the police.
Additional police patrols wre also mobilised. The federal police worked with the local
police so as to be able to respond to district-bound factors. A visible presence was
emphasized above a hard, repressive approach. At the same time the operation ‘Pandemi’
was carried out by the federal investigation department. The operation concerned
large-scale research into organized crime and drug trafficking. About a hundred house
searches were carried out and some criminals were caught in Kuregem. The local police
pronounced that the district would become more peaceful after the action.
11 We borrow the description of this case from the research “De wijk achter de botsing”, by order of the pro-
gramme ‘Police & Science’, with supervisors Prof. Dr. J. Terpstra and Prof. dr. M. Easton. The research report
is currently in preparation.
ON HOW A FAILING GOVERNMENT CREATES AN INTRUSIVE POLICE FORCE
CPS 2012-4, nr. 25 123
Local police later announced an end to the repressive approach. The corps was decentral-
ized, with the objective of bringing the police closer to the citizens. Police managers
hoped to break through the anonymity in the district and to gain more cooperation
from the residents through a more humane approach. The various police services knew
that the residents are reluctant to contact them, because they are afraid of reprisals.
The police tried to alleviate this by bringing in additional manpower to strengthen the
proxy patrol and thus be able to win back the trust of the population. The proxy patrol
has been operational since January 2011. There are also policeofficers present on the
beat in the district next to the proxy patrol. One policeofficer on the beat has to take care
of 2,200 inhabitants. Every officer on the beat is present in the district every day and
is responsible for a certain number of streets. The police mainly checks the domicile
addresses. The police corps is now trying to build contacts with ‘all’ the actors in the
district. If escalations threaten, the assistance of the social partners is called upon to
calm people down.
Kuregem is not Brixton and vice versa, while there are similarities, it is worthwhile
looking at the differences.
On the one hand the COP-philosophy has left unquestionable marks on Belgium. The
COP has been promoted for several years now, as the government’s official vision of
the police (Van de Sompel & Ponsaers, 2003)
12
. This policy has apparently left its mark,
even allowing that it has been expressed in a somewhat diffuse vision, articulated in
managerial terms through simple slogans such as “less repressive” and “closer to the
population”. However, one thing is clear: police strategists in Belgium do not believe
that a short-term “zero tolerance”-approach can, apart from the temporary suppression
of the riots, bring consolation.
Then too, there is also the Belgian political reality, in which the hope still affirms that a
Social-Democratic policy emphasis (related to the theme of social injustice) can succeed
where a frigid neoliberal policy cannot. We can only ask whether the new government
will succeed in tempering poverty, increasing employment and stimulating purchasing
power. There are still better things in sight, while these themes reach the political agenda.
This offers food for thought about rising expectations and it suggests that the police
in a district like Kuregem are seen as an representative of a struggling government,
not only as the cold supervisors of an even colder policy. This offers space and quiet
without assuming that the battle is already won. However, the relative peace can easily
balance to new unrest. Nevertheless, this relative peace gives the police of Kuregem the
chance to return to the core business, which is social service provision in very difficult
and precarious circumstances.
3.3. The Belgian National Security Plan 2012-2015 – What?
The four-yearly National Security Plan (NVP) formed the corner stone of police policy
ever since the reform of the Belgian existing police order in 1998 (Ponsaers, 2001). The
existing Belgian police order is made up of both a federal police component (central
12 Duquesne, A., Verwilghen, M., circular letter CP 1 on May 27, 2003 concerning Community Policing, de-
finition of the Belgian interpretation that applies on the integrated police service, structured on two, B.S.
09-07-2003; Enclosure with the circular letter : Van de Sompel, R., Ponsaers, P. (2003). “De pijlers van de
gemeenschapsgerichte politiezorg in België”, p. 66.
ON HOW A FAILING GOVERNMENT CREATES AN INTRUSIVE POLICE FORCE
124 CPS 2012-4, nr. 25
services and 27 decentralized services) and a local component (195 autonomous local
police forces). No hierarchic relation exists between levels, only a functional relationship
formed by the connection between the NVP and the 195 local security plans. The law
ensures that local security plans take the NVP in consideration, without meaning that
it must be prioritised identically (Devroe & Matthijs, 2004).
