Problem-oriented policing of transnational environmental crimes: a social harms approach

Since the publication of Herman Goldstein’s seminal article on Problem-oriented Policing (POP) in 1979, criminologists have attempted to apply its proactive methodology, with a large body of police work concentrating on how operational policing can benefit from the methodologies of POP, and specifically how events are recognised, approached and resolved as policing problems. Even then, most of these works ascribe a non-existing ontological value to events, supposing a bad actor against whom the good actor intervenes. This atomised, state-centrist notion of criminality has been discredited by social harms theory, which emphasises a reading of crime that reaches beyond the bureaucratic abilities of state criminal justice agencies. This article is aimed at illustrating how both POP and a social harms approach to crime can enrich each other, especially with regard to environmental crimes.     

‘Inappropriate but not crime’? Policing racial hatred in Sweden

ABSTRACT

Racial bias afflicts police practices across the globe. Police discrimination against and mistreatment of racial and ethnic minorities is indeed difficult to underestimate. While much attention has been thus paid to racially biased policing, fewer studies examine the question from the reverse angle, namely how the police themselves combat racist offences. This article offers empirical insights into the policing of racial hatred in Sweden, a relevant yet relatively understudied case. Drawing on interviews with police officers and crime investigators, I discuss law enforcement perspectives, e.g. perceptions and reasoning in relation to the investigation of racist offences. Findings evince a rather narrow approach as regards the constructions of racist motive that involves a relatively restricted use of bias labelling in identifying hate incidents, especially when the boundaries of racial hostility are perceived as blurred. I argue that while such an approach may reflect a legitimate effort to demonstrate the existence of a motive behind an offence, it may also lead to an underestimation of more mundane forms of racism and their harms inflicted upon racialized individuals and communities. The results have implications for ‘recognition’ and ‘belonging’ as benchmarks of democratic policing, and ‘the promise of inclusion’ associated with combatting hate crimes.     

Evolving issues in police and immigrants’ relation in Finland: is it towards a structural interpretation?

The relation between police and immigrants has become a topic of scholarly fields of research as immigration has increased the number of new residents and people from a variety of countries and cultures into Finland. This new phenomenon has slowly changed the country to a multicultural society, thus requiring government agencies to adapt and adjust in the ways they provide services to the citizenry. Moreover, empirical research studies on minorities’ and immigrants’ perceptions of the police posit that certain factors are responsible for minorities’ lack of trust in the police. Little attention has been given to this issue in Finland. The aim of this study is to analyse and explore as well as add to the growing scholarly research on the perception and cooperation between immigrants and the police in Finland in order to address the factors that could possibly be responsible for immigrants’ lack of trust in the police. To address these issues, the study uses the experiences of 23 out of the 65 Africans whose ages range from 28 to 50+ who have resided in the country for five or more years. The findings indicate a depth of troublesome cross-cultural understanding between the participants and the police owing to differences in the policing styles in Finland and the respondents’ countries of origin. The concept of over-policing is analysed with a view to ensure the effective protection of the human rights of the participating immigrants within the country’s criminal justice system.     

Immigrants’ interaction with the police in Finland: Is it distorted or inflammatory?

One enduring conflict area in police–minorities relations is the distrust of the police by minorities and consequently, the low level of confidence in the police among racial minorities. This stems from the impact of race in policing; and the perception that racial discrimination is a feature of criminal justice systems across the world has intensified. Moreover, race controversy is not new in police work. It is against this background that many police establishments are becoming increasingly frustrated by ethnic minority /immigrant allegations that they are being singled out as easy targets for police stop and search practices. In Finland, however, only little is known about immigrants’ views of police interaction, and perceptions of police discrimination in the country. Moreover, the police force in Finland may also be characterised by discriminatory mechanisms which are found in police institutions of other Western states where there has been more extensive research on the issue. The aim of the present study is to examine the attitude of immigrants toward the police by seeking to place the patterns of immigrants’ interaction with the police into context using their experiences as the basis of the analysis. The study also evaluates the impact of “ethnicity” in immigrants’ police experiences in our attempt to better understand how immigrants are subjected to stereotypical behaviour within the criminal justice system despite the fact that the police are tasked with carrying out their mandate to protect every citizen in the country. Thus, the interactions of immigrants with the police are our focus of analysis in our quest to understand new challenges brought about by the new immigrants in Finland. One thing is certain, however: police are not immune from racial conflict; as they continue to operate within our societies regardless of the ethnic composition of the country must be considered as a major policy issue of legal analysis. Therefore, the cultural and contextual nature of immigrants’ interaction with the police and the author's analysis will serve as the basis for assessing what may be required to ensure that discrimination is eliminated from the criminal justice system in the country.     

