Terrorism (21st century Criminology) (2009)

Terrorism Mathieu Deflem deflem@sc.edu www.mathieudeflem.net This is an online copy of a publication in 21st Century Criminology: A Reference Handbook, edited by J. Mitchell Miller. Sage Publications, 2009. Also available in print-friendly pdf format. Cite as: Deflem, Mathieu. 2009. "Terrorism." Pp. 533-540 in 21st Century Criminology: A Reference Handbook, edited by J. Mitchell Miller. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

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From the viewpoint of criminology, terrorism is a fascinating subject matter that presents a challenging opportunity for scholarly reflection on a range of theoretical, empirical, and practical issues. The field of terrorism studies broadly encompasses both terrorism, as a particular activity involving the infliction of harm for specified purposes, and counter-terrorism, involving practices and institutions concerned with defining and responding to terrorism. It is the unique province of criminology to focus on terrorism as a form of criminal and/or deviant behavior and on counter-terrorism as social control. Criminological analyses also focus on the dynamic interplay between terrorism and counter-terrorism to offer a unique perspective in the wider field of studies examining terrorism and terrorism-related phenomena. The study of these phenomena is itself part of the historical unfolding of terrorism and counter-terrorism in the context of societal development. This chapter reviews the central criminological aspects of terrorism and counter-terrorism. It first offers a description of the major types, strategies, and characteristics of terrorism and provides a brief review of terrorist activity throughout history. Next, attention goes to the mechanisms and agencies involved with counter-terrorism to define and respond to terrorism. Subsequently, the major part of this chapter discusses the manner in which criminologists theoretically and empirically approach terrorism and counter-terrorism as elements of their field of study. Criminology analyzes terrorism as crime or deviance and investigates counter-terrorism as social control. The unique contributions of criminology make it a valuable addition to the wider field of terrorism studies. Definition, Types, and Strategies of Terrorism Terrorism is undeservingly notorious for its presumed difficulty to be clearly defined. In actuality, the search for an adequate definition of terrorism is difficult because various institutions compete for the most appropriate approach. Thus, terrorism is defined from the variable viewpoints of law, politics, culture and public opinion, and the sciences. In any one discipline of the sciences, moreover, a plurality of definitions are developed from a multitude of theoretical perspectives. Underlying these approaches, however, are certain reoccurring elements that can be forwarded to develop a minimal definition of terrorism. Terrorism involves the use of illegitimate means, typically involving the exercise of violence oriented at civilians, for political-ideological purposes. Terrorism thus has both an instrumental component, referring to its means, and a goal-oriented component, referring to its objectives. Differences in the extant definitions of terrorism revolve around the differential emphasis that is placed on either the means or the objectives of terrorism. From the viewpoint of a national state, for example, an official definition of terrorism as it is articulated in a formal legal system typically emphasizes the means of terrorism as involving some unlawful methods, such as the (violent) tactics that are used by a certain type of actors (unlawful combatants). Other definitions, by contrast, focus on the aims of terrorism in seeking to destabilize the social order and endangering the security of a state or population. From a strict analytical viewpoint, it is useful to incorporate more, rather than less, dimensions of the acts of violence conceived as terrorism, so that both means and aims should be considered. Because terrorism typically involves violent tactics employed on a relatively massive scale, it shares certain characteristics with warfare. Yet, terrorism is different from warfare in that it exists outside, and purposely operates against, the principles from war as they are regulated by the international community of nations. Unlike warfare, terrorist acts are often oriented at civilian populations or indiscriminate in their infliction of violence. Whereas war operates on the basis of standards of international law, involving legally recognized methods and actors (soldiers), terrorist activities are conducted by individuals and groups who do not enjoy any legally recognized status. Strategically, the means of terrorism involve methods oriented at the power of governments, including the kidnapping or killing of government officials, economic strategies, such as sabotage and property damage, and other criminal activities, such as drug trafficking and robberies to finance terrorist activities. Acts of terrorism are politically oriented and ideologically motivated, ranging from specific goals formulated in terms of the might of political nation-states to more general aims related to the plight of certain peoples and groups. Thus, terrorism can result from demands made by ethnic groups to receive representation in an existing political community or have its own state be formed, while terrorism can also be part of ideological fights for the acknowledgment of underrepresented and oppressed expressions of ideas and ways of life. Because of the intrinsically political-ideological objectives of terrorism, the underlying ideas of terrorism are important to consider as the motivating forces that fuel terrorist groups and individuals. Strategically, moreover, the instilling of fear is an important immediate objective of terrorism. Specific forms of terrorism can be distinguished on the basis of a variety of typologies differentiating more precisely between various means and aims of terrorist activity. From a historical viewpoint, for example, the distinction between revolutionary, nationalist, and religious terrorism can usefully bring out important shifts in terrorist activity over the ages. Revolutionary terrorism is associated with attempts to violently seize political power in the context of nation states. Nationalist terrorism involves the violent quest by certain groups, who define themselves mostly on the basis of ethnicity as a nation, to gain autonomy and establish a new state. Religious terrorism is ideologically rooted in strands of various religious traditions that typically oppose secularization processes in society. Historically, terrorism was mostly associated with revolutionary movements involved with seeking to overthrow political regimes. As the establishment of national states took on a more permanent hold, nationalist terrorism increased to secure the rights of specific ethnically defined minority groups, such as the Irish in the United Kingdom, the Basques in Spain, and Zionists in the former British Mandate of Palestine. In most recent times, religious terrorism has proportionally increased the most, especially on an international level. The most conspicuous examples are al-Qaeda, which is held responsible for the attacks of September 11, 2001, and other extremist groups with connections to Islam. Historically, the term terrorism originated during the aftermath of the French Revolution, when the French National Assembly in 1793 decreed a mass mobilization of all able-bodied men in order to secure the republic and thwart off both internal and external enemies of the revolution. During the resulting ‘Reign of Terror,’ several tens of thousands of people, most of them ordinary workers and peasants, were massacred as purported enemies of the people. Other important historical precursors of terrorism can be traced back to the strengthening of conservative political regimes. In the late 19th century, for instance, anarchist terrorism involving various violent means, such as bombings and assassinations, spread across various national states. In 1886, the so-called Haymarket Riot erupted in Chicago, Illinois, when a bomb was thrown at police who were overseeing a rally in support of a strike, resulting in the deaths of several police and civilians. Eight anarchists were tried for murder and four received the death sentence. Although the Haymarket incident was relatively isolated, anarchist violence took on a more systematic character in Europe. In the late 19th century, numerous violent attacks took place that were motivated by anarchist ideas aimed at overthrowing established conservative regimes. The invention of dynamite, the favorite tool of the 19th-century bomb-throwing anarchist, has been argued to signal the beginning of terrorism from a technological point of view. Today, the means employed by terrorist organizations and individuals are more varied than ever, involving both legitimate as well as illegitimate activities and political as well as non-political crimes. Next to engaging in bombings of civilian populations in hostile lands, modern terrorist groups can branch out into the legitimate world of human affairs by organizing social welfare provisions in friendly territories. Terrorist activity today, furthermore, can involve routine criminal enterprises, such as drugs trafficking and