The new NVP 2012-201513 “Taking care of a safe and liveable society together”,
announced in February 2012, took a long time to come into action14 due to the drawn
out negotiations concerning the formation of the Parliamentary coalition
15
. The first part
of the plan concerned the contribution of the police services to a safe and liveable society.
The most important policy subjects are mentioned: the supervision of public space
and the administrative information, neighbourhood policing, contribution to traffic
safety, approaches to serious crime phenomena and international police cooperation.
The second part concerns the internal management of the federal police, which is less
important for our current purpose.
3.4. Prevent or solve?
The plan opens with the statement about safety and liveability ‘problems’ which “have
to be prevented in the first place16”. The services involved must take the necessary
preventive measures and initiatives. If preventive measures are not sufficient, then
the damage caused must be minimised, legal action organised and the police must
participate in the execution of the planned sentence. In addition, the NVP says: “The
traditional reactive approach has to be completed with a proactivity not only to solve
the problems, but also to prevent them”.
It is notable that attention in the first instance goes to the administrative duties of
the police to preventing disturbance which has to happen through “the negotiated
supervision of the public space17”. What is meant by this, becomes clear in the following:
“Thanks to the knowledge, which is obtained in advance concerning the nature of the
demonstration, the number of participants, their goals, motives, etc., a good assess-
ment can be made of the necessary police capacity, their position and the appropriate
equipment, which is required for the concerned event”. Prioritising “supervision of
public space” focuses on large-scale disorder services, as a result of demonstrations,
marches, riots, etc
18
. It is clearly not about the small-scale, frequent and day-to-day types
of disturbance and nuisance (fire-brigade policing, as mentioned above). The NVP has
instead created a strengthened reserve “to react, preserve and if it’s possible increase
adequately in every circumstance on expected and unexpected extraordinary crisis
situations – especially in the largest cities and their problem neighbourhoods19”. We
assume that ‘increase’, in this context, means an increase in police capacity in the field.
13 National Safety Plan 2012-2015. Taking care of a safe and livable society together, February 2012
14 De Morgen, 04.11.2011, 10.01.2012 and 17.02.2012. De Tijd: 17 and 18.02.2012.
15 Belgium formed a new government in December 2011, 540 days after the elections. This was the longest
government formation ever.
16 National Security Plan 2012-2015, p. 8/39.
17 National Security Plan 2012-2015, 9/39.
18 There is in this framework of the plan a reference to the circular CP4 of May 11, 2011 about the negotiated
supervision of the public space for the integrated police, structured on two levels.
19 National Security Plan 29/39.
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CPS 2012-4, nr. 25 125
3.5. Nuisance and governance
If we talk about daily peace, quiet, safety and health, the National Security Plan refers
to the phenomenon of “nuisance”, a relatively diffuse term, which is connected to
the legal framework that was established as part of the “Municipal Administrative
Sanctions
20
” The NVP mentions: “The approach of nuisance needs to be driven up
and it has to happen from an integral approach in consultation with all relevant secu-
rity partners, to obtain a balance between a preventive and a reactive approach. The
problem neighbourhoods of larger cities suffering from various types of nuisance
need an approach which they can measure21”. An “integral and integrated approach” is
recommended. As a result of the police being overloaded and expensive, one solution
could be to spread responsibility more widely between different groups (Prins, Cachet,
Ponsaers & Hughes, 2012). This network-approach crossed from Great-Britain and is
also called ‘governance’: actors participate in joint ventures with each other organized
on a horizontal basis. This model was – for a government that could not do everything
by itself – a necessary alternative (Devroe, 2012). The changes from the late-modernity
demand a local approach, tailor made responses, bringing police and justice closer to
the citizens, as well as involving different partners in a decentralized governance of
security (Crawford, 2004), involving both non-state actors and private security companies
(Johnstone & Shearing, 2003). The managerialism of neo-liberalism
22
(Harcourt, 2010)
together with new public management ideas has been called ‘reinventing government’
(Osborne & Gaebler, 1993). Governance is no longer monopolised by states, instead
there is ‘rule-at-a-distance’ (Johnstone & Shearing, 2003) and a ‘hollowing out of the
state’ (Rhodes, 1994). Our original question referred to failing governments, where the
police must take care of and channel the unrest that a failing government has caused.