The Decision to Become a Police Officer in a Legitimacy Crisis

This study examines how individuals make the decision to become police officers in the context of a police legitimacy crisis and how men and women’s decision-making processes may be different. In-depth interviews were conducted with 42 criminal justice college students who want to become police officers. Prospective police officers anticipated facing challenges as a direct result of the current climate surrounding American policing, which is characterized by decreased police legitimacy. On top of this, women anticipated facing more challenges than male officers due to their gender and underrepresentation in police work. However, women were uniquely motivated to enter policing to overcome gender-specific challenges and felt that they offered special skills that would provide solutions to the police legitimacy crisis. The paper draws implications for how agencies can identify more quality candidates and increase their representation of women.     

The thin blue line meets the big blue sky: perceptions of police legitimacy and public attitudes towards aerial drones

Police departments across the United States are now integrating new visual monitoring technology (e.g. unmanned aerial vehicles [UAVs or ‘drones’], body cameras) into routine police practices. Despite their potential use in multiple areas of proactive and reactive policing, public attitudes toward police use of UAVs, and visual monitoring technology overall, is mixed. As an extension of previous research, the current study uses a national survey to assess how well individuals’ perceptions about police legitimacy, effectiveness, and other criminal justice attitudes predict the level of public receptivity and opposition toward police UAV use in various contexts. The implications of these findings for public policy and law enforcement practices are discussed.     

Mental health issues and the Canadian criminal justice system**

The critics assert that a significant proportion of incarcerated individuals suffers from mental health issues, i.e. ‘the criminalization hypothesis.’ The current paper reviews the scholarly literature to address five interrelated questions: (1) What are the risks of those classified as mentally ill for committing crimes and, in particular, violent crimes? (2) As the gatekeepers to the criminal justice system, what happens during ‘first encounters’ between the police with those who have mental illnesses? (3) What community-based services are available for effective diversions as an alternative to incarceration for those with mental illnesses? (4) What are the impacts of treatment options upon those experiencing mental illnesses while incarcerated, including the impact upon recidivism? (5) What types of pre-release planning and community responses have the most positive effects to help reduce recidivism and assist offenders in coping with mental health issues in the Canadian context? After summarizing key evidence pertaining to these questions, the paper presents case studies as exemplars of ‘best practices’ to illustrate promising directions conducive to integrated, holistic, and effective responses at the intersection of the criminal justice and mental health systems.     

Procedural Justice and Order Maintenance Policing: A Study of Inner‐City Young Men’s Perceptions of Police Legitimacy

There is tension between the core tenets of procedural justice and those of order maintenance policing. Research has shown that citizens’ perceptions of procedural justice influence their beliefs about police legitimacy, yet at the same time, some order maintenance policing efforts stress frequent stops of vehicles and persons for suspected disorderly behavior. These types of programs can threaten citizens’ perceptions of police legitimacy because the targeted offenses are minor and are often not well‐defined. Citizens stopped for low‐level offenses may view such stops as a form of harassment, as they may not believe they were doing anything to warrant police scrutiny. This paper examines young men’s self‐described experiences with this style of proactive policing. Study findings highlight that order maintenance policing strategies have negative implications for police legitimacy and crime control efforts via their potential to damage citizens’ views of procedural justice.     

Punishing Drug Possession in the Magistrates’ Courts: Time for a Rethink

A lively drug policy debate is going on in the UK, and a central theme emerging is the punishment of drug offenders. The main contributing voices draw attention to the largely futile position of prosecuting offenders through the criminal justice system who are drug addicted and/or who are caught in possession of small quantities of drugs for personal use. This paper adds to this discussion by reporting findings from observations carried out in London Magistrates’ Courts. It notes the relatively high prevalence of small quantity drug possession cases that appeared before the courts over the study days, and questions the value of this type of crime arriving here in the first place. It examines the resultant financial penalties that are most commonly dispensed, and asks whether they can be reasonably justified. It states these are harsh and depriving given the already economically disadvantaged status of most defendants. In addition, case details revealed issues of policing approach involving ‘stop and search’ and the variable application of police discretion. The paper calls for thought to be given to the damage caused to peoples’ lives through pursuing criminalising drug policies, and to the time and economic cost to stretched policing and criminal justice resources. It suggests we learn lessons from other European jurisdictions who assign drug possession for personal use cases, to an arm of the prosecution service where they are processed as ‘out-of-court’, ‘administration offences’.     

