Cross-Border Police Collaboration

Building Communities of Practice in the Baltic Sea Area

Sophia Yakhlef

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367536619
• eBook ISBN: 9781000223316
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book focuses on a border police collaboration project in the Baltic Sea area aiming at fighting cross-border crimes. It deals with the challenges that inherently "suspicious" organizations face when forced to work together. The study offers unique insights into a European border police project, giving the reader a behind the scenes account of how cross-border policing and organized crime in Europe is prevented and solved.

Through detailed ethnographic descriptions, the book describes how a trust-based relationship, which is necessary for the exchange of sensitive intelligence information, gradually developed by the participants in and through their joint efforts to protect Europe from external threats and by performing everyday work together.

The study presented in this book is of interest to scholars as well as practitioners concerned with migration management, border policing, intelligence analysis, police culture, and the changing nature of policing in an increasingly global and interconnected world. The book includes various sociological features, such as emotion management, emotional labor, hegemonic masculinity, and takes an interactionist perspective on informal interactions such as joking, bantering, and telling stories. It is also of interest to readers engaged in various forms of intra-, inter-organizational, and inter-cultural collaborations.

Chapter 1

A Culture of Distrust

Problems of Police Collaboration

The risks and insecurities highlighted in contemporary societies have given rise to diverse forms of policing, such as transnational policing and intelligence-oriented police work (Hills 2006). The concept of risk has been widely used as fears of global insecurity have increased because of terrorism, pollution, and epidemics (Denney 2005). Several scholars see the terrorist attack of 9/11 as a symbolic end of an era followed by increased dominance of territorial power and border security. In Europe, the consequence of the Schengen enlargement and freedom of movement has been increased efforts to control and monitor borderlands and an urgent need for cross-border collaboration. New technological practices have been implemented to facilitate the monitoring and control of border zones, border crossings, and “unauthorized” populations (Hills 2006).

Officers interviewed for this study similarly highlighted that we live in a world with increased risk which means law enforcement organizations have to work proactively and collaboratively. However, despite identifying with a larger “European border guard community,” the officers also stated that the organizations participating in Project Turnstone were “on opposite sides of the map.” The officers claimed that cultural, organizational, and political differences had previously obstructed international collaboration, hence the development of Project Turnstone. According to the officers, rumors of corruption and misconduct, especially in Eastern Europe and in the Baltic States, have been detrimental to a trust-based relationship, placing strain on potential collaboration. In their view, the absence of an efficient collaboration “made it easier for criminals” to operate in the Baltic Sea area. Only by developing a trust-based relationship, driven by a common understanding, shared values and goals could international partners build trust-based context for working together.

In this chapter, I focus on the problems of international collaboration highlighted by the officers. Three main themes are discussed: 1) the problems of collaboration in inherently suspicious (law enforcement) organizations, 2) the skewed power dimensions between participating organizations, and 3) the structural and legal obstacles that caused frustration and hindered collaboration. Amongst others, I draw on Radaev’s (2004) notions of trust formation in low-trust societies, and van Maanen’s (1973) discussion of the process in which the established members of a group try to determine the trustworthiness, loyalty, and motivation of new members. I use the expressions of established and outsiders (Elias and Scotson 1994) in order to highlight the skewed power dimensions between the project participants and their apprehensive view of new collaboration partners. Second, I discuss the significance of informal networks and police-to-police contacts in intelligence sharing and conclude the importance of “trusted” relations (Hufnagel and McCartney 2017) within international police collaboration.

The Dilemma of Collaboration

My first encounter with Project Turnstone took place in January when I met the initiators and coordinators of the project (whom I call Lars, Niklas, Mona, and Oskar) over a cup of coffee. We talked about their motivations for organizing the project, and what they hoped that the project would achieve. My co-researcher and I had arrived at their workplace and were shown into a small meeting office. On the table were red napkins, cups, and a coffee thermos bottle. The initiators looked excited and eager to tell us about their plans for the project. They bickered about the placement of coffee cups and rearranged chairs before we all took a seat at the table. After a short introduction of everyone’s name and work position Oskar folded his hands, cleared his throat and said that he would “start from the beginning.”

The dilemma that faced every border organization in the Baltic Sea area, he said, was that the geographical proximity demanded collaboration and mutual understanding of common struggles, while, at the same time, structural, financial, political, and social differences made bilateral collaboration difficult. European border and law enforcement organizations in the Baltic Sea area already had official collaboration agreements. The problem, Oskar said with a troubled look on his face, was that the informal collaboration between border and police officers in the region was not efficient enough. Lars nodded, adding that they needed a “more hands-on collaboration” in order to achieve more tangible results. Niklas intervened, adding that “the Nordic family has a strong sense of commitment to its members.” When asked to explain what he meant Niklas clarified that he referred to the long tradition of collaboration between Norway, Sweden, and Finland. “But,” he added, “with the implementation of Schengen we have lost control over the Baltic States.” Mona, who had followed the conversation and meticulously was taking notes said: “we are highly affected by the criminality of countries nearby, we cannot be naive!” The initiators continued talking about cross-border criminality in the Baltic Sea area, outlining the various political, structural, and social changes that had affected their organizations in the past decades. A few of them had been involved in cross-border collaboration since the 1990s and helped drawing up guidelines for newly included countries and their regulators regarding the new challenges resulting from becoming part of the EU. As Niklas concludes, the most paramount changes for the police and border organization participating in Project Turnstone had been the EU enlargement and the Schengen agreement. These developments had drastically changed the work environment, demands, and eventually, the daily work practices of the officers in these organizations.

