Police Operations Research Articles

Little evidence that military policing reduces crime or improves human security.

Governments in low- and middle-income countries routinely deploy their armed forces for domestic policing operations. Advocates of these policies claim they reduce crime, while detractors argue they undermine human rights. Here we experimentally evaluate a military policing intervention in Cali, Colombia. The intervention involved recurring, intensive military patrols targeting crime hot spots, randomly assigned at the city block level. Using administrative crime and human rights data, surveys of more than 10,000 residents, and firsthand observations from civilian monitors, we find little to no credible evidence that military policing reduced crime or improved perceptions of safety during the intervention. If anything, we find that military policing probably exacerbated crime after the intervention was complete. We also find evidence of increased human rights abuses in our survey data (though not in the administrative data or in the firsthand observations of civilian monitors), largely committed by police officers rather than soldiers. We argue the benefits of military policing are probably small and not worth the costs.

재난을 표상하기, 그리하여 재난을 정치화하기

This article aims to analyze the political conflict over disasters in Korean society from a cultural-political perspective. The term “cultural politics” refers to the political work of defining the meaning of events such as disasters through the specific construction of representations such as symbols, narratives, images, and speech, and in doing so, regulating or reconstructing the public's sense of such events. Through Rancière's concepts of policing and politics, this article aims to identify how the political is performed at the level of the sensible. Furthermore, I will analyze the operation of policing in the formation of the public sense of disaster in Korean society through the concept of disaster narrative, focusing on the Sewol ferry disaster. I will then discuss how the Safe Society Movement, which challenges the work of policing in regulating the sense of disaster, has politicized the sense of disaster by constructing alternative representations. Finally, I will clarify the meaning of cultural politics through this interpretive research work.

Predictive policing and negotiations of (in)formality: Exploring the Swiss case

Predictive policing, that is, the data-driven deployment of police operations on the ground, has become increasingly important in recent years. While predictive policing instruments serve to formalise the ways in which police think and operate, the human agent remains central to their exploitation and translation into strategic, operational, and tactical decision-making. The introduction of predictive policing instruments and methods therefore represents a particularly insightful terrain on which to analyse negotiations of formality and informality. How this plays out in the Swiss context will be addressed in this paper. Based on a review of documents and policies on predictive policing developments and exploratory interviews conducted with police officers and developers, we discuss how institutions and actors engage with predictive policing and what this tells us about the formalisation, respectively informalisation of police work. Our findings point to the challenges related to the federalist organisation of police in Switzerland and the growing importance of cantonal threat management (Bedrohungsmangement) platforms. We also note a general lack of awareness regarding the potentially harmful outcomes of predictive policing instruments, which may be related to a specifically Helvetic narrative that downplays the impact these instruments have on decision-making.

Strategies for Countering Freezing in Police Operational Activities

Strategies for Countering Freezing in Police Operational Activities

The Persistent, Pernicious Use of Pushbacks against Children and Adults in Search of Safety

Border pushbacks, including at the European Union’s external borders and by countries such as Australia, Mexico, Turkey, and the United States, are common—and in fact have become a new normal. These border policing or other operations aim to prevent people from reaching, entering, or remaining in a territory. Screening for protection needs is summary or non-existent. Pushbacks violate the international prohibitions of collective expulsion and refoulement, and pushbacks of children are inconsistent with the best interests principle and other children’s rights standards. Excessive force, other ill-treatment, family separation, and other rights violations may also accompany pushback operations. Despite formidable obstacles such as weak oversight mechanisms, undue judicial deference to the executive, and official ambivalence, domestic court rulings and other initiatives show some promise in securing compliance with international standards and affording a measure of accountability.