money laundering, in order to facilitate other, violent activities that are politically motivated. An additional characteristic of contemporary terrorism is the increasingly high degree of technological sophistication that marks terrorist organizations and their methods of operation. Aided by newly developed means of transportation and communication, a relatively high degree of internationalism and cross-border cooperation characterizes many contemporary terrorist groups. The methods of personnel recruitment, training, and intelligence gathering have likewise modernized to high levels of expertise. Modern-day terrorism is also feared to involve the use, or at least the deliberate pursuit, of lethal means of unprecedented proportion (e.g., so-called weapons of mass destruction) and has occasionally taken on a more organized character, involving globally organized terrorist networks. The contemporary world of terrorism is also more complex, involving both multiple domestic and international forms as well as a growing number of causes, as varied as the environment, white supremacy, and abortion, and state-sponsored or state terrorism in addition to terrorism committed by a host of non-state actors. Dimensions of Counter-Terrorism Because terrorism is a highly complex phenomenon, a wide range of counter-terrorism strategies have been developed to deal with the causes and consequences of terrorist activity at the national and international level. Politically, counter-terrorism involves various measures taken by the governments of national states as well as by international governing bodies in which nation-states are represented. Such (inter)governmental responses to terrorism are historically most developed, dating back to at least the middle and latter half of the 19th century when governments in Europe sought to disrupt activities of political dissent that were aimed at overthrowing established regimes. In particular, surveillance systems were then set up to oversee and suppress politically suspect ideas, and international legal agreements were reached by intergovernmental accords. In 1898, for example, in the wake of the assassination of the Austrian Empress Elisabeth by an Italian anarchist, the governments of 21 countries agreed upon an international protocol to suppress the spread of anarchist violence. Although the protocol failed to be ratified by the participating states, similar initiatives would from time to time be taken. A first intergovernmental treaty specifically dealing with terrorism was drafted in 1937 in the form of an international convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Terrorism that was arranged by the League of Nations, the precursor of the United Nations. Yet, although the convention had been signed by twenty-four nations, it was ratified only by India. During the 20th century, intergovernmental counter-terrorism measures would develop in a piecemeal fashion to focus, not on terrorism as such, but on selected issues commonly associated with terrorist activity, such as hijackings and bombings. For example, the United Nations drafted various conventions to fight elements of terrorism, such as the International Convention against the Taking of Hostages (1979), the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings (1997), and the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (1999). Other international governing bodies, such as the Organization of American States and the Council of Europe, have likewise drafted international protocols to prevent and punish terrorist activity. International agreements against terrorism have been complemented by similar legislative efforts at the level of individual nation states. Especially in nations where terrorism has been a longstanding concern, such policies have been developed for a long time. Various nations in Europe, for instance, drafted counter-terrorist legislation throughout the 1970s, when extremist political organizations threatened to destabilize the political order. In the United States, the Act to Combat International Terrorism and the Omnibus Anti-Terrorism Act were passed during the Reagan administration in the 1980s. Subsequently, the terrorist incidents that hit the United States in the 1990s, specifically the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, led to passage of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act during the Bill Clinton Presidency. In the United States as well as in many other nations of the world, no historical event has had as much of an impact in steering the course of counter-terrorism policies as the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when members of al-Qaeda deliberately crashed hijacked airplanes into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon building in Washington, DC, with a fourth plane crashing into a field in the state of Pennsylvania. In the United States, a comprehensive USA PATRIOT Act (the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act) was passed to intensify surveillance against terrorist activity. A new Department of Homeland Security was created, and exceptional measures to detain and try terrorist suspects in military tribunals were instituted that lack many of the due process protections afforded in criminal courts. Policies against terrorism also extended to military operations when the governments of the United States and other NATO countries decided to undertake armed operations against the Taliban government in Afghanistan. The international impact of the events of 9/11 took hold on the legal front as well. Many nations across the world have since 2001 considerably strengthened and expanded their measures against terrorism by means of formal legislative efforts. The focus on terrorism as a matter affecting the national security of states is additionally prevalent at the international level by means of various intergovernmental treaties oriented at fostering more effective methods of cooperation. International agreements against terrorism remain often difficult to enforce, however, because of the differences that exist among the legal systems of the world’s nations and the different conceptions that exist on terrorism and counter-terrorism. The political and legal measures against terrorism do not stand alone in the complex reality of counter-terrorism. On the contrary, counter-terrorist measures involve a wide range of practices and institutions, including governmental bodies, military and intelligence forces, legal institutions, public security agencies, economic organizations, and cultural groups. Besides policy and law, therefore, counter-terrorism involves such varied actions as the efforts taken by businesses to thwart terrorist threats against private enterprise, the promotion of democratic ideas and peaceful means of protest, the actions taken by civil-liberty groups to ensure an adequate balance between maintaining security and protecting rights, and the law enforcement efforts by national and international police organizations. The policing of terrorism is an element of counter-terrorism that, as a matter of social control, belongs very distinctly to the province of criminology, closely related to the criminological analysis of terrorism in terms of crime and deviance. Criminology, Terrorism, and Counter-Terrorism In the social sciences, terrorism and counter-terrorism have not always enjoyed an undisputed reputation as topics of scholarly reflection. The primary impediment against taking terrorism seriously in the social sciences has been the difficulty presumed to be involved in studying social realities that are often highly divisive in political and ideological terms. Yet, some social-science disciplines have traditionally been more readily engaged in the study of terrorism and terrorism-related phenomena. Scholars of political science, international studies, and law, in particular, have examined important dimensions of terrorism, including, respectively, the political and ideological dimensions of (counter-)terrorism, the causes and effects of terrorism in the international community of nation-states, and the legal aspects posed by terrorism and counter-terrorism policies from the viewpoint of criminal and international law. Other fields of social science have been more hesitant to study terrorism and counter-terrorism except in a sporadic fashion in connection with other, more long-standing areas of investigation, such as religion, war, law, and social movements. As important as the intellectual considerations that preoccupy the various social sciences, the study of terrorism and counter-terrorism has also waxed and waned relative to the changing societal context, specifically the extent to which societies have experienced terrorist attacks. Terrorism studies have generally developed better in Europe than in the United States because of the relatively longer history of terrorism on the European continent. In Europe, terrorist incidents were already receiving much attention throughout the 1970s, when a variety of extremist political groups (for instance, the Red Brigades in Italy, the Action directe in France, and the Red Army Faction in Germany) resorted to violent tactics. In even more specific contexts, such as the state of Israel, the occurrence of and responses to terrorism can be of an even more enduring nature, consequently also fostering the development of terrorism studies. On a global scale, the