Plural policing as professional strife. Municipal officers and police officers in the Netherlands

Abstract

In the past 30 years, the introduction of new providers of policing services has meant that the policing landscape in many countries has changed considerably. In the Netherlands, an important aspect of this ‘pluralization of policing’ is the introduction of municipal officers: new, public officials who are employed by Dutch municipalities. This article discusses how front-line professionals themselves view these changes and the division of labour between the regular police and municipal officers. By interpreting their views as strife and contestation over professional domains and by borrowing concepts from the sociology of professions, it adds a novel perspective to the current debate on plural policing. The article discerns four views, two of which highlight differences and two of which highlight similarities between these professions. In interpreting these views, the article states that officers define their professions mostly by referring to fundamental argumentations about professional core aspects and higher values. This implies the ‘professional projects’ of front-line workers might be as important as their orientation on outside (societal) needs and desires.

‘Brothers in arms’? A police-paramilitary partnership in Karachi

“…Due to the inapplicability of existing security network and plural policing models to this case study, I argue that the relationship model between the paramilitary and the police is best described as a 'competitive-network model', in which state security providers tasked with public policing in overlapping jurisdictions, will necessarily compete with each other not just for material resources, territory and knowledge, but also, as Eikenaar (2019) suggests, for professional status and recognition. Where these institutions are loosely networked (and where networking is often personalised, not institutionalised), cooperation will be unstructured, irregular, and often driven by interpersonal rather than inter-institutional interests, in the event of joint operations or 'coordinated but separate interventions' (Maillard and Zagrodzki 2017).…”

“…This institutional relationship is complicated by Pakistan's complex history of civil-military relations in which the Army (the patron of the Rangers) has frequently injected itself into domestic politics, undercutting the authority of civilian institutions, including the police. i Scholarship that explores relations between police providers primarily engages with debates on the pluralisation of policing and relies upon research on police partnerships in Western contexts (Bayley and Shearing 1996, Jones and Newburn 2006, Crawford 2008, Terpstra and Devroe 2015, Maillard and Zagrodzki 2017, Eikenaar 2019. More recently, police public-private partnerships in non-Western settings are generating ethnographic interest (Kaker 2013, Diphoorn and Berg 2014, Diphoorn 2019, and enriching our understanding of plural policing in Africa, Asia and Latin America (e.g.…”

“…To conceptualise this relationship, I draw upon the configurations of plural policing applied to Anglo-American and European contexts (Dupont 2004, Crawford 2008, Maillard and Zagrodzki 2015, Eikenaar 2019) but find that existing models do not adequately capture the relational dynamics between public policing providers in Karachi. I therefore frame the relationship between the police and the paramilitary as a 'competitive-network model' that illustrates an unstructured alliance between institutions.…”

The enforcement turn in plural policing? A comparative analysis of public police auxiliaries in England and Wales, France and The Netherlands

“…It can be argued that MLEOs are a matured version of the previously established City Wardens, who had no police powers at all, but were expected to patrol and supervise busy places (Hauber et al, 1996;Hofstra and Shapland, 1997). However, in terms of enforcement-like powers, MLEOs are permitted to issue fines and, if things go out of hand, make arrests for minor offences, including littering and loitering (Bervoets, 2013;Eikenaar, 2019;Van Steden, 2017;Willemse et al, 2013). MLEOs can thus be interpreted as a kind of 'Stadswachten 2.0' (Van Steden and Bron, 2012) showing a more repressive orientation towards the general public than was the case for the previous City Wardens.…”

“…MLEOs stress that they have developed into professional law enforcers and thus have left behind their somewhat troubled past as City Wardens without any mandate. This has led to what Eikenaar (2019) describes as plural policing as 'professional strife': contestation and negotiation between mayors and police leaders about who is doing what. If MLEOs continue to succeed in pushing the boundaries of their occupation, they are likely to further replace police officers on several law enforcement tasks such as patrolling nightlife and dealing with nuisance youth.…”