Challenges Faced by Anti-Terrorism Police Unit in Fighting Terrorism; A Case Study of Nairobi County, Kenya

This study established the challenges faced by anti-terrorism police unit in fighting terrorism in Nairobi County, Kenya. The study has been motivated by increased public perceptions of anti-terror police ineffectiveness in the midst of rising terror related activities in Nairobi County, Kenya. Guided by this broad objective, the study examined the legal challenges faced by the Kenya anti-terrorism police unit in fighting terrorism in Nairobi County, established the technological challenges faced by an anti-terrorism police unit and examined the effect of corruption on war against terror within the Kenya anti-terrorism police unit in Nairobi County. The study was grounded by the Rational Choice Theory and adopted a case study qualitative design. The main method of data collection was the interview. The study comprised of 80 respondents: 76 main respondents and 4 Key Informants. Purposive sampling Method was used to select respondents for the study. Data was transcribed and the transcriptions coded using NVIVO software. Two major legal challenges identified were related to both Kenya constitution, Domestic and International Human Right laws. The study found that the war on terror is shrouded in ambiguities in interpreting the law on what terrorism is, biases in dealing with terror suspects and confusion on what international partners want. For example, anti-terrorist global pundits portend that governments should respond to this threat with maximum force to deter acts of terror, biases and contradictions with regard to the terrorists “the supreme right “with no derogation from this right while at the same time negating the “supreme right” of victims or rather other Kenyans. Further, constitutional rights and freedoms emerged as major challenge that hampered police operations and action. Further established technological skilled challenges faced by anti-terrorism police unit in Nairobi County include capacity to crack: Incitement Platforms, Terrorist Financing platforms and Websites used as online stores. Further, there is technological skill gap to enable them crack; encrypted, compressed and password-protected and anonymised terrorist materials, including documents and videos, which are then uploaded and circulated via the internet encryption software of terrorist Secrets” to facilitate covert internet communications. According to the third objective, terrorist criminal groups will always grease or oil the system right from the investigating agencies through the Judiciary to the prison. According to this study, fighting police corruption that hampers war on terror is a tall order because the real problem is public corruption. At times officers get a tip off about suspected terrorist activity somewhere but before they make a move a phone call from “above” or a politician disrupted with instructions to stand down. Presiding Judges and Magistrates are in most cases also compromised to snub most evidence in their ruling, most of it being digital or forensic and either throw away the cases leading to miscarriage of Justice or even incriminate them to prison where intended radicalization may have been planned. From there prison authorities may also be bribed to aid escape. Amongst other recommendations, A reviewed with regard to Legal rights and freedoms of accused and victims of terror related crimes in relations to the supreme right. This review should put safeguards and remove any legal challenges that may hamper war on terror. The anti-terror police unit should train all officers to catch up with new technology. Given its magnitude, winning the war on corruption may hence, require political will executive order or decree from a benevolent dictatorial presidency.

Working for Nico

SummaryOver the course of the last decade, I have conducted fieldwork on the militarization of Rio de Janeiro and on the security industry that developed in response to the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. This fictional short story follows two different imagined security laborers, Nico and Valesca, reflecting the racial, gendered, and class tensions I saw play out between police and military operators from different regions during my research. Working alongside Nico and Valesca, a fictional narrator seeks to navigate fraught power dynamics in a highly masculine setting.

"Hybrid diplomacy": on the production of personnel in the field of countering foreign information and hybrid wars

This article is devoted to the issues of personnel training to counter the infected and hybrid free war against the Russian Federation in connection with the start of the Special Military Operation in Ukraine. It is noted that programs such as "Information and hybrid wars" are a structure for the formation in the Russian Federation of a nationwide system to counter information and hybrid war. In modern programs for training specialists in countering information and hybrid wars of great importance for international and analytical work, the main justifications and methods are disclosed in the courses "Analytical support for special military and police operations" and "Information support for special military and police operations in the media and New York". media". The data on the results are read taking into account the experience gained during the fi rst trade operation in Ukraine, with the involvement of specialists from the Russian Ministry of Defense and military journalists. Given the specific indicators, much attention is paid to special intelligence and military companies. To this end, the curriculum includes a course on Competitive Intelligence and Private Intelligence Companies, as well as special courses such as Competitive Intelligence Methods and Private Medical Companies in Special Military, Police and Peacekeeping Operations. Thus, the formation of a system for training specialists to counter hybrid wars is really beginning in Russia. The emergence of such programs as "Information and hybrid wars" is one of the signs of the creation of such a system. We have good chances on this plane, but they were also seen in this country of the West Country.

