International Police Cooperation

Emerging Issues, Theory and Practice

Frederic Lemieux

• Publisher: Willan
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781843927600
• eBook ISBN: 9781134029549
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

The globalization of threats and the complexity of international security issues represents a greater challenge for international policing in (re)shaping inter-agency interaction, and makes effective international police cooperation more necessary than ever before.

This book sets out to analyse the key emerging issues and theory and practice of international police cooperation. Paying special attention to the factors that have contributed to the effective working of police cooperation in practice and the problems that are encountered, this book brings together original research that examines opportunities and initiatives undertaken by agencies (practices and processes introduced) as well as the impact of external legal, political, and economical pressures.

Contributors explore emerging initiatives and new challenges in several contexts at both national and international levels. They adopt a diversity of approaches and theoretical frameworks to reach a broader understanding of current and future issues in police cooperation. Forms of police cooperation and trends in crime control are examined, drawing upon the following disciplines: criminology, ethics, organizational science, political science, and sociology.

Chapter 1

---

The nature and structure of international police cooperation: an introduction

Frédéric Lemieux

Generally, police cooperation refers to the intentional or unintentional interaction between two or more police entities (including private and public agencies) for the purposes of sharing criminal intelligence, conducting investigations, and ultimately apprehending suspects. International police cooperation is one dynamic by which criminal intelligence is shared across national and geo-political borders (Robertson 1994). It allows police services to tap information sources made available to them in other countries in order to better understand the modus operandi of their suspects. When information collected during an investigation is made available to foreign police agencies, it enables those organizations to identify the specific criminal activities of specific criminal groups and to develop a knowledge base about actual or potential criminal activity that occurs beyond their jurisdiction. Exchanging information gathered during criminal investigations not only establishes networks and links between police professionals (Bigo 1996), it also goes a long way in building trust based on the principles of reciprocity and communication (Anderson 2002). In addition, sharing information provides opportunities to develop crime-fighting strategies and determine the resources needed to conduct multilayered operations which often require the establishment of a team of interested foreign police officers.

International police cooperation allows investigators to organize their plan of attack more accurately since they gain more of a ‘big picture’ perspective and knowledge of the activities of the group/perpetrator being investigated. Since transnational crime displays a complete disregard for national boundaries, police services must be able to counter this behaviour with a relaxation of the concept of national jurisdiction. International police cooperation allows police operations to mirror this disregard by operating on an international scale and more accurately assessing the priorities of criminal groups (e.g. both vulnerabilities and threats). Finally, international police cooperation allows for the type of networking that is often credited with many successes.

In essence, effective police cooperation addresses inter-agency competition and investigation overlap. In reality, collaboration between law enforcement agencies is plagued by competing agendas, limited resources, and nationalistic/discretionary information-sharing. Furthermore, powerful national agencies tend to asymmetrically influence operational decisions without regard to the sovereignty principle. Indeed, national political preoccupations dictate police cooperation in terms of dynamics, management models, and structures. Inevitably, cultural and social norms, along with individual experiences, impact on inter-agency relations. Most studies focus on the reasons for the desirability of police cooperation as an approach to transnational crime, on the interactions between national police services, or on the challenges of keeping the collaborative process democratic and respectful of human rights.

In the first section of this introduction, I shall briefly expose the main theoretical perspectives on international police cooperation that have been developed by scholars over the past 30 years. The second section of this chapter outlines past and current international police cooperation structures deployed to address transnational crime. The third section presents an overview of existing training programmes related to international police cooperation. Finally, the fourth section introduces the contents of this book and underlines its originality in terms of approaches and applications.

Conceptual frameworks on international police cooperation

The growing literature on the issue of international police cooperation offers a variety of explanations as to how a multilateral fight against international criminal activity can provide significant support and guidance to national police authorities. It should be noted that the term national is used for a global level of analysis perspective. Thus, the term is meant to encompass all police authorities that make up the law enforcement institutions of a given country. We have an increasing awareness of the complexities inherent in law enforcement practices which aim to disregard national borders. We must keep in mind that the criminalization of specific acts is the premise for launching international crime control strategies, structures and procedures (Andreas and Nadelmann 2006). As only compatible laws can create the international enforcement mechanisms capable of addressing the problem of transnational crime, a criminal act standardization process has been initiated within certain political and operational circles. One can argue that there is a certain degree of Western hegemony in the criminalization of various activities, largely based on global prohibitions, whereas developing countries formulate or reformulate their criminal justice systems along the lines of those of Western countries (Andreas and Nadelmann 2006) or with the guidance of the legal departments of international police organizations (Gerspacher 2005).

