Policing - new material (50)
01 January 2000
In for the long haul, Sebastian Naidoo. Big Issue 14.2.00., pp18-19. Interview with the new Metropolitan police commissioner, John Stevens. He admits that his force may never eradicate racism and is criticised by Asad Rehman of the Newham Monitoring Project who says that: "The problem with their [the Met's] strategy is that they're not attempting to move the institution as a whole. They're saying it's too difficult."
Keep off the grass!, John Weeks. Police February 2000, pp17-19. This article takes as its starting point the new Association of Chief Police Officers' guidelines on informants in relation to the Greater Manchester police force. A Manchester police spokesman explains that he prefers using the term "source management unit", rather than being linked with the word informer.
White backlash, Jo Hadley. Police Review 4.2.00., pp28-29. This article summarises the author's "academic research into how white [police] officers in county forces, who police a predominantly white public, viewed the importance of ?cultural diversity? following the recommendations of the Macpherson report". It concludes that "Officers need to understand and be able to talk positively, not only about racism and the value of cultural diversity, but also constructively and critically in terms of their own ethnic identities as ?white? ".
An iron fist in an iron glove? The zero tolerance policing debate, M Innes. Howard Journal of Criminal Justice Vol 38 no 4 (November) 1999, pp397-410. This article examines the development of zero tolerance policing in Britain and America. It traces the philosophical and theoretical bases of the zero tolerance approach and how they have influenced the practical implementation of a particular view of the police?s role in society. It is argued that central to the changes in public policing within the wider remit of social control, is an increasingly influential populist dynamic which is transforming approaches to law and order.
Community Policing, Buergerrechte & Polizei (Cilip), Vol 64, No 3/1999, pp110, DM 14. This issue concentrates on different aspects of community policing. Norbert Pütter highlights the vague and inadequate definitions involved in the concept of "policing the community", which is also one of the main reasons for its functioning as a repressive control strategy, rather than a democratic tool for crime reduction. Other articles critically deal with community policing in the USA, the role of police conducted public surveys, communal crime politics and police misconduct in Germany and a serious incident of data protection violation in which "evidence documentation databases" were illegally kept, and in use 15 years later, by police in Goettingen. Available from Verlag CILIP, c/o FU Berlin, Malteserstr. 74-100, 12249 Berlin, Tel: 0049-30-7792462, Fax: 0049-30-7751073, e-mail:info@cilip.de, www.cilip.de
The politics of stop and search, Lee Bridges. CARF No 54 (February/March) 2000, p7. In this article Bridges takes on the myth that the recent decline in the use of stop and search in London is directly related to a rise in crime. "Much of the recent debate...is more to do with a campaign to re-establish its [stop and search] political legitimacy as a policing tactic", he observes.
Der OK-Komplex, Organisierte Kriminalität und ihre Folgen für die Polizei in Deutschland [The OC complex, organised crime and its repercussions for the police in Germany], Norbert Pütter. Verlag Westfälisches Dampfboot, Münster 1998, ISBN 3-89691-439-1, pp450, DM 48. This well-researched book analyses the incompatibility of the "rule of law" with the fight against "organised crime", as the police can extend their definition of organised crime without external accountability. Putter analyses the concept of organised crime as "a self-referential and self-perpetuating process". Police and authorities are now targeting important civic institutions with the justification that unspecified "threats to society" are fo