TARGETING, TESTING AND TRACKING:The Triple-T of Evidence-Based Policing
6th International Conference on Evidence Based Policing
Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge In Association with the Society for Evidence Based Policing
8-10 July 2013 The Law Faculty Building on the Sidgwick Site
"What are police organizations? Towards a systematic comparative
taxonomy of police forms"
Sebastian RochéCNRS
(National Center for Scientific Research)Sciences Po, University of Grenoble
Translating the lessons of research into practice?
• How challenges of translation would play out in different countries?
• Executives thinking about their different context in a systematic way?
• Leadership strategy to adopt to be able to introduce and sustain an initiative
Double question, Double approach.
PoliceActions & Transfers(including Triple T)
Police structure and functions
Science FORthe police
Science OFthe police
HOW to do it BEST?
What are police force/ how change?
Systematic comparisons in police science: FOR vs OF
Science FOR police
• Police practice• National forces• Randomization, • Large N• Applied: designing
practices
Science OF police
• Police structure• Comparing forces• Small N• Before / after• Applied: Designing
forces
How to pose the problem?• What is the problem?• Term “police” • Police can “speak” (“we are police”, “we are
the police”).• 1=> police (extension and intension),• 2=> Same term, many meanings• 3=> Same term, distinct realities
Police force
• No single function, job, • No single employer or affiliation,• No intl shared definition,• Most often, no national definition (≠ legal
definition of what police competences); obvious with privatization trends,
• Lots of variations across countries, history.
Starting point
• Asked to do a “gap analysis” in a EU program• Immediately faced with:• - problem of definition of “police”, structure, a
function, a power?• - problem of elusiveness of notions
(professionalism, oversight…),• - “the traveling problem”: absence of
definitions valid for comparing (centralization, military police…).
Methodology
• 1=> Absence of taxonomy of police forms• 2=> Absence of taxonomy of interaction of
police forms with their environment• What are the available methodologies? • (how do other sciences or other fields than
“police science”?)
1 - In need of taxonomic hierarchy
• Putting things where they belong• Supermarket: cereals with cereals, meat with
meat etc…• Some order to things• No order, scientist cannot talk to one another
(and police cannot either),• No order, cannot understand the relationships
that the social organisms have
Taxonomical treatment: Sartori and comparative politics
• “A taxonomic unfolding represents a requisite condition for comparability” (G.S 1970: 1036).
• “taxonomical exercise ‘unpacks’ concepts”, it “decomposes mental compounds into orderly and manageable sets of component units” (1038).
Linneaus’s sytem of classification(Mountain lion)
• Domain: Eukarya (not bacteria)• Kingdom: Animal• Phylum: Chordata (have a backbone)• Class: Mammalia (fur, milk)• Order: Carnivora• Family: Felidae• Genus: Puma• Species: Concolor
2-Back to Police: problems with an undefined term?
• Police measured without conceptualization (ex. Gendarmerie, centralization etc…).
• Police: a universal category? Or a universal name? (police can speak their name):
• => an undefined, undelimited notion? or• => example of of “conceptual stretching”
Tool #1: Extension / Intension
Term Police
EXTENSION Class of things to which the word/ term applies
What can we call “police”?Police as a “genus”
DENOTATION Totality of objects indicated by that word
INTENSION Collection of properties which determines the things to which the word / term applies
What are the properties that determines inclusion
CONNOTATION Totality of the characteristics anything must possess to be in the denotation of this word
The ladder of abstraction“A GENERAL CONCEPT” LADDER A “GENERALITY”
BROADEN THE EXTENSION OF THE CONCEPT BY DIMINISHING ITS PROPERITIES
HIGH LEVEL CONCEPTUAL STRECHING
MEDIUM LEVEL
CONTEXTUAL DEFINITIONS (differences are stressed above similarities)
LOW LEVEL
= a larger class that differentiate less (but still with precision)
= obfuscating the connotation
= traceable relation to a collection of specifics. At least one connotation is retained
Same term across the whole ladderLEVEL TERM GENERALIZATION IN
DISGUIZE or PSEUDO UNIVERSALS
HIGH POLICE ANYTHING (no connotation is retained)= INDETERMINATE CONCEPT, we don’t know what it points at;
MEDIUM POLICE LOW POLICE Ex: THE POLICE FORCES IN
FRANCE (connotation is context based only)
Categories with universal applicability
• Men with arms (patrolling the street) = highest level of universal applicability
• Professional in arms• A professional force in arms set up by a political
authority• A professional force in arms composed of civil
servants set up by a political authority• Police = lowest level of universal applicability• Etc…
3 - Classification building for “police”: how to do it?
