(Inter 1

VOLUME FOUR
TRENDS IN
POLICING
Interviews with
Police Leaders Across the Globe
Edited by
BRUCE F. BAKER AND DILIP K. DAS
International Police Executive Symposium Co-Publication

VOLUME FOUR
TRENDS IN
POLICING
Interviews with
Interviews with Global Leaders in Policing, Courts, and Prisons Series
International Police Executive Symposium Co-Publications
Dilip K. Das, Founding President-IPES

PUBLISHED
Trends in the Judiciary: Interviews with Judges Across the Globe, Volume One
By Dilip K. Das and Cliff Roberson with Michael Berlin, ISBN: 978-1-4200-9978-2
Trends in Policing: Interviews with Police Leaders Across the Globe, Volume Four
By Bruce F. Baker and Dilip K. Das, ISBN: 978-1-4398-8073-9
Trends in Policing: Interviews with Police Leaders Across the Globe, Volume Three
By Otwin Marenin and Dilip K. Das, ISBN: 978-1-4398-1924-1
Trends in Policing: Interviews with Police Leaders Across the Globe
By Dilip K. Das and Otwin Marenin, ISBN: 978-1-4200-7520-5
Trends in Corrections: Interviews with Corrections Leaders Around the World
By Jennie K. Singer, Dilip K. Das, and Eileen Ahlin, ISBN: 978-1-4398-3578-4
FORTHCOMING
Trends in Corrections: Interviews with Corrections Leaders Around the World, Volume Two
By Martha Henderson Hurley and Dilip K. Das, ISBN: 978-1-4665-9156-1
Trends in Policing: Interviews with Police Leaders Across the Globe, Volume Five
By Bruce K. Baker and Dilip K. Das, ISBN: 978-1-4822-2449-8
Trends in the Judiciary: Interviews with Judges Across the Globe, Volume Two
by David Lowe and Dilip K. Das, ISBN: 978-1-4822-1916-6
VOLUME FOUR
TRENDS IN
POLICING
Interviews with
Edited by
BRUCE F. BAKER AND DILIP K. DAS
International Police Executive Symposium

Co-Publication
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This book is dedicated to the late
James Edwin Lewis, attorney at law,
who served the International Police
Executive Symposium (IPES, http://www.
ipes.info) as treasurer and director with
great distinction from 2006 to 2008. Jim
was a kind and devout soul who was
dearly loved and highly respected.
Contents
Series Editor Preface ix

Foreword xiii
Acknowledgments xvii
Editors xix
Contributors xxi
Interviewees xxvii
Introduction xxxiii
1 Carlos Mauricio Escobar, Special Prosecutor,

Colombia 1
INTERVIEWED BY ANTHONY LAROSE,
CHRISTINE GUZMAN, AND JOSÉ J. RINCÓN
2 Sir Norman Bettison, Chief Constable, West

Yorkshire Police, United Kingdom 21
INTERVIEWED BY RICHARD HESLOP
3 Brigadier General Dr. József Boda, Director

General, Special Service for National Security
(SSNS), Hungary 39
INTERVIEWED BY ZSOLT MOLNÁR
4 Charles H. Ramsey, Commissioner of the

Philadelphia Police Department, United States 53
INTERVIEWED BY CHRISTOPHER CHAPMAN
5 Stephen Williams, Deputy Commissioner of

Police, Trinidad and Tobago Police Service 73
INTERVIEWED BY WENDELL C. WALLACE
vii
viii Contents
6 Vernon White, Chief Constable, Ottawa Police

Service, Canada 91
INTERVIEWED BY CURT T. GRIFFITHS
7 Ogbonnaya Onovo, Inspector General of Police,

Nigeria 109
INTERVIEWED BY AMOS OYESOJI AREMU
8 Todd Wuestewald, Chief, Broken Arrow Police

Department, Oklahoma, United States 123
INTERVIEWED BY MONIQUE MARKS
9 John Rizzo, Malta Police Commissioner 145