study of terrorism began to proliferate during the 1990s, when several high-profile incidents took place that moved terrorism to the world stage. Among these incidents were especially those involving the United States, as the sole surviving world power after the cold war, such as the World Trade Center bombing in New York in 1993, the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the suicide bombing attack against the USS Cole naval ship in 2000. No singular event in history, however, has influenced the study of terrorism and counter-terrorism in a more drastic and enduring manner than the terrorist attacks of September 11. The events of 9/11 have also contributed sharply to the development of criminological analyses of terrorism and counter-terrorism. Criminology incorporates the social-scientific study of crime and deviance as well as the practices and institutions of social control, broadly defined as the definition of and response to crime or deviance. The distinction between crime and deviance corresponds to the theoretical demarcation between perspectives that contemplate the causes of criminal behavior and crime rates and those that differentiate between deviance as behavior and crime as the labeling of such behavior. Social control, in turn, is theoretically conceived as a consequence of crime, oriented at restoring social integration and harmony, or as a process of criminalization whereby deviance is treated as crime, most clearly through the development and application of criminal law and measures of enforcement. Social control can be informal, such as in the case of gossip and peer pressure, or formal, as in the case of law enforcement. In criminological discourse, the term criminal justice is often used to refer to the formal means of social control, including the institutions of police, courts, and corrections. At the most general level of criminological analysis, then, terrorism and counter-terrorism can be conceived as crime and social control, respectively. It is from within this general framework that more specific criminological perspectives unfold that can meaningfully contribute to the broader area of terrorism studies. Terrorism as Crime or Deviance Criminologists have not always been favorable to incorporate terrorism into their field of study because of the political dimensions of terrorism which were argued to prevent scientific analysis. This argument can be contested, however, because all acts of crime are subject to definitions and responses by a variety of institutions, such as law and police, besides their analytical treatment in the sciences. More recently, indeed, criminological models have been forwarded that conceive of terrorism in terms of crime and deviance. From the viewpoint of crime causation perspectives concerned with the etiology of criminal behavior, terrorism can be conceived as a form of violence, the causes of which can be analyzed at the micro and macro level. From the micro viewpoint that focuses on the individual characteristics of terrorist perpetrators, criminological research concentrates on the people who are more likely to become terrorists or join, or be recruited by, a terrorist organization. From this viewpoint, for instance, social learning theory can unravel the learning processes whereby somebody is initiated into the techniques and values associated with terrorist activities as a specific form of violence. At the macro level, criminological analysis of terrorism as crime concentrate on the fluctuations of terrorism in function of other societal developments, such as periods of political strive, economic conditions, and cultural-ideological conflicts. For example, strain theorists can examine the socio-structural determinants under which terrorism, as a form of rebellion, will be more or less likely as a mode of adaptation under conditions of blocked opportunities to legitimate means for voicing grievances. Criminologists examining the causes of crime as a specific form of violent behavior do not take on the task of criminalistics or forensic science to investigate criminal evidence (in order to ‘solve’ a crime), but instead describe and explain the structures and processes of terrorist crimes on the basis of various theoretical models (in order to analyze crime). Like other acts of crime, terrorist violence involves a perpetrator intent on achieving certain aims with particular means. In applying various crime causation theories to terrorism, criminologists view the political and ideological objectives of terrorism as one goal among many others, much like non-terrorist acts of violence will also be guided towards achieving a variety of aims, such as retribution or control. As to the consequences of terrorism, criminologists pay attention to the victimization that is brought about. Much as is the case with other forms of criminal conduct, the victims of terrorism involve the direct casualties and fatalities of a terrorist attack but also relate to the wider impact on the population and their sense of security. Its is from the latter form of victimization from which the expression terrorism is derived as referring to its primary purpose to terrorize or instill fear. Among the best developed explanatory theories that focus on terrorism in function of macro-theoretical conditions is the perspective of pure sociology. From this viewpoint, terrorism is conceived as behavior that is oriented at unilaterally handling a grievance (crime as a form of social control) whereby organized civilians covertly inflict mass violence on other civilians. Terrorist behavior is deliberately oriented at injuring and killing numerous individuals that are associated with a particular collectivity, such as a race or ethnic group, a nationality, or a religious group, that is defined as hostile. Like warfare, terrorism is very violent. Yet, unlike warfare, terrorism is not bilateral, involving two opposing factions openly engaged in military actions, but unilateral and covertly planned and executed. In terrorist conduct there is a high degree of relational and cultural distance between the perpetrators and the victims, often crossing the boundaries of entire nations. Terrorism is also often upward in direction, oriented at superiors who cannot be reached through non-violent means such as law or political debate. Especially because of technological developments, terrorism is a largely modern phenomenon that is more typical of advanced societies. The pure-sociological perspective can be broadened to contemplate on both the moralistic and non-moralistic elements of terrorist violence. To the extent that terrorist activity is oriented at addressing grievances, it is moralistic. Yet, inasmuch as terrorism is not provoked by the victim, not even from the offender’s viewpoint, it is predatory. As such, terrorist behavior is both warlike and criminal. Its societal conditions relate primarily to the balance between the institutional powers in society. In the case of contemporary terrorism, the institutional balance has tipped in favor of free-market capitalism, democratic polities, and cultural traditions of secularism and other Western values. Therefore, terrorism is more likely from groups who feel economically, politically, and culturally deprived. Institutional imbalances in the contemporary world help explain the rise of religious and ethnic terrorism in both domestic and international contexts. By means of example, some Palestinian groups have resorted to terrorist tactics, such as suicide bombings and indiscriminate rocket attacks, because of the deprivation of political rights they experience by the state of Israel. Likewise, al-Qaeda militants can be explained to be engaged in terrorism because of the repression from Western powers that is felt among certain Muslim communities, even in their own homelands. From the viewpoint of crime construction theories that examine terrorism as a form of deviance, criminologists focus on at least two interrelated questions. On the one hand, research attention goes to the processes and motives that can be interpreted as meaningfully contributing to the occurrence of terrorist activity as a form of deviance. Based on hermeneutic strategies of analysis that are interested in uncovering the meanings an act or event has for the people who are involved, deviance theorists will be particularly interested in the motives of terrorist conduct. On the other hand, crime construction theorists will also interpret the societal context in which such acts of deviance are formally labeled as (the crime of) terrorism. This criminalization process minimally involves the definition of certain acts as terrorism, for instance by means of a legal description of certain acts as terrorism, and the subsequent application of such a description to concrete instances of terrorist conduct through the enforcement of laws. Importantly, crime constructionists do not conceive of terrorism in essentialist terms as a kind of behavior (for which the term deviance is reserved) but as the result of a labeling process applied to certain kinds of conduct. What this theoretical focus can bring out are the differential conditions under which certain acts are, or are not, defined as terrorism and when and how certain people and groups are similarly seen and treated as terrorists or not. Typically, the focus of this approach is such that the criminalization of certain kinds of deviance, and not