Police and counterterrorism
News •
In the early 21st century, terrorism, particularly the September 11 attacks in the United States, profoundly affected the nature of policing. Although police had been combating terrorism long before 2001, the magnitude of the September 11 attacks and of subsequent acts of terrorism in other countries (including Spain, Britain, Morocco, and Egypt) showed that conventional tactics were no longer adequate. Police departments would have to work more closely with national security agencies, and many police resources would have to be redirected toward the surveillance of suspected terrorists.
From about 1960 to about 1980, police in Europe confronted a wave of terrorism that swept over several countries. Although some of the organizations involved are still active—for example, the Basque ETA in Spain—police eliminated most of them, such as the Front de Libération du Québec in Canada, the Red Army Faction in what was then West Germany, and the Red Brigades in Italy. (The remnants of the Red Brigades splintered into two factions: the New Red Brigades/Communist Combatant Party and the Red Brigades/Union of Combatant Communists. Although occasionally active, these splinter groups have too little in common with the original Red Brigades to be considered their heirs.) The police owed their success mostly to their ability to infiltrate the terrorist networks with human sources, who then cultivated informants. To a large extent, police used the same methods against terrorism that they had successfully used in certain countries against organized crime, with some significant exceptions. They were at times granted emergency powers that allowed them to detain suspects for longer periods for questioning. Some states also instituted policies against terrorist sympathizers, such as the Berufsverbot (“work ban”) in West Germany, which prohibited a person identified as a sympathizer from working in government service. (The Berufsverbot is still used in Germany today.) Police operatives also resorted to various dirty tricks (e.g., break-ins, intimidation, the publication of fake terrorist communiqués, the spread of false and destructive rumors about individuals, and entrapment), euphemistically called “destabilization tactics,” that were of questionable legality. (Those abuses were investigated and made public by various commissions of inquiry.)
After the September 11 attacks, it was recognized that the changed nature of terrorism would require corresponding changes in counterterrorism tactics. First, terrorism was more difficult to combat. Because terrorism had become truly global, the languages and customs of terrorists often differed from those of local police, making infiltration more difficult. Moreover, although the community-policing movement had enabled police to develop closer ties to the communities they served, it also sometimes created feelings of allegiance that discouraged police from sharing knowledge of their communities with intelligence agencies. Second, the scale of devastation caused by terrorist attacks like those of September 11 made them seem more like acts of war than crimes. Especially in the United States, the perception of terrorism as a military as well as a law enforcement problem only complicated the task of developing effective policing strategies against terrorists.
Cooperation between law enforcement agencies and national-security and intelligence agencies in investigations of terrorism also has been hampered by institutional factors of longer standing. Police investigators and intelligence collectors often do not share common goals: investigators aim at prosecuting an offender, whereas intelligence officers hoard intelligence until they can wipe out whole terrorist networks. The so-called “wall” between law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI, and the intelligence community is no myth. The sharing of information is made even more difficult by the fact that members of local law enforcement agencies, whose contribution may be vital, may not possess the level of security clearance necessary for access to sensitive intelligence. Such problems are only magnified when the law enforcement and intelligence agencies involved are located in different countries.
The surveillance and arrest of terrorist suspects require significant police manpower and resources, as does preparation for future terrorist attacks. As a result, some observers fear that the reform programs instituted since the 1980s will be underfunded and will grind to a halt.
National police organizations
Police organizations around the world form a wide spectrum: the national police forces of most countries in continental Europe represent extreme cases of the centralized model, and the police system of the United States represents the decentralized extreme. In between are hybrid cases, such as Canada. Although two provinces of Canada, Ontario and Quebec, have decentralized police systems, a single force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, has jurisdiction in the rest of the country. Police forces also may be classified as centralized or decentralized relative to each other. For example, police organizations in the United Kingdom—including about 50 regional police forces in England, Scotland, and Wales—are generally considered decentralized, but when compared with the tens of thousands of police forces in the United States, they appear fairly centralized. However, the United Kingdom also has a domestic security service, MI5, that bridges the customary gap between intelligence gathering and criminal policing. Attempts to bridge that gap are a feature of more centralized policing systems.