INTERVIEWED BY MARY MUSCAT
10 Tapio Huttunen, Chief of the Varsinais-Suomi

Police Department, Finland 161
INTERVIEWED BY TERHI KANKAANRANTA
AND MATTI VUORENSYRJÄ
11 Lieutenant General Mzwandile Petros, Provincial

Commissioner of the South African Police
Service, Gauteng Province, South Africa 183
INTERVIEWED BY GUSHA X. NGANTWENI
12 Lothar Bergmann, Commissioner [Leitender

Polizeidirektor], Home Office, Inspectorate of
Constabulary, Hamburg, Germany 205
INTERVIEWED BY KAROLINE H. STARKGRAFF
Conclusion 219
International Police Executive Symposium (IPES) 223
Suggested Guidelines for Interviewers 229

Series Editor Preface
The International Police Executive Symposium (IPES), in collaboration with

CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Group, has launched a series titled Interviews
with Global Leaders in Policing, Courts, and Prisons. The objective is to pro-
duce high-quality books aimed at bringing the voice of the leading crimi-
nal justice practitioners to the forefront of scholarship and research. These
books, based on interviews with leaders in criminal justice, are intended to
present the perspectives of high-ranking officials throughout the world by
examining their careers, insights, vision, experiences, challenges, perceived
future of the field, and the related issues of interest.
True, the literature is replete with scholarship and research that pro-
vide the academic interpretation of the field, its practices, and future.
However, these publications are often in difficult-to-access journals and
are written from the perspective of the academic, with little interpretation
or feasible action items for those professionals working in the field. A com-
prehensive literature discussing the on-the-ground, day-to-day under-
standing of how police, courts, and prison systems work, do not work, and
need to be improved is lacking. This series provides “inside” information
about the systems as told to respected scholars and researchers by seasoned
professionals. In this series, the dialogue between scholar/researcher and
practitioner is opened as a guided, yet candid, discussion between two
professionals that provides the opportunity for academics to learn from
practitioners, while practitioners also learn from having an outlet for the
expression of their experiences, challenges, skills, and knowledge.
Throughout the world the criminal justice field is at a point of juxtapo-
sition, and the time is ripe for change and improvement. Many countries
have long-standing policies that have been successful for their culture and
political climate, while others are in need of serious revamping due to
budgetary concerns or corruption. Other countries are at a precipice and
are beginning to establish new systems. In all of these situations, the inter-
national criminal justice field stands to benefit from an accessible, engag-
ing, and enlightening series of frank discussions of the leaders’ personal
views and experiences in the field.
The current volume, Trends in Policing: Interviews with Police Leaders
Across the Globe, sets the stage to enhance readers’ understanding of police
goals, practices, and management used throughout the world from an insider’s
perspective. The police leaders interviewed in this volume represent a variety
ix
x Series Editor Preface
of cultures, political environments, and economic systems. Representatives

from Africa (Nigeria), the Americas (Canada, Colombia, and the United
States), the Caribbean (Trinidad and Tobago), and Europe (England, Finland,
Germany, Hungary, and Malta) are interviewed. The introduction examines
the importance, difficulties, and the methodology of interviewing police
leaders, while the body of the book comprises the transcribed interviews of
the police leaders with the scholars/researchers. A brief background to the
police system in the jurisdiction of the interviewee is also provided. The final
chapter is a reflection on the interviews and summary of common themes
evident throughout the book.
Thus Trends in Policing: Interviews with Police Leaders Across the
Globe continues the work of the IPES and CRC Press series Interviews
with Global Leaders in Policing, Courts, and Corrections by advancing
knowledge about policing, offering not just national perspectives of police
leaders, but providing the opportunity for comparative analysis across
a broad range of countries and opening a dialogue between scholars/
researchers and practitioners. It is anticipated that this addition to the
series will facilitate discussion within and between countries’ police orga-
nizations and will help add value to their current operations and future
directions. It is hoped that this series will also bridge the gap of knowledge
that exists between scholars and researchers in academia and practitioners
in the field. The editors welcome correspondence from scholars, research-
ers, and practitioners on any issues raised by the interviews or regarding
future avenues for engagement in this debate.
Dilip K. Das, PhD