Towards social fairness in smart policing: Leveraging territorial, racial, and workload fairness in the police districting problem

Recent events (e.g., George Floyd protests) have shown the impact that inequality in policing can have on society. Thus, police operations should be planned and designed taking into account the interests of three main groups of directly affected stakeholders (i.e., general population, minorities, and police agents) to pursue fairness. Most models presented so far in the literature failed at this, optimizing cost efficiency or operational effectiveness instead while disregarding other social goals. In this paper, a Smart Policing model that produces operational patrolling districts and includes territorial, racial, and workload fairness criteria is proposed. The patrolling configurations are designed according to the territorial distribution of crime risk and population subgroups, while equalizing the total risk exposure across the districts, according to the preferences of a decision-maker. The model is formulated as a multi-objective mixed-integer program. Computational experiments on randomly generated data are used to empirically draw insights into the relationship between the fairness criteria considered. Finally, the model is tested and validated on a real-world dataset about the Central District of Madrid (Spain). Experiments show that the model identifies solutions that dominate the current patrolling configuration used.

Facebook and drug driving: Does online sharing work against road safety countermeasures?

Introduction: Enhancements to technology have transformed several aspects of road safety, communication, and connectivity. At the intersection of these, scholars have begun to speculate whether certain aspects of technology may provide motorists ways to engage in illegal and dangerous driving behaviors without consequences. Police traffic operations such as Roadside Drug Testing are intended to occur “anywhere, anytime” to communicate to motorists that they should not risk offending. A potential challenge for road safety is the emergence of Facebook police location pages and groups, where users can share the locations of police operations. Method: In this study, the authors examined two Facebook police location groups and three pages from Queensland (Australia) and conducted a content analysis of posts related to Roadside Drug Testing operations and a thematic analysis of comments on these posts. A total of 282 posts related to Roadside Drug Testing were identified between February and April 2021, with 1,823 comments made. Results: The findings suggest that some users: (a) had lived experiences of avoiding punishment for drug driving; (b) remain unaware of how long to wait between drug consumption and driving; (c) perceived Roadside Drug Testing operations to be for the purpose of revenue raising; and (d) changed their driving behavior upon seeing an operation. Conclusions: These findings suggest consideration is needed regarding the responsibility of both Facebook, and the government, in allowing groups and pages to exist that undermine law enforcement. Practical Applications: Regarding practice, the comments suggest that greater education is needed regarding “safe” times to drive after drug taking.

“I’ve Seen More Dead People than I thought I Would”: Vicarious Trauma Exposure among Police Support Personnel

Civilian administrative assistants who work for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, known as Detachment Services Assistants (DSAs), are frequently exposed to materials and/or experiences that are potentially psychologically traumatic. Drawing from 49 semi-structured interviews with DSAs, we analyze how these civilian personnel experience exposure to potentially psychologically traumatic events, most notably, vicarious trauma. Specifically, we overview the types of exposure to potentially psychologically traumatic events and materials experienced by DSAs, including the impact of incidents involving children, and the occupational duties through which these exposures occur; we unpack the nuances and variability in DSAs’ occupational work, which informs such exposures; and we draw from DSAs’ experiences to offer recommendations for ameliorating the mental health toll of civilian police work. The study adds to the limited academic literature on the occupational and mental health experiences of civilian personnel, who serve a vital, but underrecognized, role in supporting police operations.

Consequences of Using a Body-Worn Camera by Police Officers in Police Operations

Consequences of Using a Body-Worn Camera by Police Officers in Police Operations

Normiranje novih policijskih ovlašćenja u Zakonu o policiji

The advent of modern technologies and their implementation into various spheres of human activities, including security, facilitated a faster development of the society, while increasing the risk of human rights violations. In that context, an emerging challenge is how to maximize the use of new technological features while still preserving citizens' rights and freedoms. The application of all measures, actions and tools in police work must be based on the adequate legal framework which clearly regulates the police authorities. Standardizing new police authorities is not an easy task; it requires coordination and finding the right balance between security, law and human rights. This paper addresses the regulation of police authorities in the Police Act of the Republic of Serbia. The authors analyze the operational capabilities of modern technologies and other instruments that may be used in police operations and propose specific normative grounds for their application by defining four new police authorities. The authors point out to the role, significance and use of the proposed new police authorities in future police work, urging that they should be introduced as new legal rules in subsequent amendemnts of the Police Act.