others, as terrorism will be conceived as problematic inasmuch as the criminalization of terrorism will be seen as a function of authoritative people and institutions who have the power to label some acts as terrorism. From this viewpoint, therefore, an analytically useful criminological expression can be given to the otherwise tired slogan that a terrorist in one person’s eyes can be a freedom fighter in the eyes of another. Further, a crime construction perspective can also lead to broaden the scope of terrorism studies by focusing on violent acts of a terrorist nature that are perpetrated by state actors in the course of their official duties. Thus the notion of state terrorism can be introduced. Crime construction theories are often conducted at an interactional level, involving the dynamic interplay between rule-violator and rule-enforcer, yet they can also be broadened to an institutional level that is situated in the wider socio-historical context of society. Among the central mechanisms of crime construction in the case of terrorism, criminological research has devoted special attention to the process of a moral panic that surrounds suspected offenders of actual and potential terrorist activities, for instance since the events of September 11. As the 9/11 attacks originated from certain extremist elements in the Islamic religious community, an immediate response to the events involved anti-Muslim and, more broadly, anti-foreign sentiments. Soon following the attacks there were many reports, across the United States, of acts of violence inflicted on people of Muslim or Middle-Eastern origin who were held responsible by association. The very labeling of the acts of terrorism on September 11 as ‘Islamic’ terrorism brought about a general distrust towards the Muslim religion, despite the best of efforts to divorce the religion from the terrorist violence. Further contributing to the equation of Islam and terrorism was the notion that terrorist cells loosely connected with the al-Qaeda network were globally organized and thus thought to represent a threat to all of civilization, including many predominantly Muslim nations. Moreover, the increasing globalization of the contemporary world, which has brought physically distant parts closer together than ever before, also meant that immigration could be redefined as a security concern rather than a mere administrative issue. As such, the contemporary age of terrorism has brought about a criminalization of immigration. Among the primary mechanisms of the moral panic of terrorism are political propaganda and media reports. Propaganda derives its impact from the authority of the messenger, be they powerful government officials or civic leaders. The role of the media cannot be divorced from propaganda articulating the official state-sponsored perspective of terrorism. Via the media, the rhetoric of politics, as much as of entertainment and sensationalist ‘reality’ reporting, can connect with and mold the concerns of the public at large to form a widespread vision of terrorism as a growing menace, irrespective of objective conditions. At the same time, such descriptions of the problem of terrorism will also help to pave the way to inform policies against terrorism and have them accepted as the necessary and valid responses. Counter-Terrorism as Social Control Although criminology has traditionally focused most attention on crime and criminality, contemporary criminological perspectives have been broadened to also study the definition of and responses to crime or deviance under the heading of social control. It is from this perspective that counter-terrorism can be criminologically analyzed to focus on the mechanisms and institutions that are involved in treating terrorism in function of crime and deviance. Counter-terrorism has generally received less scholarly attention than has terrorism, which is no doubt a result of a differential analytical concern that is closely related to the power and authority of the subject matter. Criminologists know much more about criminals and crime than they do about policing and police. Most terrorism studies that have focused on counter-terrorism have examined formal government policies and accompanying pieces of legislation on terrorism that have been enacted at the national and international levels of multiple governing bodies. This orientation towards policy and law harmonizes with the interests of political science and legal scholarship. Yet, a dimension that has been of growing concern, especially among criminologists, is the role played by criminal justice agencies and police institutions in counter-terrorism practices. Because security and police organizations are inevitably targeted at the criminal components of terrorist incidents, their activities in terrorism-related activities are ideally suited for criminological analysis. Whether social control is conceived in response to terrorism as a crime or as a component in the criminalization of terrorism as deviance, the role of police in counter-terrorism has undeniably been of growing importance. What criminological research has found, especially in the aftermath of highly visible terrorist incidents, is that policing powers are generally strengthened and coordinated among various (local and federal) levels. For example, after the events of 9/11, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) stepped up its efforts and personnel involved with terrorism investigations. Local U.S. law enforcement agencies likewise began to devote more attention to terrorism-related operations, even when such concerns appeared rather peripheral to local conditions. Other federal agencies that are mainly concerned with administrative issues have likewise reoriented their tasks in terms of the new security situation. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, for instance, has been abolished in favor of the creation of two new agencies, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, of which the latter is concerned with immigration as a security issue. Similar developments to those in the United States have also taken place in many other countries, where police powers have likewise expanded after the events of September 11 and terrorism has become a security priority, even when there were no indications of a concrete terrorist threat. The various security efforts and other components involved with counter-terrorism have been subject to an intensified coordination at the policy level of government as well as at the organizational level of law enforcement. At the level of policy, the policing and security dimensions of counter-terrorism have been subject to increased efforts at supervision and coordination by the governments of states. Police and security measures against terrorism are thereby attempted to be aligned with other counter-terrorism measures in the intelligence community and at the military, political, and legal level. In the United States, most famously, a new Department of Homeland Security was established to protect the nation from future terrorist attacks by coordinating various counter-terrorism functions. The idea for such a department was not newly developed after September 11, but originated from a number of proposals that were drafted in 1999, 2000, and early 2001 by committees that had been commissioned by U.S. Congress and the Department of Defense. Each proposal called for a coordinated and unified national counter-terrorism program, and two proposals suggested the creation of a new federal agency to oversee such a program. None of the plans were implemented until the events of September 11, when an Office of Homeland Security was established within the executive branch of the U.S. government in October 2001. The Office turned into the new Department of Homeland Security by the passage of the Homeland Security Act of November 25, 2002. The Department oversees a large number of agencies, offices, and councils involved with various terrorism-related tasks, including health affairs, intelligence and analysis, security, customs and border protection, and immigration. Internationally, there are also political efforts directed at coordinating the response against terrorism. The United Nations, most notably, has developed a Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy that appeals to the nations of the world to unify and unite in their respective efforts against terrorism. The Strategy calls for the condemnation of all acts of terrorism, irrespective of purpose, as constituting serious threats to international peace and security, and it urges nations to adopt all necessary measures to prevent and combat terrorism. As part of its counter-terrorism programs, the United Nations also promotes peaceful methods of conflict resolution, economic development programs across the world, and measures of international cooperation and assistance. Similar international initiatives as the ones developed by the United Nations have also been developed by various international organizations at regional levels, such as the Organization of American States, the Commonwealth of Independent States, the League of Arab States, and the European Union. On the organizational level of law enforcement, it is important to note that police and security agencies have also developed their own, independently created coordination mechanisms aimed at harmonizing counter-terrorism efforts by law