Civilising the police: reconceptualising the role of the state in theories of American policing

The three eras in American policing – political, reform, and community – has become the default theoretical framework within the study of criminal justice, explicitly and implicitly shaping the discourse of police studies. Despite historically informed criticisms of this three-era model, no alternative theory has been proffered as a way of critically thinking about the police. This paper draws on Norbert Elias’ civilising thesis and the role of the state as an alternative theoretical framework to explain the evolution of American policing. We argue that changes in policing are more cogently explained by assuming a long-term view of change and that the intrusion and the retreat of the state from society better captures the evolution of the police through time.     

侦诉协作机制的价值分析与制度构建

建立侦诉协作机制,增强侦诉合力,形成"大控方"的追诉格局,对于保证刑事诉讼活动的顺利进行,具有重大的价值和意义。目前,司法实务部门对侦诉协作机制所进行的积极探索,为该机制的立法构建提供了有益的实践经验。在《刑事诉讼法》再修改时应当通过程序设计对侦诉协作机制作出明确规定,并完善相应的配套制度,推动该机制良好地运行。     

Transformation of Macau policing: from a Portuguese colony to China’s SAR

This study examines policing in Macau and identifies major forces that have shaped its transformation over past decades. Prior to 1999, Macau was a Portuguese colony. Its criminal justice system inherited key features of the Continental system, including two independent law enforcement agencies: the Judiciary Police and the Public Security Police. In the colonial era, expatriate commanders drawn from the military or legal professions headed both departments, while the rank-and-file was composed mainly of local Chinese. This policing mechanism, together with the ‘laissez-faire’ policing philosophy adopted by colonial leaders, created segregation between policing agencies and the community. Citizens preferred minimal interaction with police, since they were skeptical about their professionalism, capability, and reliability. Macau became part of the Peoples’ Republic of China in 1999. The de-monopolization of the gaming industries in 2002 brought huge GDP growth, but generated internal social conflict. Growing public demand for accountable governance motivated a series of governmental reforms, some of which have extended to policing. These reforms have improved the transparency of policing, but it remains to be seen if they will ultimately succeed in generating public trust in the police forces.     

Co-option,coercion and compromise: challenges of restorative justice in Victoria,Australia

Restorative justice (RJ) encompasses a widely diverging set of practices whereby those most affected by crime are encouraged to meet, to discuss the effects of harms caused by one party to another, and to agree upon the best possible redress of harms when appropriate. In its inception in the late 1970s, RJ was conceptualized and developed as an alternative to formal criminal justice practices. Since this time, however, RJ has largely moved from being an alternative to criminal justice practices to an ‘alternative’ practice within criminal justice systems. This institutionalization has resulted in the significant growth of RJ practices, but has also resulted in RJ being used for criminal justice system goals that are at odds with the needs of victims or offenders. This paper examines the use of the Youth Justice Group Conferencing Program in Victoria, Australia. Drawing from interviews with conference conveners, our research highlights problems related to administrative ‘constraints’ and ‘co-options’ in conferencing in terms of referrals, preparation of conference participants, and victim participation. Following presentation of findings, we conclude with a discussion of implications for the use of RJ within a highly institutionalized setting.     

Stop and Risk: Policing,Data, and the Digital Age of Discrimination

Predictive policing is the newest innovation in the field of law enforcement. Predictive policing programs use algorithms to analyze existing crime data in an attempt to make predictions about future crimes: What crimes are likely to be committed, where crimes are likely to be committed, and a list of potential victims and offenders. Proponents of predictive policing champion the practice as an effective, proactive form of law enforcement that is free from bias due to its data-driven nature. However, as a matter of justice policy, predictive policing is just as discriminatory as traditional police practices, such as stop and frisk: Both are relatively ineffective; both have the potential to disproportionately target minorities; both are challenging forms of surveillance that create several important ethical and legal issues; and both are presented as objective, impartial, and equitable. This article has three primary goals: Highlight the potential and problematic similarities between stop and frisk and predictive policing; present the problems associated with predictive policing, including its questionable effectiveness, biased foundation, and faulty legal and ethical footing; and discuss the ways in which discriminatory criminal justice programs, such as stop and frisk and predictive policing, are presented to the public as objective, non-discriminatory policies.