Within their national legislations, the border officers still had the power to deny entry, perform checks, and monitor border crossings. They also have the obligation to protect the borders from illegal entries and criminal activities. The Baltic Sea border officers had to perform their border guard duties, such as “fighting” illegal migration, human trafficking, and smuggling of stolen property in a totally new context. Performing these work tasks without systematic passport controls, Niklas explained, had proven difficult, and officers were now depending on international collaboration and information from their work partners. “For now, our greatest problem,” Niklas said, “is that the criminals are so mobile, international, operating across borders, and are well organized. If their operations transcend international boundaries, then so must our work do.” The initiators agreed that implementing change regarding their work practices was a “natural step” that they had to take.

During our conversation Oskar and Lars mentioned “the Nordic family” several times, emphasizing the fact that collaboration with Finland and Norway¹ generally worked smoothly without complications. They had, however, experienced organizational and cultural differences with other countries in the Baltic Sea area. These differences hindered collaboration as the officers did not know or understand one another’s work methods, legal restrictions, or cultural practices. Lack of resources to organize collaboration efforts and joint operations was also mentioned. There was often a lack of funding for any extensive collaboration efforts to be realized. However, according to Oskar, the real issue that had hindered informal collaboration so far was not just “money” or the fact that some organizations had less funding than others. Rather, one of the main problems was a lack of information about and knowledge of the working methods of other border organizations. Several of the organizations did not have a call dispatch to help them reach the right person, and it was therefore crucial for them to know how to get in contact with their collaboration partners. The easiest way was of course to have a personal connection with one another, but such a personal collaboration had previously been difficult to achieve as there had been too few or no opportunities for the officers to work together. One very important benefit of the project, according to Oskar, was the opportunity for the officers to meet and “figure it out together,” and thereby “learn to respect one another and build trust.” Niklas agreed, saying that the only way to overcome difficulties was to provide space where the officers could meet one another in person. The main reason why the officers had to meet and “figure it out together” was thus primarily to be able to (eventually) establish trust-based relationships. The officers were very reluctant to share “secret intelligence information” about organized crime groups with partners whom they did not know or trust, fearing that the information would end up in the wrong place.

Mona explained that the main assumption underlying the project was the belief that border officers in Europe had shared a common understanding and motivation to fight cross-border crimes. Niklas agreed, saying that this was a European project, not a Swedish project, and an important part of it was to make the exchange of intelligence information more efficient. In the long run, he said, they hoped to create a “model of regional collaboration” that could be implemented in other European cross-border collaboration projects. “It would be good to be able to create a joint system that works in other countries where we can share information that is used operatively,” Niklas concluded. After a while he added that one reason for receiving funding for the project was the aspiration that the format and the practices implemented by the project could be used in other European collaborations. It was also important to find interesting information that would lead to arrests or surveillance activities in order to “prove” that the project was worthwhile. The initiators hoped that the adjoined mission of border officers to protect international borders to the best of their abilities would encourage officers participating in the project to really try to make Project Turnstone a success.

During that first meeting, I learned that the Schengen implementation and freedom of movement were the main reasons for the birth of this project that they called “Turnstone.” In the opinions of Mona and Lars, freedom of movement for Schengen citizens created numerous problems for border authorities and the main purpose of the project was thus to hinder cross-border crimes in the Baltic Sea area that resulted from eliminating passport controls. They saw a great need for collaboration and agreed that new methods of working were crucial for the border organizations to be able to meet the challenges posed and regulations stipulated by the EU. The accounts of the initiators also tell us that, despite such increasing demands for collaboration, deficient information about collaborating partners and distrust between organizations and officers hindered any attempts at close bilateral exchange of information.

Legal, Organizational, and Structural Obstacles

Legal and organizational obstacles (such as bureaucratic practices, different work processes, or a lack of standardized routines for assessing information) were often mentioned by interviewed officers during the course of the project. The complexity of national internal issues, such as the rights of organizations to access or provide certain information was raised early on during Project Turnstone. Police, border, and coast guard officers were well connected through information exchange networks, but standardized rules and regulations occasionally slowed down the information exchange process. Interviews also revealed that many staff members working with everyday border guarding or police work still had limited knowledge of international partners’ work practices, and that knowledge of the working methods of other organizations would be a great advantage when doing their work. Even though the officers did not expect that issues of structural differences (such as legislations, laws, and guidelines) would be solved because of Project Turnstone, many anticipated that improved collaboration and exchange would increase their general knowledge of their international partners, and hopefully make their work more “successful.”