Founding President, International Police Executive Symposium
http://www.ipes.info
Series Editor Preface xi
Series Editor, Advances in Police Theory and Practice

(CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Group)
Series Editor, Interviews with Global Leaders in Policing, Courts, and Prisons
(CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Group)
Series Editor, PPR Special Issues as Books

(Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group)
Founding Editor-in-Chief, Police Practice and Research:

An International Journal (Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group)
http://www.tandfonline.com/GPPR
Foreword
This book is the fourth in a series of interviews with police leaders from
around the world, edited by Professor Dilip Das (the previous three vol-
umes edited jointly with Professor Otwin Marenin, this one with Professor
Bruce Baker). Together, they now comprise fifty interviews with senior police
executives from all parts of the globe, conducted by a team of experts (some
academic, some practitioners) working with a similar agenda of topics for
discussion. The topics cover such issues as an account of the interviewee’s
background, education, and career; conception of the police mission and
role; views on strategy and tactics; democratic policing; the major changes
they have experienced; the relationship between theory and practice; and
the impact of globalization and the terror threat. Altogether, these volumes
constitute a resource of immense value to academic analysts of policing phi-
losophies, leadership, contemporary change, and likely futures, as well as to
policymakers and practitioners who wish to have a sense of where the leaders
in their field have come from and are going.
Anyone familiar with the problems of studying elites, particularly in
the always controversial field of law enforcement—problems that are multi-
plied when conducting comparative international research—will be greatly
impressed by this achievement. A quarter of a century ago I embarked on
a project aimed at interviewing all serving chief police officers in England
and Wales, and I did eventually succeed in talking to forty of the total forty-
three. This was a formidably challenging quest, as recounted in the book that
reported the results, published as Chief Constables in 1991. But the difficul-
ties I faced pale into insignificance compared with the logistical and access
problems that faced this much more ambitious international enterprise. By
any reckoning, this book and its predecessors are a major contribution to the
study and practice of policing around the world.
The value of the work lies largely in the richness of detailed insight into
the perspectives of a diverse array of police leaders. The subjects are drawn
from all the continents and from a broad variety of policing contexts, from
metropolitan to largely rural areas, developed and developing countries, from
emerging democracies to ones where democratic institutions have prevailed
for centuries. They are diverse in age, ethnicity, education, background, and
career trajectories. (However, despite the appointment of female police chiefs
in some jurisdictions in recent years, all the interviewees in each of the four
xiii
xiv Foreword
volumes are men.) Given the complex diversity of subjects, it is hard to sug-
gest generalizations about the results. However, I will draw out some of the
key points that struck me about the interviews. In line with Kenneth Burke’s
celebrated dictum that “a way of seeing is also a way of not seeing,” I also
venture to suggest some inevitable limitations of the material, as well as ques-
tions that still need addressing.
Referring to elites in general, British political scientist Ivor Crewe (1974)
asserted that, “Elites need to be interviewed. The best way of finding out
about people is by talking to them. It cannot guarantee the truth, especially
from people well practiced in the arts of discretion. But it is superior to any
alternative way of discovering what they believe and do.” Those words apply
particularly well to police elites, who are among those especially practiced in
the art of discretion.
Interviews are unlikely to reveal the truth about wrongdoing or errors
(at least one of the subjects in this book has since resigned while under inves-
tigation for disputed allegations of malpractice), but that is almost equally
the case with any other method of empirical research. More fundamentally,
interviews are a problematic guide to practice as distinct from the ideology
of their subjects, and a fortiori to what happens in their organizations. This
is the case with all institutions but is particularly an issue with policing, for
reasons that were established by the classics in the field fifty years ago.
The nature of the work means police operations have low visibility, not
only to outsiders, but also to organizational superiors. This is partly because
of the necessarily dispersed character of everyday policing and partly because
the disciplinary and presentational roles of senior officers bolster a cultural
gap between “street” and “management” cops. The practice of recruiting
chiefs from those who have progressed through the ranks (as almost all the
interviewees have) rather than by lateral entry alleviates the problem, but
only in part. It remains true that, as the late James Q. Wilson observed in his
seminal 1968 book Varieties of Police Behaviour, “the police department has
the special property … that within it discretion increases as one moves down
the hierarchy.”
A variety of legal, technological, and policy changes (such as the British
Police and Criminal Evidence Act of 1984 and the NYPD’s celebrated
CompStat) have over the years sought to open up the backstage, low-visibility
areas of operational practice, with some success. And as several contribu-
tions to this volume discuss, the proliferation of citizen recording devices has
exposed police deviance to new risks of discovery. But the fundamental prob-
lem of guarding the guardians remains. The first case of police brutality cap-
tured on a citizen camera, the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles, resulted
initially in acquittal of the filmed officers. And more recently, CompStat and
the legendary New York crime reduction miracle have been exposed as at
least in part vitiated by data rigging (Eterno and Silverman 2012).
Foreword xv
Interviews are a problematic guide to practice, but well-conducted