enforcement at both the national and international level. In the United States, the FBI works with other federal agencies as well as state and local law enforcement in cooperation efforts through so-called Joint Terrorism Task Forces. At the international level, counter-terrorist police cooperation is secured through various bilateral and multilateral partnerships. Bilateral police cooperation in counter-terrorism can be conducted on a temporary case-by-case basis, for instance to facilitate the transformation of information in view of the arrest of a fugitive from justice, or it can be of a more permanent nature through the establishment of joint investigative task forces. Multilateral counter-terrorism cooperation is ensured through international police organizations such as the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) and the European Police Office (Europol). Importantly, these multilateral police organizations are of a collaborative character by establishing direct systems of information exchange among the police of various nations, for the transmission of criminal data as well as the transfer of police technologies, without the creation of a supranational force. Among the mechanisms of counter-terrorist policing, research has uncovered that while there are undeniable political efforts to bring police institutions in line with the ‘war on terror,’ police institutions are able to resist such political pressures to remain relatively independent in determining the means and specifying the objectives of counter-terrorism enforcement tasks. Organizationally, police agencies can oftentimes secure an independent position, remote from governmental control. In the United States, for instance, it is striking that the FBI, the primary enforcement agency for counter-terrorism, is not part of the Department of Homeland Security. As terrorism is in many nations also a law enforcement concern, rather than exclusively an intelligence or military matter, counter-terrorism efforts at the level of policing are an element of criminal justice rather than national security or foreign affairs. With respect to the means of counter-terrorist policing, technological advances are observed to form a primary driving force in determining the police strategies that are used in terrorism investigations. Exemplary of the technological focus are advanced methods of information exchange among police, for instance encrypted internet-based communications systems, and the focus on the technical dimensions of terrorism operations, such as the weaponry involved and the methods of communication used by terrorist networks. With respect to the objectives of counter-terrorism policing, terrorism is among law enforcement agencies conceived in terms of distinctly criminal components, irrespective of any political dimension or ideological motivation. Police institutions of different nations can on the basis of a shared understanding of terrorism as a crime even accomplish cooperation when they originate from nations that are ideologically and politically diverse. As such, the counter-terrorism efforts of police are central in the criminalization of terrorism, both domestically as well as internationally. Summary and Conclusion Terrorism and counter-terrorism have historically evolved in various forms. Terrorism has increasingly diversified in terms of the objectives that are pursued, and counter-terrorism efforts have likewise proliferated across a range of institutions. Criminologists have contributed to the study of terrorism and terrorism-related phenomena by focusing on terrorism as crime or deviance and counter-terrorism as social control. The incorporation of terrorism and counter-terrorism as distinctly criminological topics of research serves to bring important dimensions to terrorism studies that other disciplines will not focus on. The criminological study of terrorism and counter-terrorism also has the added benefit of broadening the scope of existing criminological theories beyond their traditional areas of application. Terrorism and counter-terrorism present important intellectual challenges for criminological theory and research and are likely to remain important for many years to come. Studying the causes and motives of terrorism, criminologists can unravel many of the complexities in the development and proliferation of terrorist activities across the world. The most critical contribution of criminology thereby is the study not merely of crimes or acts of deviance associated with terrorism, but of terrorism itself as crime or as deviance. Developing theory and undertaking research in this area, criminologists can expand social-scientific knowledge and contribute to build a counter-terrorism policy that is effective and just in tackling terrorist violence. Studying counter-terrorism as a form of social control and, more specifically, a component of criminal justice, criminological research can bring out the security dimensions of social control that are not of a military or political character. Much of the contemporary public discourse on terrorism, especially in the popular media, typically focuses on counter-terrorism in the world of politics and in relation to war, but criminologists can reveal the manner in which institutions of social control, particularly law enforcement agencies, conceive of and respond to terrorism as a criminal matter. The targets of counter-terrorism are thereby treated as suspects, who are given certain rights of due process on the basis of publicly presented evidence in courts, and who, upon a determination of guilt, can receive punishment. Military counter-terrorism operations, by contrast, are oriented at enemies, not suspects, who can be apprehended or killed in combat. Captured enemies are detained to be released when a cessation of hostilities has been declared. The respective logics of criminal justice policy and military counter-terrorism actions, then, are very different, although they factually co-exist in the wider constellation of counter-terrorism today. Bringing out the essentially multi-dimensional nature of counter-terrorism is among criminology’s most exciting challenges. Cross References Police; Racial Profiling; Social Construction of Crime; Strain Theories of Crime References and Further Readings Altheide, D.L. (2006). Terrorism and the politics of fear. Lanham, MD: Alta Mira Press. Black, D. (2004). The geometry of terrorism. Sociological Theory, 22, 14-25. Clarke, R.V., & Newman, G.R. (2006). Outsmarting the terrorists. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International. Deflem, M. (Ed.). (2004). Terrorism and counter-terrorism: Criminological perspectives. Amsterdam: Elsevier/JAI Press. Deflem, M. (2004). Social control and the policing of terrorism: Foundations for a sociology of counter-terrorism. The American Sociologist, 35, 75-92. Deflem, M. (2006). Global rule of law or global rule of law enforcement? International police cooperation and counter-terrorism. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 603, 240-251. Deflem, M. (2006). Europol and the policing of international terrorism: Counter-terrorism in a global perspective. Justice Quarterly, 23, 336-359. Hamm, M.S. (2007). Terrorism as crime: From Oklahoma City to Al-Qaeda and beyond. New York: New York University Press. Heymann, P.B. (2003). Terrorism, freedom, and security: Winning without war. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Hoffman, B. (2006). Inside terrorism. Revised and expanded edition. New York: Columbia University Press. LaFree, G., & Hendrickson, J. (2007). Build a criminal justice policy for terrorism. Criminology and Public Policy, 6, 781-790. Marks, D.E., & Sun, I.Y. (2007). The impact of 9/11 on organizational development among state and local law enforcement agencies. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 23, 159-173. Martin, G. 2006. Understanding terrorism: Challenges, perspectives, and issues. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Mythen, G., & Walklate, S. (2006). Criminology and terrorism: Which thesis? Risk society or governmentality? British Journal of Criminology, 46, 379-398. Pious, R.M. (2006). The war on terrorism and the rule of law. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury. Rosenfeld, R. (2002). Why criminologists should study terrorism. The Criminologist, 27, 1, 3-4. Savelsberg, J.J. (2006). Underused potentials for criminology: Applying the sociology of knowledge to terrorism. Crime, Law and Social Change, 46, 35-50. Shelley, L.I., & Picarelli, J.T. (2002). Methods not motives: Implications of the convergence of international organized crime and terrorism. Police Practice and Research, 3, 305-318. Smith, B.L., Damphousse, K.R., Jackson, F., & Sellers, A. (2002). The prosecution and punishment of international terrorists in federal courts: 1980-1998. Criminology & Public Policy, 1, 311-388. Townshend, C. (2002). Terrorism: A very short introduction. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Ventura, H.E., Miller, J.M., & Deflem, M. (2005). Governmentality and the war on terror: FBI Project Carnivore and the diffusion of disciplinary power. Critical Criminology, 13, 55-70. Welch, M. (2006). Scapegoats of September 11th: Hate crimes & state crimes in the war on terror. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. White, J.R. (2006). Terrorism and homeland security. Fifth edition. Belmont, CA: Thomson.