Bigo (1996) offers a horizontal model which aims to redirect the perception that international police cooperation involves a common will or a specific project. Instead, international police cooperation takes place as a result of individual strategies, bureaucracy priorities, and/or particular interests pursued at specific moments in specific issue areas. This strategic pursuit leads to the construction of the required elements of police cooperation. These cooperative elements can be visualized as concentric circles that surround and impact on each other. There are three essential elements that foster police cooperation. The first is a geo-political consideration needed to create an international environment ripe for the exchange of information that has traditionally been secured along nationalist interests. Thus, cooperation rests on the ability of nation-states to create that environment through the negotiation of bilateral agreements, regional accords, and intergovernmental and/or supranational organizations.

A range of material criteria is the second element needed, as efforts to cooperate will be successful depending on the resources and competencies that are mobilized. These material considerations have been addressed in the creation of sophisticated technical forums such as Interpol, Europol, and the ‘Club de Berne’. These data and analysis centres provide a framework which is built on the pooling of resources and expertise. A judicial environment that either recognizes the procedures of other states or is standardized is another important material criterion. In addition, diplomatic and political actors are also part of the material criteria, as they pave the way for the necessary legal conditions to encourage and facilitate cooperation.

Finally, the model includes an organizational element. The level of organizational institutionalization and the legitimacy of a multilateral agreements are also key variables; there are working groups (tripartite working groups), a non-institutionalized agreement (TREVI), and Interpol and Europol which are at the highest level of institutionalization of police cooperative efforts. Therefore, effective police cooperation depends on structural factors that nation-states must develop through compromise, standardization, and a mindset that embraces the internationalization of policing.

As with transnational crime, international police cooperation takes place under difficult and even hostile environmental conditions. The national agency that participates in a system of police cooperation faces numerous obstacles due to the incompatible nature of various structures, cultures, technologies, judicial procedures, policies, and politics which limit the impact of the cooperative behaviour. The asymmetry of the various structures of national police organizations (centralized and decentralized) results in a proliferation of agencies involved in the cooperation process and thus encourages the convergence of the communication channels (formal and informal) and the explosion of information sources (Den Boer 2002c). Furthermore, the cultural heterogeneity inherent in international cooperation introduces the potential to aggravate the ever-present lack of trust in police subcultures (Skolnick 1996). There are also myriad problems linked to the integration of information technology, as incompatibilities in systems can considerably complicate the establishment of informational bridges between police services (Sheptycki 2004). This phenomenon is particularly noticeable in northern hemisphere/southern hemisphere cooperation efforts when the use of technology is often disproportionate.

Opportunities to exchange information between foreign police colleagues are present within the multi-layered framework in which cooperation occurs. Benyon (1996) offers a vertical model to demonstrate that police cooperation takes place at three interrelated levels of participation. These interrelated levels represent the various sets of actors that are involved in making the process work. There is a macro level which includes constitutional issues; a compliance with agreements; a coordination of legislation and national laws; rights; and ethical issues of policing. The actors at this level formulate policies and negotiate agreements, while safeguarding their respective places in the national supremacy. The meso level includes the operational structures, practices, and procedures of police and law enforcement agencies. The actors in this intermediary level serve as a buffer between the political and purely operational sets of actors and their interests. Liaison officers are a sophisticated but small group of police professionals who link policy makers with investigators and law enforcement practices and function at this level (Bigo 2002). Influences at the micro level include the investigation of specific offences and prevention and the control of particular forms of crime. These tasks are performed by police officials and police administrators whose duty is to enforce the laws unilaterally or in conjunction with foreign police institutions.

The coordination of police activities at the international level has been explained as a four-step model in which each phase furthers the capacity of police institutions to participate in an information exchange system, among other activities (Kube and Kuckuck 1992). First, an information exchange structure has to be established in order to provide appropriate channels between foreign police entities. Thus, the creation of a centralized location for computerized data exchange offers an opportunity for the sending and receiving of information. Next, collaboration is organized around common projects with a view toward the standardization of methods, instruments and procedures in order to render these compatible and thereby circumvent one of the most cited obstacles to effective cooperation. A third step is to establish working groups that receive information, analysis (finished intelligence), and the coordination of joint operations and/or investigations from a centralized location or entity. Finally, the creation of a formal organization allows the coordination to become standardized, streamlined and practised. This formal organization can provide participating police institutions with assistance, guidance, and the competent coordination of joint projects using sophisticated analysis, threat assessment, and the strategy development tools that are much needed by these police institutions. Ultimately, international crime control initiatives require the collection of evidence that is admissible in the courts in the jurisdiction in which a case is being prosecuted. Much of the evidence in these types of cases comes from foreign sources and has to be collected in a manner that the relevant legal systems are designed to process and/or accept.