As mentioned by an officer named Andris, one major obstacle for collaboration (also revealed by several other interviewees) was the officers’ limited knowledge regarding the legal and structural abilities of international collaboration partners. Andris worked in Latvia as an intelligence officer and was a frequent participant at the Power Weeks. When I interviewed Andris, he informed me about differences in legalization, restrictions regarding access to information, and difficulties with providing information to collaboration partners. He was frustrated that the organizations participating in the project were obligated to follow different national legislation systems and rules, despite the fact that they all belong to the EU and Schengen area. Different legislations often caused problems when arresting suspects, confiscating stolen goods, or performing undercover surveillance. For example, if a Latvian surveillance team which followed suspects reached the national borders of another country, they would have to ask partners from another organization (on the other side of the border) to continue the surveillance. This process would take time and the other organization might be too busy to continue the surveillance. There are several reasons for such lack of collaboration: lack of time and resources, or that the organization in question may not have the mandate to perform undercover surveillance. Without this knowledge, valuable time might have been wasted in sending this request, instead of asking other partners to step in. The main difference between police and border organizations highlighted in this interview was the police’s ability to perform undercover surveillance, which is not possible for border guard organizations (such as the Latvian and Lithuanian border guard services).

Andris also told me that different countries had different rules concerning detention (how long a suspect could be detained before the police had to present evidence and charge them for a crime) and different legal consequences for harboring stolen goods. For instance, the countries participating in Project Turnstone had different laws regarding the procedures for keeping suspects in custody and handling evidence. The issues mentioned by Andris are not unique to the organizations participating in Project Turnstone. As noted by Block (2008a), there are two major obstacles for intelligence exchange and collaboration: 1) legal issues and 2) organizational issues. Block suggests that inadequate knowledge of the legal systems of one’s collaboration partners can be more obstructive than the differences themselves. In addition, diverging interests, cultural differences, and distrust between officers and organizations (discussed further on in this chapter) also affect collaboration. Furthermore, the failure to make good use of intelligence information is often blamed on the notoriously slow responses of organizations such as Europol and Interpol that rarely keep up with the speed necessary for investigations and pursuits (Gerspacher and Dupont 2007).

One officer who described his frustration with structural obstacles was a Swedish border officer named Carl. I met Carl during my second time visiting the organization where he worked. In that same organization, I had scheduled interviews with several officers who participated in Project Turnstone. At that time, Carl was working as an intelligence officer, having previously worked as a foreign liaison officer, and thus possessed extensive experience of cross-border collaboration. After briefly chatting about Carl’s work duties (mainly receiving, sending, and processing intelligence information about criminal activity in the Baltic Sea area), I asked him about his involvement in the project and how one would define successful collaboration. He took a sip of his diet Coke that he had bought from a vending machine outside the office and said that collaboration was vital for doing his work, that he needed information from other partners in order to “function within his role” at home. “If I don’t get that,” he said, “I am fairly blind, so we are very dependent on collaboration.” He then continued describing the process of analyzing intelligence information in more detail, defining it as assembling pieces of an enormous puzzle or as compiling different pieces of a big “cake.”

The question of investigation cannot be solved in one country, if you have all the information from Finland you can only have a small piece of the cake but thanks to collaboration you will get this larger picture and then you decide in what country you will prosecute these people and collect the evidence from different countries, and especially when we are talking [about] such a mobile and international criminals and the organizing of it, we have to have this collaboration, otherwise it’s impossible to do it.

The main purpose for assembling the “pieces of the cake,” I was told, was ultimately to track down and catch “the bad guys.” “The criminals are the true Europeans as they don’t bother with national borders, and we must do as the criminals and ignore the national borders if we are to perform our work as border officers,” Carl added. He then spoke at length about “national police organizations” and their narrow view of European criminality. Being “narrow minded,” focusing only on the national level, was not considered a progressive way of thinking since European crime was often part of “a bigger picture,” as Carl told me. A while ago there had been several house burglaries in the city where he worked. Carl was convinced that the burglaries were committed by an international crime organization and was frustrated that the investigating police officers did not have the knowledge to assess that these crimes were related to cross-border criminality.

With proper education or [through] border police information exchange, they might have recognized the modus operandi of the organized crime group connecting the case to several other crimes committed by the same group. Since such groups are highly efficient, work fast, and most likely leave the country immediately after the crime was committed it is not enough to write a report and leave it in a pile of papers. If there is any chance of catching these guys you have to work fast.

In Carl’s opinion, it is important that police officers working in national settings are able to see “the larger picture” and connect various offences (such as house burglaries, car thefts, or pickpocketing) with wider cross-border criminality. He did not blame any particular organization structure for this problem but saw this as something that was overlooked and as a typical situation where police organizations needed to “catch up.” Carl thought that (low-level) intelligence officers working with cross-border crime had more realistic understandings of the changes in the Baltic Sea area than management or higher-ranking officers...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 A Culture of Distrust: Problems of Police Collaboration
• Chapter 2 Hoping for Collaboration: Finding Common Ground
• Chapter 3 Modes of Collaboration: Working Together
• Chapter 4 Creating a Community
• Chapter 5 Concluding Discussion
• References
• Appendix
• Index