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Please cite as: Deflem, Mathieu. 2009. "Terrorism." Pp. 533-540 in 21st Century Criminology: A Reference Handbook, edited by J. Mitchell Miller. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. www.mathieudeflem.net

Police (2009)

Police Mathieu Deflem deflem@sc.edu www.mathieudeflem.net This is an electronic version of a publication in The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History, edited by Akira Iriye and Pierre-Yves Saunier. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Cite as: Deflem, Mathieu. 2009. “Police.” Pp. 837-839 in The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History, edited by Akira Iriye and Pierre-Yves Saunier. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

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The history of the international dimensions of policing dates back to at least the 19th-century formation of nation-states. The forms in which international policing takes place are multiple and have, over the course of history, proliferated under the influence of important cultural and structural developments related to modernity. Among the first forms of international policing were intelligence efforts organized by autocratic regimes oriented to political opponents operating from abroad. During the earlier part of the 19th century, French and Austrian efforts stood out for their comprehensive scope to form Europewide police intelligence networks. The French police extended its functions to protect the security of the state to other regions of Europe by influencing police reforms abroad through adoption of French practices or by coerced importation as part of French occupation. During the period of Restoration after 1815, attempts to create a European police network were made under the direction of Metternich, the powerful statesman of the Austrian Empire, whose strong role in forging international relations also included efforts to control revolutionary unrest through censorship and espionage. The suppression of the revolutions taking place across Europe in 1848 served as a catalyst for international policing activities in a number of ways. As political regimes sought to strengthen their rule, police institutions in many European nations were strengthened and reinforced and de facto harmonized in terms of strategies and goals. Police institutions of powerful European regimes also stationed agents abroad to be involved in covert intelligence-gathering activities. Moreover, international cooperation efforts were initiated among European police agencies. Cooperation took on the form of shared information exchange by establishing contacts between police officials or by means of the distribution of printed bulletins with information on wanted suspects. International police cooperation would also be endeavoured on a broader multilateral scale. Although most of these attempts failed because of concerns over sovereignty, some were consequential, albeit it on a limited scale. In 1851, an international police organization was set up, when Prussian and Austrian authorities rallied the support of five other German-language territories to form the Police Union of German States. Active until the Seven-Weeks War of 1866, the Police Union explicitly functioned to track down political opponents by means of increasing information exchange through police meetings, the distribution of printed bulletins, and by stationing agents abroad. The Police Union worked without any formally specified legal arrangement and operated covertly. The Union could not attract the participation of police from non-German language countries in Europe, and because of its political dependency, it disbanded as soon as war broke out between its two dominant members. During the latter half of the 19th century, there was an increasing need among police to establish an international organization with broad participation. However, in order to accomplish this goal successfully, police organizations would have to abandon their political position as an extension of state power. This development towards a position of autonomy took place under the influence of a process of bureaucratization. Bureaucratization involves the adoption of principles of technical efficiency in terms of professionally defined enforcement objectives. Because police institutions were granted special powers by their respective national governments to police political opponents, they ironically could claim and gain a position of professional independence as expert institutions in the fight against criminality. On the basis of a professional ideal of crime expertise, police institutions across nations (in the industrialized West) could subsequently cooperate internationally to foster a shared understanding on the development and control of crime. Thus, police bureaucracies relied on their position of independence from politics to articulate joint programmes in the fight against crime, in general, and international crime, in particular. In consequence of increasing bureaucratization, efforts to formalize international police cooperation were sharply on the rise during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Initially, most of these efforts failed, because they tended to remain phrased in legal-political rather than police-professional terms. For instance, attempts to forge international police cooperation against the so-called White Slave trade failed because they were launched as part of a series of international legal agreements between nation states (reached in Paris in 1904 and 1910) that enjoyed no independent input from police. The First Congress of International Criminal Police, which was held in Monaco in 1914, likewise failed because of an exclusive attention on legal matters and a lack of participation by police professionals. Following the interruption of World War 1, important initiatives to establish an international police organization were taken in the United States and in Europe. In the United States, the New York City Police directed the formation of an International Police Conference in 1922. Though set up by police and justified in terms of the suppression of international crime, the conference failed to garner much international support. In the absence of any realistic concerns over international crime at this point in time on the North American continent, the conference was oriented to the professionalization of US police rather than the fight against international crime. In Europe, however, the close proximity of multiple nation-states was in the years after World War 1 readily recognized as being of special concern for the internationalization of criminal activities, especially in view of the continued development of technological means of transportation and communication. Thus, in 1923, an international meeting of police in Vienna led to the formation of the International Criminal Police Commission, the organization better known today as Interpol. The Commission was not only successful in garnering participation of police from a multitude of nations and in steadily expanding its membership, but it also set up various systems of international information exchange, among them, most importantly, a central headquarters in Vienna through which information could be routed to the various member agencies. World War 2 provided the next unavoidable obstacle in the development of international policing. As the headquarters of the International Criminal Police Commission were located in Vienna, they were rapidly placed under Nazi control following the annexation of Austria. The headquarters were subsequently moved to Berlin where they were aligned with the Nazi police. In 1946, an international police meeting in Brussels led to the refounding of the international police organization as the International Criminal Police Organization, with headquarters in Paris (which have since been relocated to Lyon, France). Despite its non-governmental status as an international police organization, Interpol was during the Cold War occasionally challenged for its political role, especially in being used for the suppression of political opponents by the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe. Because of such difficulties, the organization lost the support of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which, under direction of J. Edgar Hoover, had risen to world fame and which had begun to create its own international system. The rise of the FBI as a powerful police organization with a strong international programme indicates a shift in international police work during the second half of the 20th century towards the American continent. Under a general process of Americanization, the trend for international work was driven by the strong role of US police agencies, especially with respect to the objectives of international police work. Thus, the international war on drugs rose to the foreground of concern during the latter half of the 20th century. More broadly, the process of Americanization in international police work indicates one of three important ways in which there is a persistence of nationality in international policing. First, police agencies will prefer to work unilaterally to fulfil their international missions, most typically by placing agents abroad through a system of legal attachés at foreign embassies. Second, national persistence is revealed by the fact that international police cooperation will typically be limited in function or scope, initiated for a specific purpose or coordinated on a limited international scale, involving as few partners as possible. Third, even when multilateral cooperation initiatives are established among police, such as in the case of Interpol and, more recently, the European Police Office or Europol, such cooperation is collaborative in nature, bringing police agencies of various nations together within an organization without the formation of a supranational force. Instead, international police organizations operate as facilitative communications networks among the police of various nations. No contemporary discussion on international policing would be complete without contemplation of the impact of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Since 9/11, terrorism has moved centre stage in international police work. Importantly, while terrorism is also a prime mover in international political and legal affairs, international police organizations have taken up terrorism as a criminal enforcement objective on the basis of acquired professional policing criteria. A central question concerning the nature and course of international policing in the near future is how professional standards of counterterrorist policing will harmonize or clash with the conception of terrorism as an ideologically volatile and politically divisive problem. Bibliography Deflem M. 2002. Policing world society: historical foundations of international police cooperation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Liang H.-H. 1992. The rise of the modern police and the European state system from Metternich to the Second World War. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Nadelmann E. A. 1993. Cops across borders: the internationalization of US criminal law enforcement. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Related essays 1848; crime; illegal drugs; legal order; nation states; Nazism; professionalization; September 11th 2001; terrorism; White Slavery

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This is an electronic version of a print publication. Please cite as: Deflem, Mathieu. 2009. “Police.” Pp. 837-839 in The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History, edited by Akira Iriye and Pierre-Yves Saunier. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. www.mathieudeflem.net

Bureaucratization (2009)

Bureaucratization Mathieu Deflem deflem@sc.edu www.mathieudeflem.net This is an electronic version of an article published in The Sage Dictionary of Policing, edited by Alison Wakefield and Jenny Fleming, pp. 14-16. London: Sage Publications, 2009. Also available in print-friendly pdf format. Cite as: Deflem, Mathieu. 2009. "Bureaucratization." Pp. 14-16 in The Sage Dictionary of Policing, edited by Alison Wakefield and Jenny Fleming. London: Sage Publications.