Nuisance can also be interpreted as an expression of discontent about the government
or as a symptom of a deep-down dissatisfaction about the daily routine in a city. We
talk about damage and the destruction of city furniture, and graffiti, but also about
the insults of passers-by and other types of verbal violence. Even if nuisance is not a
crime; it is possible that the local government in nuisance situations twists itself in the
position of ‘crime fighter’.
Who’s that public authority now?
The policy initiative for the nuisance approach lies with the officed mayor in the cities of
Belgium, who acts as a director of the local safety policy23 through municipal administra-
tive sanctions. The nuisance phenomenon is – in the framework of the responsibility
for public order of the mayors – subjected to municipal regulations. Violations can be
assessed and followed up by both the police and (since 2007) the so-called “community
20 Law of May 13, 1999 on the introduction of municipal administrative sanctions, B.S. June 10, 1999; Law of
May 7, 2004 on the changing of the law of April 8, 1965 concerning child protection and the new municipa-
lity law, B.S. June 25, 2004, law of June 17, 2004 to change the new municipality law, B.S. July 23, 2004 and
Erratum B.S. November 29, 2004; law of July 20, 2005 concerning various regulations – Civil servants affairs
and metropolis policy – municipal administrative sanctions, B.S. July 29, 2005.
21 National Security Plan 10/39.
22 From this point of view neo-liberalism a more moderate view: the view that government intervention in the
economic domain tends to be inefficient and should therefore be avoided’ (in italics in original, Harcourt, 2010).
23 This direction function was not legally tied up in Belgium for the time being, just like in the Netherlands.
(Devroe & Ponsaers, 2011)
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126 CPS 2012-4, nr. 25
guards24”. The community guards accommodate the various supervisory professions,
which came into being in the framework of the Belgian Security and Prevention contracts,
which in turn came into effect after the Minister of the Interior and the cities created them
in 1992 (Willekens, 2006). These community guards may – in the case of simple nuisance
acts – investigate on their own immediately, and ask for the identity of the suspect.
The need for a policy to change the ‘eyes and ears of the city’ to ‘nuisance observers’
was inspired amongst other things by an over-expensive police force, which focused as
a result on its core duties, the judicial investigation25. But the question raises whether
the latter is the criterion of things? Are the police who essentially have a peacekeeping
role, pushed in the direction of crime fighting? After all, most European countries have
chosen broader police duties, sensibly embedded in society, which include preservation,
support and assistance (Ponsaers, Bruggeman, Bisschop & de Kimpe, 2012), and to
which the approach to small nuisances in individual neighbourhoods belongs.
If we consider the empirical material, the police in Belgium remains for the greater
part on its own in undertaking nuisance assessment (Ponsaers & Vander Beken, 2008).
Certain police forces (like Liège) refuse to even give the community guards any reporting
authority (Devroe, 2012). In addition, community guards may not impose punishment
orders or sanctions, which are granted in the Netherlands to the ‘Bijzonder Opspor-
ingsambtenaar’ (BOA) and other supervisors (people who are responsible for a public
duty)26. Community guards do not have any authority to stop someone, frisk someone
or use any other means of force or violence. Moreover, in Belgium there are no private
police services active that have the authority to impose nuisance fines. The role of these
private services in the public domain is very strictly determined in Belgium. They are
not permitted to ask for an identity card, and definitely not to perform administrative
arrests27. Only with the permission of the Minister of the Interior can these services
guard the ‘accessible places for the public’ and protect the people
28
. It has become
possible for private security guards, who are appointed by the municipal council, to
‘report’ nuisance facts to a police civil servant or deputy
29
, but this is ultimately the
duty of every citizen.
Nevertheless, there is a reinforcement of the municipal hierarchy in the appointment of
the community guards for nuisance, who can work independently due to being a force
of their own, apart from federal policy rules or the federal police. However claiming
that this policy has a tendency towards the narrow-minded role of the police as crime
fighter, is an overstatement. The nuisance problem is still controlled in first instance
24 Law of May 15, 2007 on the establishment of the function of the community guard, on the establishment
of the service for community guards and on the change of the article 119bis of the new municipal law, B.S.
June 29, 2007
25 See advice of the Council of State for the bill on the introduction of municipal administrative sanctions,
statement of clarification, Belgian Chamber of Representatives, regular meeting 1998-1999, 2031/1-98/99.
26 Also administrative instances outside criminal justice get this authority allocated (art. 257b en 257ba WvSv.
(Hartmann, 2005).