According to Deflem’s (2004) model that is based on the bureaucratic nature of police structures, international police work is often justified by the ability to identify the centrality and commonality of international crime. Some states will put enormous pressure on the yield of their police activities, which in turn requires any other concerned states to be more actively involved in an investigation that they otherwise may not have prioritized. In other words, an international police organization with true international representation ‘could only be formed when police institutions were sufficiently autonomous from the political centers of their respective national states to function as relatively independent bureaucracies’ (Deflem 2000: 2). Only when relative autonomy from the respective national apparatus is achieved can foreign police colleagues begin to exchange on an operational level.

Structures of international police cooperation

It is increasingly rare for states and their police agencies to engage in the struggle against transnational crime unilaterally. Whether they opt to deploy their own networks of liaison officers to another’s national police agencies or whether their policy is to participate in an international forum to facilitate police cooperation, states have already recognized that protecting their own territories from threats posed by transnational criminal activity forces them into interdependence. This interdependence specifically relates to the sharing of information, the exchange of expertise, and the standardization of criminal codes and investigation procedures. Multinational efforts aim for successes against the largest criminal groups by establishing political and operational channels to enhance the ability of the police to initiate and carry out investigations that will span two or more borders.

Effective international police cooperation requires that national police agencies restructure certain procedural conditions so they may operate beyond the constraints of their national jurisdiction. Once national police institutions are structured in such a manner that information can flow more easily, the police agencies must manage a shared system of practical knowledge, in terms of data and expertise on international crime. Specifically, national police institutions must have achieved a relatively autonomous relationship with other bureaucratic and political centres within their respective states. Inherent is a commitment to professional policing practices based on standards and the efficient use of resources, resulting in the transcendence of physical and legal national boundaries (Deflem 2002: 19–20).

The core function of such cooperation activity – the exchange of information – is set apart from traditional operational policing. We no longer distinguish only between the political elite and the operational policing, but depend instead on the contributions of the intermediary stratum of policing, the ‘meso level’ (Benyon et al. 1993). The liaison officer and other institutions, such as international information systems (Europol’s EIS, Interpol’s 24/7), facilitate and promote a collaboration that goes beyond national jurisdictions. These relatively new actors, whose position is marginal to the overall law enforcement mission of their respective police institutions, have become a sort of elite unit of police officers whose arena is international. Their stature as non-operational, sophisticated, and well-connected and experienced police professionals allow them to have a twofold mission. They codify and institutionalize operational policing at the international level and they legitimize institutionalized approaches by persuading the political actors in their respective states to make the resulting practices into laws (Bigo 1996, 2002). A handful of states, including the US, the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Australia, have established sophisticated investigative branches whose international duties include the enforcement of violations (such as drug trafficking) that have international implications. These states deploy a small, but powerful, system of liaison officers abroad and administer international police training programmes. However, most states are light years away from establishing such sophisticated networks that would allow them to protect their interests and participate in international law enforcement initiatives.

Treaties and agreements

The political arena provides a conundrum of policies that shape the environment in which law enforcement takes place. We must distinguish between the formal and informal environments which are both at play in international police cooperation. These policies can originate from an external, global context as part of international conventions designed to address drug control as part of larger trade treaties, as in the case of the EU’s interest in controlling the exchange of drug precursors and manufacturing equipment, along with the drug substances themselves. In Europe, the building blocks of external drug control policies include the establishment of TREVI (1975); the Schengen Treaty (1985) and the Schengen Convention (1990); and the Maastricht Treaty recommendation to create Europol (1992) (Busch 1988; Fijnaut 1987; Le Jeune 1992). Alternatively, there are sectorial external policies that are specifically formulated in the areas of security, development, and enlargement (EU), or in the context of free trade agreements (Dorn 1996).

The formal environment has been organized on both global and regional levels to facilitate the exchange of information in a more homogeneous setting. The variety of treaties that have been drafted to facilitate and promote international police cooperation has influenced policy, practice, and processes. European-US cooperation, for example, did not take shape until the formation of Interpol in 1923, suggesting the role of formal agreements to induce a rapprochement in terms of policy and practice between states that are worlds apart in geographic terms. All in all, however, international police practices mostly include the enforcement of the law of the land in each respective country (Deflem 2003). The standardization of rules of law, judicial procedures, and rules of prosecution and admissibility of evidence still remains largely problematic, even though it is widely recognized that incompatible legal and justice systems represent a huge set of obstacles in the development and structuring of international police cooperation initiatives.

Regional initiatives have also encountered formative successes and challenges. In some instances, colla...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• List of figures and tables
• Notes on contributors
• 1 The nature and structure of international police cooperation: an introduction
• Part I Current conceptual issues in police cooperation
• Part II Applied police cooperation: initiatives and limitations
• Part III Special issues on international police cooperation
• Part IV Accountability and effectiveness in police cooperation
• References
• Index