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Definition Bureaucracies are in generally terms conceived as organizations charged with the implementation of policies decided upon by government or business authorities, and adhere to a specific organizational design that is hierarchical in structure. Bureaucratic activities are formally based on general rules and standardized and impersonal. The concept of ‘bureaucratization’ refers to the organization of political and economic administrative institutions on the basis of the principles of a bureaucracy. The work of the German sociologist Max Weber (1922) has been most influential in introducing this concept and the theories that are derived from it in the area of state and market institutions, including police organizations. Processes of bureaucratization are relevant to the study of policing because the modernization of the police institutions has fundamentally involved an increasing development of police organizations along bureaucratic lines. Historically, bureaucratization processes have been observed across a wide range of organizations in many societies. Despite national variations in bureaucratic organization and activities, most modern societies that are highly industrialized have historically undergone bureaucratization tendencies. Bureaucratic modes of organization have been imported in other countries as well, so that bureaucratization is a global phenomenon. The consequences of bureaucratization have extended far beyond the organizations themselves and have also affected the nature of governance and of social life in general. In the context of policing, bureaucratization refers to the organization of police organizations as bureaucracies that are hierarchically ordered, have formalized and standardized procedures of operation, and are impersonal by reliance on general rules of conduct. The bureaucratization of policing has important consequences for the functions and organization of police. . Special problems are involved with police bureaucratization in terms of the tensions that can exist between the efficiency and the legitimacy of police work Distinctive Features Derived from the French term ‘bureau’, meaning desk or office, and the Greek word ‘kratos’, meaning power or rule, bureaucracy in general refers to the power of administrative offices. The term was originally introduced in 18th-century France with a distinctly negative connotation to refer to the rigid manner in which administrative units could make decisions irrespective of their original objectives. A certain negative quality often remains associated with bureaucratization, but the concept is currently also used in a strict analytical meaning to refer to a particular mode of organization. Weber identified seven central characteristics of bureaucracies: (1) bureaucratic offices are subject to a principle of fixed jurisdictional areas, (2) they are firmly and hierarchically ordered, (3) their activities are based upon written documents or files, (4) the executive offices of the officials are separated from their private households, (5) specialized training is required to obtain an office, (6) the official activity is a full-time occupation, and (7) the management of the bureaucratic office is guided by general rules. Among the principles that guide bureaucratic activity, Weber specified most centrally that the modern bureaucracy operates on the basis of a formal rationality to use the most efficient means given certain specified objectives. Weber conceived of formal or purposive rationalization as the most fundamental process characterizing modern societies. Analyzing the consequences of bureaucratization, Weber devoted most attention to the trend among bureaucratic organizations to achieve a position of autonomy so that the bureaucracy can operate independently from political oversight and popular control. In the study of policing, the bureaucracy concept has been applied in the context of the agencies of internal coercion that are monopolized by the modern nation-state. Sanctioned by nation-states with the tasks of order maintenance and crime control, police organizations are arguably the most visible and concrete expression of the state’s monopoly over the means of coercion. Organized as bureaucracies, police organizations are hierarchically ordered with a vertical structure of a rigid chain of command. Thus modern police work tends to become highly systematic, whereby police officers handle cases on the basis of files (for information) and scientific methods of investigation and evidence collecting and analysis. Bureaucratized police work also applies considerations of efficiency in getting the work done, at the exclusion of other concerns such as questions of morality. Police work is routinized on the basis of standardized methods of investigation, often strongly influenced by scientific principles of police technique, such as technically advanced methods of criminal identification and computerized databases. Historically, the greater need for a specialized organization of crime control and order maintenance with the growth of modern societies has been among the most central conditions favorable to police bureaucratization. As societies grew in population size and density and experienced processes of rapid urbanization, industrialization, and technological progress, modern nation-states began to concentrate even more policy tasks in a centralized administration. Thus, specialized police institutions were established and, in the course of their development began to operate as specialized bureaucratic apparatus in both functional and organizational respects. Functionally, police institutions became responsible for order maintenance and crime control on the basis of a formal system of laws. Organizationally, police bureaucratization is reflected in the hierarchical structure of police organizations, the formal training of police personnel, and the emphasis on technically efficient means in police work. Evaluation Essentially two lines of inquiry on police bureaucratization have been pursued within police studies. First, normatively oriented studies have investigated the origins and consequences of an increasing reliance on bureaucratic principles in police organizations relative to principles of due process and the protection of citizen rights. In this view, the perceived negative impact of police discretion and accountability limitations can be attributed to an excessive bureaucratization of the police. Thus, bureaucratization is seen to take on the negative connotation it originally carried to become virtually synonymous with injustice and oppression resulting from an overly rigid organization of administrative activity. Police bureaucratization can then be criticized in light of principles of democratic control and accountability, and new post-bureaucratic models of policing are proposed that rely on insights from restorative justice and community policing initiatives to bring about closer cooperation among the police and the public . Second, from a strictly analytical perspective, police bureaucratization has been studied in terms of the factual course and observable consequences of the increasing organization of police organizations along bureaucratic lines. A central concern in this respect has been the autonomy of police institutions as a result of bureaucratization in formal and operational respects. Formally, police bureaucratization implies a growing independence of police institutions from the governments of their respective national states. Whereas police institutions were originally set up to further the political goals of governments, especially in the context of autocratic states, they gradually developed a professional ethos to focus on distinctly criminal enforcement tasks. In operational respects, police bureaucratization involves police institutions gaining independence to determine the means, as well as specifying objectives, of their tasks. Among the consequences of bureaucratization, police professionals can insulate themselves from popular demands in favour of adherence to an occupational culture that stands apart from the community and operates on the basis of principles of command, obedience and honour. Furthermore, increasing trends towards bureaucratization across the world have promoted collaboration between police organizations of different nations. Such international cooperation allows for limited collaboration between national police forces surrounding specific cases, such as the international rendition of fugitives from justice and has been organized on a permanent basis in formally structured international police organizations such as Interpol. Though justified in terms of the rise in international crime, international police practices that result from bureaucratization may lack formal legal regulations and operate beyond democratic control (Deflem 2002). The autonomy of highly bureaucratized police institutions is not stable, but dependent on socio-historical circumstances, notably the degree of a society’s pacification. During periods of momentous societal change, such as international warfare, police organizations are typically pressured to reconcile their activities with the political goals of their respective governments. However, as police institutions have presently attained an unprecedented level of bureaucratization, they can also better resist any political pressures to remain organized on the basis of bureaucratic principles of professional expertise. Current conditions surrounding the spread of international terrorism have revealed the relevance of police bureaucratization as an important force determining the shape and future of counter-terrorism efforts and other dimensions of police power. Associated Concepts: Culture, discretion, managerialism, performance management, professionalization, terrorism (policing of), transnational policing. Key Readings Albrow, M. (1970) Bureaucracy. New York: Praeger Publishers. Bordua, D.avid J., and A.lbert J. Reiss, Jr. (1966) ‘Command, control, and charisma: reflections on police bureaucracy’, American Journal of Sociology, 72, 1, 68-76. Deflem, M. (2002) Policing World Society: Historical Foundations of International Police Cooperation. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Deflem, M. (2004) ‘Social control and the policing of terrorism: foundations for a sociology of counter-terrorism’, The American Sociologist, 35, 2, 75-92. Lipsky, M. (1980) Street-level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. McLeod, C. (2003) ‘Toward a restorative organization: transforming police bureaucracies’, Police Practice and Research, 4, 4, 361-377. Skolnick, J.H. (1966) Justice Without Trial: Law Enforcement in Democratic Society. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Weber, M. ([1922 1978) Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

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This is an electronic version of a print publication. Please cite as: Deflem, Mathieu. 2009. "Bureaucratization." Pp. 14-16 in The Sage Dictionary of Policing, edited by Alison Wakefield and Jenny Fleming. London: Sage Publications. www.mathieudeflem.net

Interpol (2009)

Interpol Mathieu Deflem deflem@sc.edu www.mathieudeflem.net This is an electronic version of an article published in The Sage Dictionary of Policing, edited by Alison Wakefield and Jenny Fleming, pp. 179-181. London: Sage Publications, 2009. Also available in print-friendly pdf format. Cite as: Deflem, Mathieu. 2009. "Interpol." Pp. 179-181 in The Sage Dictionary of Policing, edited by Alison Wakefield and Jenny Fleming. London: Sage Publications.