ones such as those in this book are revealing insights into the experience
and worldviews of their subjects. What emerges clearly here is the massive
advance that has been made in recent times around the world in the profes-
sionalization of police leadership. Today’s police chiefs are highly educated
and apply the fruits of this in their approach to leading their organizations.
They are eager to encourage and incorporate research into the practices of
policing, reflexively applying and evaluating new strategic approaches based
on intelligence analysis and partnership with other agencies relevant to
maintaining order and security. They have broad interpretations of polic-
ing philosophy and mission, seeing their roles as peacekeepers rather than
enforcers in a narrow sense.
They are cosmopolitan in their sensibilities, welcoming the greater inter-
dependence of national policing organizations resulting from globalization
while remaining acutely aware of the threats this brings, most evidently from
terrorism. What is charted in these interviews is the emergence of an interna-
tionally interdependent global policing elite, molded by the fruits of policing
research, and alive to the need to develop intelligence-led and multiagency
approaches to the complex issues they face.
There are some striking absences from the discussions, however. In a
classic paper, the co-editor of the first three volumes in this series, Marenin
(1983), pointed to the Janus-faced character of policing. Policing simultane-
ously reproduces general order (the universally beneficial conditions of social
cooperation and survival) and particular order (the hierarchies of power and
privilege that blemish all known societies). The latter dimension of policing
is absent from these interviews, apart from scattered and vague references to
the problems of social division and the duty to serve all people equally.
In large part, this omission reflects the generational experience of these
interviewees, who were formed in decades when throughout the world there
appeared to be progress toward greater prosperity, peace, and democracy.
Since the economic traumas that have multiplied since 2007, there has been
a resurgence of internal insecurity and multiplying threats to domestic peace
and order within most countries (which I explore elsewhere; see Reiner,
2007). This new conjuncture is hardly hinted at by the interviewees, except
in the limited sense of worrying about diminishing police resources in a new
“age of austerity,” as it is commonly but perhaps misleadingly dubbed in the
media. Let us hope that the intelligence, thoughtfulness, and professionalism
portrayed in these remarkable interviews are resilient enough to cope with
these deepening challenges.
Robert Reiner
The London School of Economics and Political Science
London, UK
xvi Foreword
References
Crewe, I. (1974). Studying Elites in Britain. In I. Crewe (Ed.), The British Political
Sociology Yearbook (38–41). London: Croom Helm.
Eterno, J. and Silverman, J. (2012). The Crime Numbers Game: Management
Manipulation. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Marenin, O. (1983). Parking Tickets and Class Repression. Contemporary Crises, 6,
2, 241–266.
Reiner, R. (1991). Chief Constables. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Reiner, R. (2007). Law and Order: An Honest Citizen’s Guide to Crime and Control.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Wilson, J.Q. (1968). Varieties of Police Behaviour. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Acknowledgments
Book covers simply give a name or two of the authors or editors, but books
such as this one are in fact written by teams. Without a band of dedicated
workers behind the scene, such books would never be published. As editors,
therefore, we wish to acknowledge the hidden hands that have done so much
to bring this book into being.
Carolyn Spence, senior acquisitions editor, has once again overseen pro-
duction with smooth efficiency. Dusan Sipovac, associate editor of public-
ity and public relations for Police Practice and Research: An International
Journal, has provided valuable assistance that has taken so much of the
administrative burden off our shoulders. All of us, particularly Bruce Baker
and Dilip Das, were touched by the magnificent spirit of cooperation and
highest degree of meticulous care given by Tara Nieuwesteeg, project edi-
tor. We also acknowledge with gratitude the help received from Paul Moore,
IPES treasurer and webmaster.
We are indebted to Professor Robert Reiner for his insightful introduc-
tion. It was his interviews with the chief constables of England and Wales in
his book Chief Constables (1991) that inspired this series and it means a lot to
us to have his engagement now.
Finally, we are indebted to the interviewers and interviewees whose
hours of work in offices and conference lobbies and over tape recorders and
e-mail provided the marvelous material for this volume. To this fine team we
offer our grateful thanks.
xvii
Editors
Bruce F. Baker is professor of African security at Coventry University in