27 Law on surveillance companies, security companies and internal surveillance services security companies,
Parl. St., Belgian Senate, meeting 1989-1990, nr.775/2, 3-7.
28 Parl.St. Kamer, 2002-2003, nr. 2366/1 en 2367/1, 9. en Art. 2 section 2, second member changed by art. 3, 4°
wet 9 juni 1999.
29 They can only do this in the framework of their activities described in art. 1, section 1, 1st member, 6° of the
security law.
ON HOW A FAILING GOVERNMENT CREATES AN INTRUSIVE POLICE FORCE
CPS 2012-4, nr. 25 127
by the police partners, who seek to mediate, warn and signal. Only in stubborn cases
of persisting nuisance is someone issued a summons/sent to the city services and/or
to the prosecutor for settlement.
This is contrary to the British story, where there has been an overwhelming flood of
‘crime and disorder’ laws ,after a moral crusade under the slogan ‘Respect’ was launched
(Brannan, John & Stoker, 2007) along with ‘the drive for moral authoritarian interventions
against antisocial behaviour’ (Hughes, 2007, p.119). An enthusiasm for a more repressive
approach began in Great Britain. The Crime and Disorder Act (1998) allowed the police
to investigate the Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBO’s), which makes the police an
extension of the judicial authority. These measures were criticized by a number of
criminologists particularly for net widening effect. According to Pakes (2005), ASBO’s
lead to more and more penalties on behaviour, in which ‘the emphasis lies on youth
control’ (Squires & Stephen, 2005, p.6). Mediation is only mentioned sporadically. Not
one law mandates this as compulsory for conflict solution (Burney, 2006). Repression,
aimed at ‘demonised groups’ like ‘louts’, ‘yobs’ and ‘neighbours from hell’, became a
feature of popular discourse in Great Britain (Squires & Stephan, 2005, p.6). Specific
groups of people, parents of rebellious children, social renters, young children and
beggars, are becoming the target of new types of control and sanctions (Burney, 2006).
According to several people, the ASBO’s are a purely penal instrument (Hughes, 2007)
which have ‘a logic of exclusion’ (Lippens, 2008, p.283). These policy signal expressive
action, in which the public feelings are played with, and the symbolic emphasis is put on
penal goals (Burney, 2006). We have argued that police cannot solve the social problems,
which often are the cause of crime. However, this does not mean that the government is
relieved from its duties, or that the police cannot fulfill a warning function. However, in
Great Britain, the police are not expected to solve underlying social problems, although
they tackle the symptoms of these social problems by means of exclusion measures
(Lippens, 2006). We saw that in Belgium the policy intentions, which are revealed in
the National Security Plan, are still in pursuit of a balance between a preventative and a
reactive approach. The role of the police remains important in this matter and was not
transferred to private actors nor to other non-governmental organizations.
3.6. Judicial duties
The NVP has further implications for the judicial duties of the police. A number of
delinquency phenomena are claimed to be the most important for the period 2012-
2015
30
: (1) armed robberies; (2) violence in the public space (in particular in public
transport); (3) drugs (in particular the import and export of cocaine, the production and
smuggling of synthetic drugs and drug dealing); (4) illegal firearms fraud; (5) terrorism;
(6) domestic violence; (7) human trafficking (sexual exploitation and economic exploita-
tion) and people smugglers; (8) delinquency in informatics; (9) fraud (in particular
social and fiscal fraud as well as fraud concerning waste management)
31
; and (10)
30 National Security Plan 2012-2015, 12/39 – 15/39.
31 At First, the federal police did not picture the fight against fraud as the most important phenomenon, which
suggests that they did not wish to invest in it. Nevertheless, the police were stopped by the Minister of the
Interior, A. Turtelboom for this proposal, who explicitly reported – from the view of the political government
– that this phenomenon had to be added as a priority (De Morgen, 4.11.2011). The fight against fraud has to
and will be a priority for the police. Several Ministers and State Secretaries of the resigning federal government
ON HOW A FAILING GOVERNMENT CREATES AN INTRUSIVE POLICE FORCE
128 CPS 2012-4, nr. 25
burglaries in houses and other buildings. The NVP reveals an unconditional belief in
new technologies which strengthens the CSI-driven misconception that the conduct of
the police is purely a case of technical skill and efficiency, which conceals the inherent
political character of the police duties.