Centralized police organizations
Western continental Europe favors the centralized model of policing, as do Russia and other eastern European countries. However, there is considerable variation among the centralized police organizations of western European countries. Most fall under one of four categories: (1) complete centralization in one police force; (2) high centralization, with a small number of national police forces; (3) regional centralization under federal authority; and (4) decentralized local policing, with a strong national agency. Other commonalities among European police systems are a strong domestic security arm that is integrated partly or wholly into the police apparatus and unarmed municipal police forces that enforce various local bylaws and regulate traffic.
Sweden is an example of a country with a completely centralized police force: it has only one national police force, the Rikspolis. It comprises a number of police authorities, each of which is responsible for policing one of the counties of the country. The counties are further subdivided into police districts, of which there are several hundred.
France, Italy, and Spain exemplify the model of high centralization with a small number of national police forces. There are two national police agencies in France: the National Police and the Gendarmerie Nationale. The National Police operates in cities, whereas the Gendarmerie Nationale polices rural areas and small towns. A third force, the State Security Police (French: Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité), is a part of the National Police but is organized like a military unit. Italy’s national police agencies include the State Police, which is responsible for public order and security; the Carabinieri, which functions both as a military police force and as a civil police force; and the Financial Police, or Treasury Guard, which deals with economic crimes such as tax evasion and counterfeiting. Spain’s police system consists of two national police agencies: the National Police, which is responsible for most police duties, and the Civil Guard, which is a militarized force that patrols rural areas and also specializes in the protection of national security (counterterrorism) and crowd control.
Germany and The Netherlands typify regional centralization under federal authority. Germany has two federal police forces: the Federal Criminal Police Office, whose role is similar to that of the FBI in the United States, and the Federal Border Guard. However, the basic policing structure rests on the state or province police forces, which are similarly structured. In The Netherlands, the National Police Agency operates under the authority of the Ministry of the Interior, but the regional police forces provide the backbone of the policing system. There is also a military police force, the Royal Dutch Constabulary (Dutch: Koninklijke Marechaussee), which operates in rural areas and polices the Dutch borders.
The Belgian police system features a federal police force, which brought together the former gendarmerie and the national criminal investigation unit, and numerous local police forces, each of which is responsible to a mayor. Belgium’s system of policing is closer to an Anglo-American decentralized model than the other European centralized models.
The police forces in Russia and the former Soviet-bloc countries of eastern Europe entered a state of transition after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Soviet Union was policed by a single centralized police force, the Militia, that operated in the various territorial divisions of the country under the rigid authority of the Ministry of the Interior (MVD). After the former Soviet republics gained independence, many of the constituent parts of the Militia also became fully independent, while other parts remained in the Russian Federation. The police forces within the states of the Russian Federation enjoy some independence from the federal government. Although much of the centralized police apparatus of the former Soviet Union is still in place, it is weaker; similar institutions in the former Soviet-bloc countries also have been weakened to varying degrees.
Decentralized police organizations
The United States has what may be the most decentralized police system in the world, characterized by an extraordinary degree of duplication and conflicting jurisdiction. Although every community is entitled to run its own police department, none can prevent federal or state officials from conducting local investigations into offenses over which they have jurisdiction. There are five major types of police agency: (1) the federal system, consisting of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Secret Service, the Postal Inspection Service, and many others; (2) police forces and criminal investigation agencies established by each of the 50 states of the union; (3) sheriffs’ departments in several thousand counties, plus a few county police forces that either duplicate the sheriffs’ police jurisdictions or displace them; (4) the police forces of about 1,000 cities and more than 20,000 townships and New England towns; and (5) the police of some 15,000 villages, boroughs, and incorporated towns. To this list must be added special categories, such as the police of the District of Columbia; various forces attached to authorities governing bridges, tunnels, and parks; university, or “campus,” police forces; and some units that police special districts formed for fire protection, soil conservation, and other diverse purposes. Although there are tens of thousands of police forces throughout the United States, the majority of them consist of just a few officers.