the United Kingdom. His research and publications cover African polic-
ing (http://www.africanpolicing.org), security and justice reform, and
local justice and governance. His book, Security in Post-Conflict Africa: The
Role of Non-State Policing (CRC Press, 2009) won the American Society of
Criminology’s prize for best book in comparative and international crimi-
nology in 2010. He has undertaken research and consultancies in Zimbabwe,
Mozambique, South Africa, Rwanda, Uganda, The Gambia, Sierra Leone,
Cape Verde, Seychelles, Liberia, South Sudan, Comoros, Madagascar,
Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Afghanistan.
Dilip K. Das is the founding president of the International Police Executive

Symposium (IPES, http://www.ipes.info) and founding editor-in-chief of
Police Practice and Research: An International Journal. After 14 years as a
police executive, including time spent as chief of police in India, Dr. Das
moved to the United States, where he earned a master and doctorate in crim-
inal justice. Dr. Das has authored, edited, and co-edited more than 30 books
and numerous articles. He has traveled extensively throughout the world
while engaged in comparative police research, as a visiting professor at vari-
ous universities, to organize annual conferences of the IPES, and as a human
rights consultant for the United Nations. He is editor-in-chief of two book
series published by CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Group: Advances in Police
Theory and Practice and Interviews with Global Leaders in Policing, Courts,
and Prisons.
xix
Contributors
Amos Oyesoji Aremu is an associate professor of counseling and correctional

psychology in the Department of Guidance and Counseling at the University
of Ibadan in Nigeria. Dr. Aremu has held various positions of responsibili-
ties in the faculty and university at large. He is a Commonwealth Fellow and
a visiting academic fellow to the Institute of Criminal Justice Studies at the
University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom and has a tremendous web
presence. He is the editor of the Nigerian Journal of Counseling and Clinical
Psychology. Dr. Aremu is also on the editorial board of Police Practice and
Research: An International Journal.
Christopher Chapman, director of the Criminal Justice Degree Program and

an associate professor at the City University of New York at Kingsborough
Community College, is a retired law enforcement professional with over
two decades of real-world policing experiences. Dr. Chapman received Top
Cop (Officer of the Year Awards) from several local, county, state and fed-
eral law enforcement organizations. His last law enforcement experience
was working within the United States Department of Homeland Security,
investigating financial and drug crimes. Dr. Chapman has been a street cop,
undercover investigator, police supervisor, internal affairs investigator, and
police academy program director. He has researched and served as a subject
matter expert to several U.S. and international police organizations in the
areas of police supervision, police use of force, and best practices in main-
taining police perishable cognitive and psychomotor skills. Dr. Chapman
has testified within federal/state courts as an expert witness in the areas
of police practices and procedure, use of force, and acceptable pre-hospital
emergency medical procedures.
Curt T. Griffiths is a professor and coordinator of the Police Studies