Unearthing the Dark Side of the Law. Narratives of Law and Authority in the Tatarbunar Trials

This article examines a series of events that are generally known in historiography as the “Tatarbunar Uprising” – an armed rebellion that took place over ten days in September 1924 in south-eastern Bessarabia. I am also interested in the aftermath of those events as well as in their legal and memorial afterlife. My attempt is to reason through and to clarify the legal and historio­graphical construction of narratives of sovereign power as they emerge from the archives of the trial as well as that of the preceding and subsequent military and police operations. The reflection I will conduct here is indeed grounded in the historical context of 1923-1925, but the jurisprudential and comparative legal and political analysis I will deploy here has more general reach insofar as it aims to grasp some more general points about the status of legality under the conditions of emergency.

Policing the Sicilian Mafia: Repression and Control of the Mafia Phenomenon in Late Nineteenth-Century Italy

The article analyzes the repression of the Mafia phenomenon in Sicily between 1896 and 1901. The close attention paid to the Mafia by the authorities during this period produced a strong evidence base which this article examines through the lens of policing practices. These practices remain neglected as to date the historiography has focused on tracing legal developments rather than examining the application of laws by the forces of law and order. Accordingly, the article puts forward a series of historiographically important questions: what was the attitude of police forces in controlling dangerous individuals? How much do the practices adopted by police forces tell us about the possibilities for state intervention and the limits of its influence? What was the relationship between the perception of a criminal threat, police operations and the construction of judicial truth? The article reveals a very clear image of the Italian state in the liberal era. In fact, state officials and high-ranking institutional figures seemed interested in strengthening the social and political order by establishing control networks which could operate in any circumstances. They aimed to make it impossible not to interact with state officials. In this sense, rather than seeking a complete monopoly of violence, they aimed to oblige local power holders, social groups and semi-public figures to bargain with state officials. The effect was that social groups with means of violence at their disposal did not necessarily become a threat to the maintenance of order and nor did they necessarily forestall the possibility of state mediation and hegemony.

„J’ai des yeux de Cracovien”. Jean Van Ghele (1912–1985) konsul francuski w Krakowie i jego inwigilacja

The article is a biographical sketch of the biography of French consul in Krakow, who served as in the years 1956–1961. The background is the life of Krakow at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s, as well as the extended and complicated operation of the communist secret police. The text presents broad aspects of counterintelligence activities in the system of an authoritarian state. The context is also the warming in Polish-French relations, which was significant after the turn of October 1956, bringing cultural, scientific and regulatory effects.

Security Implication of Mutual Police and Societal Corruption in Nairobi County, Kenya

This paper uses data collected for an MA Thesis on the security implication of the mutual police and societal corruption in Nairobi County, Kenya. The study was motivated by increased insecurity in Embakasi North constituency despite tight security in the area. This study attributed this to mutual police and societal corruption that this study sought to establish. This study was guided by the Erosion Theory (ET) of corruption explaining why so many potentially good people get drawn into the vice. The study used cross-sectional survey design and stratified random sampling techniques and enlisted, 196 respondents and 10 Key Informants (K. I’s). The main data collection methods were the questionnaires for the main respondents and interviews for K. I’s. The main data collection tools were the questionnaires and Key Informants schedules. Quantitative data will be analyzed with the aid of statistical package for social sciences (SPSS). This study unraveled both, Macro and Micro police contextual obstacles where the extent and implications of the state organs such as the legislature, executive, and justice sector institutions suggested corrupt political contexts, hence constraining policing function with criminological approaches to corruption. With reference to the second objective, the study revealed the main forms of police corruption in the area which included receiving bribes to; release suspects from lawful custody, assist suspects evade arrest, cover up criminal activities, reveal police operations; protection of illegal activities, evidence tampering & theft and disclosure of privileged Information amongst others. These forms of corruption benefited organized criminal groups, which were said to be potentially risky to an extent of disabling both individuals and entire institutions, besides seeking state capture; in polity and economy. Finally, the study revealed a deeper relationship between police and society corruption based on determinant factors such as culture (p=0.01), systemic failure of governance(p=0.01), and failed economy (p=0.02). Deeper insight of police corruption seems to draw from a society wide cultural corruption paradigm. This study recommends that recommends an anti-corruption approach that goes beyond targeting “bad apples” and adopt a systems approach. Further, Political will from a benevolent dictator with presidential degrees on matters corruption will help crush this cancerous vice to the nib.