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Definition Interpol is the acronym of the International Criminal Police Organization, an international non-governmental police organization that presently counts member agencies from 186 nations. Interpol primarily facilitates international co-operation among criminal law enforcement agencies from different parts of the world, and also co-operates with other organizations involved with combating international crime. To achieve its mission, Interpol operates a central headquarters, the General Secretariat located in Lyon, France, that is linked for information exchange with its member agencies via so-called National Central Bureaus. Since its formation in 1923, Interpol has continually expanded its membership, even in periods of international instability. Formally, Interpol has three core functions. First, the organization oversees a system of international police communications among its members. Originally conducted by regular mail, since 2003 these communications have been electronically secured through an encrypted internet-based system called I-24/7 connecting the General Secretariat in Lyon with the National Central Bureaus. Second, Interpol provides its member agencies with operational data and databases containing information, such as names, fingerprints and DNA profiles, on international fugitives from justice as well as information on stolen property such as passports and works of art. Third, Interpol offers operational assistance, particularly in Interpol’s priority areas, which presently include public safety and terrorism, international fugitives from justice, drugs and organized crime, human trafficking, and financial and high-tech crime. In support of these operational services, Interpol organizes a Command and Coordination Centre that operates as the primary point of contact for any member agency that seeks immediate support. Other operational support can, at the request of a member agency, be provided by a Crisis Support Group, a Criminal Analysis Unit, and Incident Response Teams or Disaster Victim Identification Teams. Distinctive Features Interpol was established at an international meeting of police in Vienna in 1923 in order to facilitate international police co-operation in response to rising international crime following the end of the First World War. Then known as the International Criminal Police Commission, the organization was from the start not set up as a supranational police force sanctioned by an international governing body, but as a non-governmental collaborative network among the criminal law enforcement authorities of various nations, as remains the case today. To facilitate inter-agency collaboration, a central headquarters was established in Vienna, Austria, and various institutions of co-operation, such as a radio network, regular meetings, and printed publications, were organized to facilitate international police communications. By the late 1930s, police of the German Nazi regime gradually took control of the organization, and the headquarters were subsequently moved to Berlin where they were institutionally linked to the SS police structure. Absent any meaningful form of international co-operation during the Second World War, the organization was revived in 1946 at an international police meeting in Brussels, Belgium. The headquarters were then moved to France, where they have since been located, first in Paris and, since 1989, in Lyon. The formal name change to the International Criminal Police Organization, abbreviated as ICPO-Interpol or just Interpol, came about in 1956. The formal goals of Interpol, as specified in its constitution, are ‘to ensure and promote mutual assistance [among] criminal police authorities within the limits of the laws’ of their respective nations and in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Interpol, undated). The functions of Interpol are restricted to the prevention and suppression of ordinary law crimes or violations of criminal law, at the exclusion of ‘activities of a political, military, religious or racial character’ (ibid.). Membership of the organization is assigned by Interpol’s Secretary General to national police agencies selected by the governmental authorities of their respective nations as their representatives. Presently, the four official languages of the organization are English, French, Spanish and Arabic. The structure of Interpol consists of a General Assembly, an Executive Committee, a General Secretariat, and the National Central Bureaus. The General Assembly is Interpol’s main governing organ, which meets annually and comprises delegates appointed by each member agency. The Assembly takes all important decisions related to Interpol’s policies, resources, methods, finances, and activities. The Assembly also elects the 13-member Executive Committee, which comprises a President, three Vice-Presidents, and nine delegates covering the regions of Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle-East and Northern Africa. Interpol’s President is elected by the General Assembly for a period of four years. The General Assembly and the Executive Committee together comprise Interpol’s governance bodies. The General Secretariat is located in the Lyon headquarters and has six regional offices, in Argentina, the Ivory Coast, El Salvador, Kenya, Thailand, and Zimbabwe, in addition to a liaison office at the United Nations in New York. Since 1996, Interpol has had a formal agreement with the United Nations, granting each organization observer status in sessions of their respective general assemblies and enabling co-operation in various matters of the fight against international crime. Interpol has reached similar co-operation agreements with Europol (the European Police Office), the International Criminal Court, and other police and legal organizations. The National Central Bureaus are maintained in the individual nations of the member agencies. The Bureaus function as the designated contact points for the General Secretariat, the regional offices, as well as the other member agencies for all official Interpol police communications concerning international investigations and the location and apprehension of fugitives. These communications are conducted on the basis of a specialized colour-coded notification system whereby each one of six possible colours represents a specific type of request. For example, a red notice is a request for the arrest of a wanted person in view of extradition, and a blue notice is a request to collect information about a person in relation to a crime. In 2005, an Interpol-United Nations Special Notice was added for requests concerning groups or individuals that are subject to actions formally sanctioned by the United Nations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Evaluation In terms of membership, Interpol is one of the world’s largest international organizations. The ability to attract a wide and in many ways diverse membership clearly counts among the organization’s most notable achievements. Yet, while Interpol has secured a measure of co-operation despite the political and other differences that exist among the nations of the world, the wide scope of the organization’s membership has ironically also hindered effective co-operation due to frequent mistrust between the police of different nations. As a result, police from the member countries often prefer to conduct international police work in a bilateral or otherwise limited form rather than rely on the multilateral structure of Interpol. Interpol has been able to institute various means of communication among police that are driven by professional concerns of efficiency in police work, relatively unhindered by periods of international instability. Following the terrorist incidents of September 11, Interpol has technologically upgraded and expanded its facilities. Problematic is the fact that Interpol’sits ways of working may operate at the cost of considerations of accountability and formal legality. A constant concern for Interpol is finding a way to balance a quest for efficiency in police performance with due concern for democratic accountability – a dilemma shared by police organizations worldwide. Associated Concepts: accountability, Europol, multi-agency policing, security networks, transnational policing. Key Readings Anderson, M. (1989) Policing the World: Interpol and the Politics of International Police Cooperation. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. Barnett, M. & L. Coleman. 2005. ‘Designing police: Interpol and the study of change in international organizations’, International Studies Quarterly, 49, 593-619. Bresler, F. (1992) Interpol. London: Sinclair-Stevenson. Deflem, M. (2002) Policing World Society: Historical Foundations of International Police Cooperation. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Deflem, M. (2006) ‘Global rule of law or global rule of law enforcement? International police cooperation and counter-terrorism’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 603, 240-251. Interpol (undated) ICPO-INTERPOL Constitution and General Regulations, Interpol: Lyon, available at www.interpol.int.

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This is an electronic version of a print publication. Please cite as: Deflem, Mathieu. 2009. "Interpol." Pp. 179-181 in The Sage Dictionary of Policing, edited by Alison Wakefield and Jenny Fleming. London: Sage Publications. www.mathieudeflem.net