Program in the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University. His pri-
mary research interests include the organizational and operational dynamics
of policing and the effectiveness of police strategies and interventions. He has
published widely on police-related issues and is the author of a number of
textbooks, including Canadian Police Work. He has conducted field studies
and worked with police services in Canada, the Netherlands, the Caribbean,
the United States, and Japan. Dr. Griffiths has provided expert consultation
xxi
xxii Contributors
for the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime in Vienna and to the
Ministers of Justice in Vietnam and Latvia.
Christine Guzman graduated college with a major in government and world

affairs and a minor in economics. Born in the United States of Colombian
parents, she spent most of her childhood in Cali, Colombia. Currently
Guzman is completing her master’s in international commerce and policy.
Her research interests lie in law and legal systems.
Richard Heslop is a sergeant in the West Yorkshire Police, England, where

he has served for 25 years. He holds a BSc in sociology, an MA in political sci-
ence, and a doctorate in education. Dr. Heslop’s academic work crosses dis-
ciplinary boundaries; however, his main research interests center on police
training and education. Dr. Heslop has had numerous articles published in
leading policing journals. In 2012 he was a visiting Fulbright Police Research
Scholar at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Heslop serves as editor for practi-
tioner liaison at Police Practice & Research: An International Journal.
Terhi Kankaanranta holds a PhD (health sciences), an MSc (economics),

and a BA (management accounting). For over 8 years she has been a senior
researcher at the University of Tampere and the Police College of Finland,
where her current research topics include economic crimes and work welfare.
Anthony LaRose is a 2004 Fulbright Scholar and an associate professor at

the University of Tampa. He holds a bachelor’s in political science, a mas-
ter’s in criminal justice, and a PhD in political science (administration of
justice and applied policy studies). He has published numerous manuscripts,
including refereed journal articles, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries
in the areas of international policing (focused on Mexico and Colombia), the
Mexican criminal justice system, police corruption, and court processes of
the U.S. district courts.
Monique Marks is professor of sociology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal,

based in the Community Development Program. She is also a research associ-
ate in the Center of Criminology at the University of Cape Town. She has pub-
lished widely in the areas of youth social movements, ethnographic research
methods, police labor relations, police organizational change, and security
governance. In recent years, she has become interested in the dynamics of
community development and in community wellness programs. Marks has
published four books: Young Warriors: Youth Identity, Politics, and Violence
in South Africa; Transforming the Robocops: Changing Police in South Africa;
Police Occupational Culture: New Debates and Directions (edited with Anne-
Contributors xxiii
Marie Singh and Megan O’Neill); and Police Reform from the Bottom Up:
Officers and THeir Unions as Agents of Change (edited with David Sklansky).
Zsolt Molnár is the strategic planning adviser and head of the training
unit of the Special Service for National Security in Hungary. He has more
than 22 years of law enforcement service experience. Dr. Molnár started his
career in the Police Investigation Department, but in 1996 he joined a United
Nations Mission in Bosnia–Herzegovina (UN International Police Task
Force, UNIPTF). In 2001, after completing his law degree, he was assigned
as head of the Crime Prevention Department and, three years later, as head
of the Crime Prevention Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MoI).
He has facilitated numerous national and international training courses
and was a curriculum developer on the subject of human trafficking and
smuggling and trained police and community leaders in Georgia with the
United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG). He was a member
of the Council of Europe Police and Human Rights Network Program as a
trainer. Dr. Molnár is a guest lecturer for the International Law Enforcement
Academy (ILEA) in Budapest. His national training in Hungary has focused
on crime prevention, human rights, combating hate crime, and community
development. He is a member of the Police Special-Exam Committee and has
published studies on data protection, security strategy, rules of engagement,
community policing, and the human dimension of defense. He was a trainer
in the OSCE/ODIHR–sponsored law enforcement officers’ training program
against hate crime (Law Enforcement Officer Program, LEOP) and has been
a consultant for the Geneva Center for the Democratic Control over Armed
Forces (DCAF). He is currently the deputy chair of the Working Group on
Learning (WGL) for the European Police College (CEPOL).
Mary Muscat is a lecturer in crime prevention, police, and correctional law