The existing American police structure to some extent reflects public opposition to any concentration of police power. It has been argued that the nation would suffer, and local governments would be enfeebled, should all offenses become federal offenses and all police power be transferred to Washington, D.C. Local problems require local remedies, according to this view. On the other hand, it also has been argued that the integration and consolidation of police forces would reduce costs and increase efficiency. As this debate continues, many small municipalities in the United States have chosen to maintain their own police forces, while others have joined together to form regional police departments.
Other countries with federal political structures have federal police forces as well as state forces that operate on the same principles as those observed in the United States. In Australia, for example, each of the six states has its own police force and its own laws but does not legislate in matters pertaining to federal organizations and cannot pass laws at variance with those of the commonwealth. Yet even countries like Australia have attempted to move away from the fragmentation that is characteristic of American policing. The model that many countries have adopted blends strong central leadership with a limited number of regional police forces, as in the United Kingdom.
After India’s accession to independence in 1947, the minister of home affairs, Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel, established the All-India Services for public administration. One of those services is the Indian Police Service, which trains officers for the police forces of the states and big cities, such as New Delhi and Mumbai (Bombay). Although police leaders are trained at least in part by the Indian Police Service, the various states and main cities have different police forces with their own specific features, making for a complex policing structure. India also has central security agencies, such as the Border Security Force, the Central Reserve Police Force, and the National Security Guard, which specialize in counterterrorism. Although they are national services, their members may be dispatched to particular areas to help solve local problems.
The police forces of Japan are deployed in a number of regional police prefectures. Each regional force has a certain degree of autonomy. The police operate out of small police posts—koban in cities and chuzaisho in rural areas—and maintain an unparalleled closeness to the communities they serve. The central government’s National Police Agency exerts strong leadership over local police forces and promotes common standards; it also engages in secret intelligence gathering. Japanese policing methods have been thoroughly studied by Western scholars and were influential in the development of community policing in Anglo-Saxon countries. Police ministations and storefronts, for example, were in part modeled on the koban.
The police system of Brazil, a federal state, also features a balance between a central authority and a limited number of regional police forces. The police force of each state is under the authority of the state’s Secretariat for Public Security. Like many other countries of Latin America, Brazil also possesses a military police force that is controlled by the armed forces, as are the gendarmeries in Europe. Hence, although military police are deployed in the various Brazilian states, they report to the headquarters of the various military regions.
Police organizations in Africa
Because of political fragmentation and the disruption caused by numerous covert or overt civil wars, it is difficult to give an account of policing in Africa. Enduring civil conflict has generated a breakdown of law and order in such countries as Rwanda, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Somalia despite the nominal existence of policing organizations. In some countries, such as Nigeria, endemic police corruption fundamentally undermines all attempts to bring justice to the population. In countries with very high rates of violent crime, such as South Africa, there is a massive resort to private policing of every kind.
In fact, although many African countries have national police forces, policing functions are commonly performed by the private sector and sometimes by the populace itself. In addition, all countries in Africa depend to various extents on the military for the maintenance of order and for crisis intervention. They also have created national agencies responsible for state security.
European colonial powers established policing systems in both North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, and the legacy of colonialism accounts for many differences in national policing systems on the continent. In Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, and Tunisia, policing systems replicate the centralized police model applied in France, while Libya follows the centralized Italian model. The countries of West and Central Africa that were colonized by France, Belgium, and Germany also have centralized police systems. In general, the police forces in those countries are tripartite, comprising an independent municipal police force for the capital city, a national police force for all other cities, and a militarized gendarmerie for the countryside. Countries that fell under the British sphere of influence, such as Egypt and Kenya, tend to have less-centralized police systems, with both regional police forces and municipal police organizations in large cities. Unlike other former British colonies, South Africa is policed by a single force—the South African Police Service (SAPS)—which conducts criminal investigation, intelligence, and forensics at the national level and is also deployed in the provinces of the country. Whether operating at the national or provincial levels, SAPS is under the command of a single national commissioner. These generalizations on policing in Africa allow for other exceptions as well; for instance, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Uganda developed their own mixtures of federal (centralized) and regional (decentralized) policing in the postcolonial era.
Michael Parker Banton Jean-Paul Brodeur