Democratic Policing
However, non-democratic administrations in many countries have used their police forces not to protect people s liberty but to suppress the very rights the police force is supposed to protect. The fact that the police force in most countries is armed and allowed in some circumstances to engage in such activities as wire-tapping, breaking into suspects houses, interrogation, covert surveillance, arrests and incarceration, and the use of force (even lethal) means that the same people who are expected to protect the rights of the people can use the power and resources at their disposal to prey on the same people and to abuse their rights. Therefore, while there is a need for society to be protected by the police, there is a critical need for society to be protected from the police. This paper discusses the elements and characteristics of democratic policing and the applicability of the law in the fight against terrorism.
Democratic Policing
Democratic policing entails the protection of people s liberties and maintenance of law and order in a process which involves close collaboration between the police and society. Democratic policing changes policing from a process which has the police force as the service provider and the people as the consumers of the service to an inclusive process in which individual members of society, citizen groups, and government agencies participate actively in the policing. It is much of a process as it is the outcome of close and continued public-police collaboration.
As part of its mission statement, democratic policing prioritizes accountability of the police force to the people, restricts police intervention in citizens lives to only when it is needed and within established controls, and ensures that the police force remains subject to laws which recognize and respect human rights and dignity. In a democratic society, the police force should team up with the public, as individuals or as groups, to protect the liberties of the people. It is not the role of the police force to abuse peoples rights at the behest of despotic political heavyweights, a common trend in non-democratic states where the police force is used to crush opposition. In democratic policing, a police officer serves as an agent of the community and hisher responsibility is to serve and protect community members (Nalla, 2009, p. 521).
Hallmarks of Democratic Policing
Accountability to the People and the State
Mainwaring (2003) defines accountability as the situation where a state institution provides information on its activities and responds to citizens demands to explain its activities and account for discrepancies in its actions (as cited in Moncada, 2009, p. 432). Democratization of the police means that police officers serve the community and should therefore be accountable to the same. As the closest manifestation of the state to the public, the police force must be seen to be accountable to the people it serves as police accountability affects not only citizen security but also the broader dynamics of state-society relations (Moncada, 2009, p. 431).
Between 1995 and 2006, the three mayors of Bogota, Columbia s capital, undertook an ambitious police reform plan which, among others, encouraged the city residents to cooperate with the then-discredited Bogota police to improve citizen security (Moncada, 2009). To improve accountability to the people, the police launched outreach campaigns targeting even populations which had been alienated or brutalized by the police previously. Community policing in Bogota encouraged close and continuous interaction between the police and society. To strengthen police accountability to the state, the police code of conduct was revised. Accountability to the state and society meant that the police followed some laid-down procedures in their work, encouraged and acted on feedback and concerns from members of society, and worked harmoniously with the public. Police accountability to the people and state changed Bogota police from a dreaded and poorly regarded state agency to one which attracted the confidence and cooperation of the people (Moncada, 2009). As in the case of Bogota, police accountability to the people and state should be a key feature of democratic policing.
A police force which is accountable to the people earns the confidence of the people so that society members take responsibility in policing by providing the police with information and other forms of support to the security agents. A survey conducted in 2006 in Bogota revealed that following a campaign to sensitize the city residents on the need for them to cooperate with the police 80 percent of citizens surveyed felt that maintaining citizen security in their neighborhoods was their responsibility (Moncada, 2009, p. 442).
Rule of the Law
An important feature of authoritarian societies is the widespread use of the police force to humiliate and intimidate citizens who are opposed to the often-despotic leaders. From the Gestapo of Hitler s Germany to Russia s KGB, police officers have been known for unspeakable brutality against the people. Repressive regimes use the police to protect the politicians and state interests at the expense of the people s liberties (Nalla, 2009). It is commonplace for police officers in police states to break the very law they should maintain and violate the rights of the people they should protect. Police officers should abide by the same laws that govern citizens and only in exceptional circumstances should they be allowed violate those laws. For instance, police officers may be allowed to break into a suspect s house or to intercept suspect communication, but only with the approval of the court.