     

Lessons from Orgreave: Police Power and the Criminalization of Protest

In October 2016, the Home Secretary ruled out a public inquiry into the ‘Battle of Orgreave', arguing that ‘very few lessons’ could be learned from a review of practices of three decades ago. It was suggested that policing has undergone a progressive transformation since the 1984–5 miners’ strike, at political, legal, and operational levels. This article, in contrast, charts a significant expansion of state control over public protest since the strike, including a proliferation of public order offences and an extension of pre‐emptive policing powers. Whilst concerns have been raised about the impact of these developments on protest rights, there is an absence of socio‐legal research into the operation of public order powers in practice. In this article, I begin to fill this lacuna. Drawing on three empirical case‐studies of protesters’ experiences of arrest and the criminal justice process, I highlight the relevance of Orgreave for contemporary policing practice.     

The truth and the trial: victim participation,restorative justice,and the International Criminal Court

In the field of international criminal justice, the international criminal court (ICC) has been lauded for its integration of victim participants into its legal proceedings. In particular, the ICC’s framework of victim participation has been understood to figure as a balance between retributive and restorative justice as it enables the actual voices of the victims to be heard. However, there has been little research that considers how victim participation works in practice as a form of truth-telling. In order to begin to address this gap, the integration of the ‘voices of the victims’ into the proceedings and outcome of The Prosecutor v. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo is explored. The forms of harms and experiences that comprise the truth of the events under adjudication put forward by the victim participants are considered, and then how the truth-telling functions of the ICC represent these states of injury. While the ICC’s legal proceedings enable victims to speak of their harms and experiences, their ‘voices’ are largely absent from its judgment. To address this issue, the ICC needs to develop and maintain a level of ‘restorative justice coherence’ to manage victims’ expectations of its justice approaches.     

The Extent and Correlates of Public Support for Deterrence Reforms and Hot Spots Policing

As one approach to prison downsizing and criminal justice reform, scholars recommend altering the nature of policing by reallocating resources toward policing and increasing sentinel patrols and hot spots interventions. Public attitudes toward these reforms are unknown. In the current police crisis, shifting policies in ways disfavored by the public can impact police‐community relations, especially among those disproportionately affected. The current study uses survey data from a nationally representative sample of Americans to evaluate whether the public is receptive to the suggested reforms. Our results indicate that the majority of the general public believes policing is more cost‐effective than incarceration and supports a focus on sentinel patrols and crime hot spots, although there is less support for hot spots policing among blacks, Hispanics, and lower income individuals. The hot spots policing strategy most preferred is situational prevention, and the least supported is aggressive order‐maintenance policing.     

Crowd Situations and their Policing from the Perspective of Finnish Police Officers—a Case Study of Finnish Police Knowledge

This study explores crowd situations from the perspective of the Finnish police. The qualitative data consist of focused face-to-face interviews with police officers (n = 15). The results of these interviews indicate that special crowd control units have shifted from being an innovation to being an ordinary part of public order policing, despite the infrequent use of these units. Furthermore, police knowledge concurrently involved diversity and polarity. Crowd situations vary from political protests to sporting events and street festivals, and the police play multiple roles and apply diverse measures and tactics depending on the situation. Polarity is linked to the way the police perceive different crowds and crowd events as ‘easy’ and ‘ordinary’ or ‘difficult’ and ‘deviant’. Finally, tension emerges between national and global aspects within police knowledge. This tension is linked to how police perceive crowd events and public order policing in terms of the past, the present, and the future.     

Race and satisfaction with the police in a small city

In a democratic society, public opinion of criminal justice systems is essential for the proper functioning of police departments. Since the 1970s, police organizations were increasingly concerned with their external social relationship. This was particularly true in the era of community policing. This study explored determinants of satisfaction with the police. Data from 235 residents of a small northeastern city in the United States were analyzed. The results indicated that Hispanics had the lowest global satisfaction with the police, while Caucasians had the highest. The results also revealed the importance of separating global satisfaction from specific satisfaction. The study concluded that police departments must work harder at gaining public satisfaction among African Americans and Hispanics and work toward increasing public feelings of safety in order to improve citizen satisfaction with the police.     

The effect of community policing on fear and crime reduction,police legitimacy and job satisfaction: an empirical review of the evidence

Since the 1970s, community policing strategies or the language thereof have been purportedly initiated by a number of police departments nationwide to address notable issues such as crime, neighborhood disorder, and fear of crime. This policing philosophy has received considerable attention and support among scholars, police administrators, and criminal justice practitioners. This article synthesizes the available empirical evidence on the effectiveness of community policing initiatives using a variety of outcome measures. An overview of community policing is first provided with particular attention paid to its essence and objectives. Prior studies that have analyzed community policing effectiveness are then reviewed and assessed in terms of their methodological rigor and scientific merit. A discussion and future research considerations are presented to conclude.