However much the NVP stresses balance and equilibrium, it is notable that only the most
spectacular and rarer delinquency phenomena were emphasized in media announce-
ments of the Plan32. The impression that the core duty of the police lies in the fight and
prevention of crime is hereby strengthened.
It is perhaps worth noting at this point that the US Presidential Commission on Law
Enforcement and the Administration of Justice even argued this in 196733:
“There is a widespread popular conception of the police, supported by the news and
entertainment media. Through these, the police have come to be viewed as continually
engaged in the exciting, dangerous, and competitive enterprise of apprehending and
prosecuting criminals. Emphasis upon this one aspect of police functioning has led to
a tendency on the part of both the public and the police to underestimate the range
and complexity of the total police task.
A police officer assigned to patrol duties in a large city is typically confronted with
at most a few serious crimes in the course of a single tour of duty. He tends to view
such involvement as constituting real police work. But it is apparent that he spends
considerably more time keeping order, settling disputes, finding missing children, and
helping drunks, than he does in responding to criminal conduct which is serious enough
to call for arrest, prosecution, and conviction. This does not mean that serious crime
is unimportant to the policeman… But it does mean that he performs a wide range of
other functions which are of a highly complex nature and which often involve difficult
social, behavioural and political problems”.
3.7. Reflections
Contrary to the British neoliberal view, the conservative policy of Cameron has not
exclusively received a song of praise for crime fighting policing. Following a long line of
tradition, the emphasis is once again put on central police duty in Belgium, especially
the prevention of crime and the preservation of the public order. This could indicate
that the heyday of neo-liberalism in Belgium is behind us and that there has been a
growth of understanding that this political style has plunged the country into successive
economic crises. The original social-democratic values, which were the basis of the
modern police idea, had been pointing towards the limitations of a punitive approach
to policing for a long time, compared to a genuine striving for social justice.
This reality will possibly be hardly recognized in a criminological circles, given the fact
that criminology has, usually been invested in criminality in the narrow sense. However,
sustained that position. According to the Minister of the Interior Annemie Turtelboom, it is “unacceptable”
that the fight against fraud could be crossed off the priority list. “Especially in times of economic crisis in
which we have to find 11.3 billion Euros, the fight against fiscal fraud has to stay a priority”, says the politician
of Open VLD (Flemish liberal party).
32 Buxant, M. “Gewapende diefstallen topprioriteit voor politie”, De Morgen 17.02.2012.
33 President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice (1967) Task Force Report: The
Police Washington: US Government Printing Office, p. 13.
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CPS 2012-4, nr. 25 129
police and political scientists have been aware of a wider understanding of the police
function for a long time in the sense of peacekeeping, and have frequently emphasized
this broader view of police work. The fact that some contemporary Western European
governments still find themselves in the aftermath of the neo-liberal slipstream, seems
to be a consequence of inertia, or to offer the characteristic to resist to every condition
that tries to bend a state of immobility to a flow of movement.
Does the attention to the preventive role of the police in the National Security Plan
lead effectively to a full recognition of the primary police duty? There is a lot of doubt
about this. When we are talking about “the negotiated supervision of public space”, it
is evident that the National Safety Plan primarily concerns extraordinary large-scale
disturbances rather than small-scale day-to-day problems that are more frequent. The
core duty of the police “preservation of the public order” here is hardly ever mentioned
in the National Security Plan, and, as we have shown, the notion of ‘nuisance’ was only
mentioned briefly. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that the government postponed the
announcement of the National Security Plan before a memorandum of the executive
‘Integral Security
34
’ was completed. This memorandum focuses on cooperation between
the police and other government departments, which only points out that governmental
circles are very well aware of the fact that the relationship between police and politics
is of vital importance.