Democratic policing requires police officers to uphold the law. According to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (2008), police operations should be within the provisions of both domestic and international law. Democratic policing should change policing from a control-oriented process to a service-oriented process with the people at the center. The fact that many police officers carry weapons and have access to resources such as bugs, surveillance cameras, wiretaps, and police databases means that there is the likelihood of such agents using the weapons and devices to victimize members of the public. For instance, police officers have been used to carry out extra-judicial executions against those whose interests are perceived to be in conflict with those of the police or state leadership. The police should not use their power to arrest and detain arbitrarily. Stopping and searching people should be based on strong suspicion and not a person s physical appearance, race or ethnicity. Celador (2005) observes that professional police forces, operating within the law, and at the service of the citizen, are a hallmark of any decent, peaceful, civilized community (p. 364) (italics added for emphasis).
Relations with the Judiciary
Both the police and the judicial systems are charged with the responsibility of protecting people s rights from abuse at the hands of wayward individuals or groups. While it is the responsibility of the police force and members of society to provide security and apprehend law-breakers, the judiciary should ensure that those arrested are punished or corrected accordingly. So important are these three elements of democratic policing that the absence or incompetence of one cripples all attempts at policing the society in a democratic manner.
Most countries deny their police forces judicial power and allow them no room to interfere with the court process. This is meant to ensure that judges are impartial and independent. For democratic policing to become achievable, the police must be stripped of judicial power. Reforming police without doing the same to the judiciary, or the opposite, renders any efforts towards democratic policing futile. An incompetent judiciary can be particularly frustrating to the police force as such judicial actions as releasing criminals or sentencing them to unfairly short sentences can demotivate the police, prompting police officers either to grow weary and apathetic, or to resort to such measures as extra-judicial killings and using torture to obtain confessions from suspects. Democratic policing must therefore entail close judiciary-public-police team-work.
Functions of the Police
Non democratic leaders across the world have been known for militarizing the police and deploying police officers to disperse, arrest, kill, and maim those who oppose their interests and leadership. Police officers are also sent to break into such people s premises to plant or search for incriminating evidence. Instead of encouraging public-police teamwork in policing, these leaders turn policing into a people-versus-state affair where the police represent and fight for the state. When police officers become law unto themselves and serve their own or the leaders interests, a rogue state is created in which the police exist to protect the interests of the leaders.
Democratic policing requires that police join forces with the people to maintain law and protect the liberties of the people against assault. The police are expected to perform their duties in accordance with the domestic and international law enforcement standards. At the local level, police operations should not overshoot domestic criminal codes, police acts and the constitution, while at the international level, police must perform their duties within the confines of international law and human rights standards. The police exist to maintain the law and protect people s liberties.
Chain of Command
A well-established structure of command, to a large extent, explains why small contingents of police officers or soldiers are able to disperse large riotous crowds. Unlike the disorganized crowds, the police are more organized and take their instructions from one person, to whom the officers are answerable. Chaos arise when the police force is divided, whether along political, religious, ethnic, or racial lines, meaning that some officers take their instructions from one head while others are loyal to another. Lack of a clear chain of command encourages clashes not only between the people and the police, but also within the police force. This was best exemplified in the Democratic Republic of Congo where during the last elections, the police and military were split between those who were loyal to the incumbent president and those loyal to his principal opponent. So tense were encounters between the two wings of the police and military that they often turned their weapons on each other. The biggest losers in that state d affaires were the people who were assaulted by criminals and police officers alike.
Democratic policing necessitates that police officers follow an established chain of command and remain fully answerable to one entity. A clear chain of command makes someone accountable for police actions and inactions. It also reduces the likelihood of police officers pursuing their political, ethnic, religious, or racial interests at the expense of protecting the rights of all people equally. When police officers are deemed to have acted wrongly or incompetently, an unambiguous chain of command makes it possible to pin the mistake on the most responsible persons. This motivates both senior and junior police officers to work professionally.
