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

Marine life

forms

What are police?

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).

Classification

• Most inclusive (biggest group)= Domain • To the smallest group = Species

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

Implication…

• Police with adjectives

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

Classification KEYS for police

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

Focus: Police form & its environment

Police form

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)

Forms and their environment

Police forms

Instituting

environment

Reproduction

€

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”

What to look at?

Hooks

•Election•Elected Rk

Insul. pol

•Fixed term

counter meas.

•Unions•“Brains”

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,