• => description of police as a “form” with a structure
• => taxonomical unfolding
Obstacle 1: purposive approach
• Question: What are police? Turned into => What are police for?
• Functional (purposive) vocabulary: judicial police, public order police, etc…
• Structural (descriptive vocabulary): ????
• => structures are not adequately described• => functional categories are enumerated
without a taxonomical unfolding
Obstacle 2: legal definition
• The notion of police form ≠ legally defined notion of police force or policing agency or police service.
• An illustration from France. • The police of Paris do not exist legally as a
force since there are only two national forces.• However, based on our criteria, Paris police
are a force.
Organisms are classified by their:
• * physical structure (how they look)* evolutionary relationships* embryonic similarities (embryos)* genetic similarities (DNA)* biochemical similarities
• => determining connotation (the properties) for police
Conceptualization of “police”
• => “dichotomous categorizations serve precisely the purpose of establishing (…) the uni-dimensionality of each continuum” (G.S :1039)
• => there a very large number of organizational traits in police forms,
• => what classification keys?• => However each “police property” seems to be
multi dimensional, … • EXAMPLES
Main features of a form(what units shall be included?)
• Attachment point (hook to political system),• Command and control lines (backbone),• Mandate given,• Operational powers, • Status of force,• Size,• Composition / Professionalization: illiteracy,
conscripts (importance of training of agents specifically for police duties),
Classification keys in biology
• Cell type• Cell structures (cell walls or no cell walls)• Number of cells (unicellular, multi)• Mode of nutrition (self feeding versus eat
from other forms)• Reproduction
Police traits or « properties »
• => each trait is multi dimensional (ex. Military vs civilian status of forces)
• => comparing police forms (and systems) = those traits and build an “index” or scale for each of them (ex. Militarization score)
Degree of militarization
JandarmaChief of Staff
France
Switzerland
Civilian Ministerial. org. affiliation
military
Gardia Civil
Italy(MoD)
Personnel Full Civilian status
PersonnelFull military status
Centralization
• Forms affiliated to central political authorities,• Large forces operating from the centre (India,
central offices in France),• Central forces operating locally,• Local forces operating locally under authority
of chief appointed centrally,• Jurisdiction of central forces operating locally
(ex; Turkey versus France)
4 - Recapitulation
• 1 – Conceptualizing “police” and produce taxonomies based on qualitative dichotomies,
• 2 – Conceptualize the relations between a form and its environment
Police & environment
• Bayley: force which is set by an authority, legal or not, democratic or not etc… (if self established ≠), manifestation of governmental authority
Studying forms: structures• Amenable to empirical testing• => focus on “structure”• Structures bear a closer relation to observables,
permit empirical testing:• Structural principles (according to which the
component parts of polities are related to each other)*
• Organizational patterns (relations, differentiation, specialization),
• Specific organizational structures (how an organization is constituted)
Hook to “political institutions”
• “Hooks” of “police forms” to political forms: are observables, permit empirical testing,
• “Insulation” mechanisms for chiefs from politics
• “Insulation” mechanisms for chiefs from civil society / clients / customers,
• “Counter measures”
Conclusions
• Need for comparative research: police architecture/ organization “properties” and …
• => police protection of life,• => police effectiveness,• => police openness to 3T,• => need to change what is external to police in
order to change police,