4. Conclusion: descriptive and prescriptive
Greene’s metaphor of the sea that opens this Journal of Police Studies, has been extremely
inspirational for us. The metaphor allows us to give various areas of knowledge a suitable
place within our global knowledge about policing. It was very important, in this article, to
place the “Tides”, the foundations of the modern police, under which can be understood
the relation between police and politics. The police brings relief during social unrest,
but there is a painful awareness that they do not have the power to eradicate the causes
of social unrest. The police is dependent on politics in this sense, which is theoretically
capable of doing so. However politicians do not have the power to always find the right
answer to social deprivation, impoverishment, unemployment, etc. As a matter of fact,
politics do not exist in a fragmented country such as Belgium, which is a conglomerate
of federal policies, regional (and community, provincial, district, municipal, zonal,
inter-municipal, local with various partners (politicians, lobby groups, midfield, unions,
etc.). Expecting the government to solve everything would be a misjudgement of the
political reality in times of an economic crisis. Social justice is considered to be a political
ideal that must be pursued in the spirit of the age, that at the same time is restricted
by feasibility limits. Politics needs the police in this sense. The police must take care
of the unrest that a failing government causes and channel it.
To use another metaphor, politics are the sun and the police is the moon. They both
cause the “Tides” to change, together. They are a kin to a continual movement between
applying a sedative medicine to a tumour patient and the healing operation that has
to follow it. However, postponing the healing too long can lead to fear, frustration,
34 In line with the coalition agreement of Prime Minister E. Di Rupo (December 2011), the memorandum
“integral security policy” of the executive is determined by the Minister of the Interior, the Minister of Justice
and the Minister of Mobility, who will show the larger framework in which the National Security Plan (in
general a police place) will be fitted in. The last memorandum of the executive dates from March 30-31, 2004.
ON HOW A FAILING GOVERNMENT CREATES AN INTRUSIVE POLICE FORCE
130 CPS 2012-4, nr. 25
resistance and revolt. It was this basic principle that Cyrille Fijnaut (1979) nourished,
when he wrote his doctoral dissertation “Opdat de macht een toevlucht zij...” When the
political class does not have the power to offer radical answers, the police power will
be its refuge. It is only a refuge, a intermediate stop because the police will never have
the power to set the social injustice straight. In this sense, the citizen would rather
worry about a weak democracy, than about strong police force. The police becomes a
permanent power factor in failing democracies, a barricade that the political class can
hide itself behind up to the moment that the police becomes a political factor on its
own and democracy ceases to exist.
The police is at the most temporary, a caretaker, a body that detects tension fields,
mediates between conflicting parties, and gives advice, all in a democracy that feels very
strongly about social justice. The police is a governmental agency that prevents revolt and
uprising. The police knows how to interact with differences of opinion, ways of thinking
and small conflict situations in a professional manner, knowing that at the most that
can be done is to push back symptoms, awaiting vigorous social and economic politics
which will deal with the roots of disturbances and delinquency. This is the meaning of
the fundamental police role, particularly peacekeeping. In this sense crime fighting and
delinquency control is a marginal police assignment, given the fact that at the moment
criminal offences are committed it is usually already too late and prevention becomes
impossible. ‘The coming and going’ of the police in this sense means acting on the
“Tides” of calls from the population, being present in the neighbourhoods and being
approachable with the necessary professionalism.
We are eager to refer back to the title of this concluding reflection: not only descriptive,
but also prescriptive. This fundamental police role is one of the biggest discoveries of the
social-scientific research of the last century. It is not only a descriptive subject, it is also
desirable (and prescriptive) that the police continues to persevere in this role. Fulfilling
this assignment rarely demands the use of blue flashing lights, batons, cuffs, pepper
spray and blaring sirens. It rather takes a modest and humble approach, a confident, but
at the same time, correct and empathic attitude. Such a concept permits us to re-adjust
concrete and measurable goals in order to deliver (temporary) solutions (Bowling, 2008),
or to select problems that demand specialized interventions in the long run. They are
inevitably and inextricably connected to the signalling of social problems to policy
makers. The police encounters every layer of society, knows the rancid and difficult
edges of it and it is better that these observations are transmitted to the politicians who
are responsible. As stated in the introduction, the police can only offer essential help
and care in the short-term, but they cannot guarantee to heal a serious social disease.
In conclusion, the police can only contribute to social pacification coherently with more
policies in the sphere of inclusive citizenship and social justice.
The increasing resistance against the continuation of the reasoned, frigid neoliberal
politics, reveals itself through the proliferation of all sorts of protest movements. This
generates hope for change. It would be pleasant if the political class would finally
recognize that the police is only what it is, and that criminal policy could work with the
limitations of police and sentences, especially in absence of a wider social justice policy.
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CPS 2012-4, nr. 25 131
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