Role of Gender in Determining Women’s Participation in Community Policing; The Nigerian Experience

The desire for a more peaceful society and the need to involve the people in crime prevention has led to the adoption of community policing as a policing strategy in Nigeria. Community policing emerged due to the inadequacy of the police in preventing crime and maintaining order in the society. This people-oriented partnership intends to make the people part of policing within the community. However, just like many other aspects of human life, security issues are often regarded as a “man’s” job and therefore the contributions of women are neglected. Though women occupy a vital position in the family, they are still treated as part of property to be protected by men and therefore are left out of the synergy between the police and the public in crime prevention through community policing in Nigeria. This paper utilized Talcott Parsons Structural Functionalism and George J. Thompson’s Gap Theory to explain the challenges of women participation in community policing operations and the need to include them in crime prevention and security operations in Nigeria. The study methodology comprised a combination of both quantitative and qualitative. Questionnaire and in-depth interview constituted the instruments of data collections, while simple percentage and manual content analysis were utilized for analysis. The study showed that women were neglected in all community policing operations activities, from the planning to the execution stages within the study area.

제주 자치경찰 사례를 통한 자치경찰 운영방안 모색: 충청남도를 중심으로

연구목적 자치경찰제 시행 및 초기 단계에서 고려해야 할 쟁점사항에 대해 논의하는데 연구의 목적이 있다. 연구방법 이 연구는 공식 기관의 자료 및 통계를 분석한다. 지역적 범위는 제주와 충남으로 설정하여 지역의 안전 특성을 검토한다. 결과 자치경찰의 실질적 운영을 위한 주요 제언은 다음과 같다. 첫째, 지역 중심의 자원 활용 방안이 필요하다. 둘째, 지역 안전에 관한 취약점 분석이 수행되어야 한다. 셋째, 지역 안전을 위한 조직의 운영방안을 마련해야 한다. 넷째, 자치경찰의 유지관리 부분이 고려되어야 한다. 다섯째, 지역안전에 대한 의견수렴 및 참여의 방식이 개선되어야 한다. 결론 이제 자치경찰은 안정적인 정착의 관점에서 접근되어야 한다. 특히, 지역의 안전진단을 통해 적합한 운영방안이 제시되어야 한다.

중국 호적경찰제도에 관한 연구

The purpose of this study is to make analysis of the meaning, organization, operation, evaluation, and development of the Chinese household registration police system, and to gain a deeper understanding of the “police” as an inherent object of Police Science research.
 The household registration system in most countries and societies can be understood as a population information management system operated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs or a department in the general administrative field. However, the “Integration of household registration and police” household registration police system that is now being implemented in China classifies the household registration system as part of the security, and the registration and management of personal information as part of the basic police operations.
 From its inception, China's modern household registration system was in the hands of the police. As the political situation changed, the household registration system was given a different purpose. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the government set the primary purpose of the household registration system as the administration of public order and the maintenance of social order, influenced by three levels: historical influence, former Soviet influence, and its own needs. Such a household registration system is now considered as the foundation system of China's household police system.
 Household registration operations are emphasized as one of the most basic and important tasks of the Chinese public security police. The Chinese public security authorities have invested a great deal of manpower and resources in the operation of the household registration police system, resulting in a level of social security in China that is comparable to that of developed countries around the world. However, new problems that need to be addressed have arisen, such as leakage of personal information and negative social perception of the public security department.
 The Chinese household police system illustrated above has a great morphological difference from the police system that can be seen in most societies such as Korea. However, in terms of the concept of police, which is centered on the actual operation, the Chinese household police system can be considered as the police in the actual sense.