The United States and the War Against Terrorism
Not long after the deadly terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, then US president George W. Bush launched an aggressive military campaign christened Operation Enduring Freedom (Burnham, Doocy, Dzeng, Lafta, Roberts, 2007). The September 11 strike on the Pentagon was a symbolic crime which was meant to show that the terrorists were capable of hitting stations widely perceived as the world s most secure. Operation Enduring Freedom would be a retaliatory attack and the target of the attacks would be suspected terrorist stations and elements in the Arab world. Terror suspects on the US soil, in Europe, and in Africa would also be pursued if only to ensure that no other such terror strikes ever happened again. Operation Enduring Freedom marked the beginning of a US-led anti-terror crusade which continues to this day and which has attracted as much acclaim as it has attracted criticism. More than 3,000 US soldiers and hundreds of thousands of civilians have lost lives in the US war on terror. It is estimated that more than 600,000 people have died in Iraq since the US invaded the country in March 2003 (Burnham et al., 2007). Many more have been killed in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The war against terror has driven American soldiers and police force to target locations and people within the US soil and distant countries including Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and the Philippines. The willingness and the ability of the US military and police force to operate within the US and international law in their interactions with suspected terrorists has been tested by the complexity of the issue of terrorism. One feels confident to say that US police and military have grossly compromised America s most treasured values including freedom from unnecessary interference by police and right to the due process of the law.
No democratic society allows police officers or soldiers to stop, search, and arrest people on the basis of their religious or racial backgrounds. Neither do democratic societies torture and detain suspects arbitrarily and in detention camps outside their own national boundaries. Democratic policing would require that US military and police operate within the confines of US and international law, and respect human rights.
The existence of such infamous detention camps as the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay is testimony to the fact that the US has broken both its own and international laws which require that suspects have the right to due process. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (2008), tens of thousands of Iraqis are currently in detention, often far from their homes (p. 5). The torture and horror which has been associated with these illegal detentions outside the US soil speak of a country which abuses people s rights with abandon. By holding suspects outside the US soil, the military seeks to suspend its subjectivity to the US law and deny the suspects the rights which the US constitution would guarantee them on the US soil.
While the US administration believes that the US will win the war against both local and international terrorists, there is nothing to suggest that the victory will be earned easily. Experience from the past six years is strong enough to suggest that even though the US should win the war, she will have to compromise her basic values to a great extent. Both the US and the terrorists are to blame for this compromise. By dressing like, hiding among and attacking from among civilians, terrorist elements make it difficult for US forces to tell between terrorists and law-abiding civilians. The US military, on the other hand, assumes that all Muslims and people of Arabic background are potential terrorists, thereby justifying the arbitrary stops, searches, arrests, and detentions. Ethnic profiling has become a key feature of the war against terrorism. The effect of US military blanket hostility towards Muslims and people of Arabic backgrounds fans retaliatory hostility from even civilians who would otherwise support the US anti-terror crusade (Kasher Yadlin, 2005). The complexity of the problem of terrorism and the attitude of Americans towards the Muslim world make it impossible for Americans to fight terrorism within the dictates of local and international laws.
Conclusion
Democratic policing is a long process whose success is driven by the ability and willingness of both the police and the public to change their attitudes towards citizen security. For this to happen, the people must collaborate with the police while at the same time overseeing police operations to ensure the police do not assault people s liberties. Features of democratic policing include police accountability to the government and the people, maintenance of a distinct chain of command, a respectful relationship between the police and the judiciary, and non-interference of politicians in police work. As the US war on terrorism has shown, democratic policing is not easy as there are no guarantees that the intentions and attitudes of the police and members of the public are geared towards democratic policing. A disconnect between the attitudes and intentions of the public and those of the police make the process unbearably difficult.
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