with the Department of Criminology in the Faculty for Social Wellbeing at
the University of Malta. She is also the Malta Police’s research and science
correspondent within the European Police College (CEPOL). She is currently
doing research for her PhD on the impact of British and continental models
of policing on the 1814 setup of the Malta Police. Dr. Muscat spent 13 years
in the Malta police, terminating her career as a senior police inspector after
having served in the district, set up the community and media relations unit,
and being the public relations officer of the Malta police. During this time,
she obtained an MSc in criminology and later received a doctorate in law.
Dr. Muscat was admitted to the bar and, as a lawyer and police officer, she
formed part of the Police’s Prosecutions Unit, headed the Data Protection
Unit, and represented the Malta Police within the EU on issues of racism and
xenophobia. Apart from lecturing full time, she also practices as a part-time
child advocate with the family court. She also lectured at the police academy
xxiv Contributors
in Malta on geography, crime prevention, and police law between 1993 and
2010. As a result, she has published a series of articles related to police prac-
tice and law in the Malta Police Association’s publication Il-Pulizija.
Gusha X. Ngantweni is a senior lecturer in the Department of Police Practice

at the University of South Africa. He was a member of the South African
Police Service for fourteen years, where he worked in the community service
center, legal administration, crime investigation, and crime prevention. He
holds an MSc in policing and social conflict and is currently a PhD can-
didate. Ngantweni is the lead co-editor (with Professors Etannibi Alemika,
David Masiloane, and Ian de Vries) of the undergraduate textbook Crime
Prevention and Policing in Africa (2013).
José J. Rincón is a native of Bogotá, Colombia, and moved to the United

States after high school. Rincón holds a BA in government and world affairs.
While working as a police dispatcher, he developed a passion for the legal
system in the United States and other countries.
Karoline H. Starkgraff holds a first-class honors degree in law and suc-

cessfully undertook a two-year pupillage including state examinations with
the Hanseatic High Court in Hamburg. She joined the Hamburg police
in 1982. In 1997, in the wake of German reunification, she left Hamburg
to join the Saxony police to help establish a democratic police service in
former East Germany. There she was granted tenure for criminal law and
criminal procedure law at Saxony’s Police University of Applied Sciences.
Chief Superintendent Starkgraff has been a career detective serving as an
investigator of every rank. She is an experienced senior investigating offi-
cer, having led homicide and arson investigations, anti-terrorist inquiries,
drug-related operations, and covert operations. In 2001, she was appointed
chief of criminal investigation. Starkgraff took responsibility in a major
amalgamation process within the Saxony police during 2003 and 2004.
She is currently the head of law faculty at Saxony Police University, where
she lectures exclusively on criminal procedure law. In 2010, she addressed
the German Defense Lawyers’ Annual Conference. She is published both
nationally and internationally and is an active member of the IAWP and
IACP/IMPACT section.
Matti Vuorensyrjä is a senior planning officer at the Police College of

Finland. He is a licentiate in social sciences (political science) and holds two
MA degrees (in political science and history). He is currently preparing his
dissertation on productivity pressure, pay satisfaction, and intrinsic moti-
vation to work in law enforcement (management studies). He has 17 years
of professional research experience and has published books, book chapters,
Contributors xxv
and articles on performance management, performance appraisal process,

leadership, team and organizational climate, tacit human capital, police
stressors, and police officer burnout.
Wendell C. Wallace is a doctoral candidate researching a concurrent analy-

sis of the relationship between community involvement in policing and the
policing process in various communities in Trinidad and Tobago towards
a new social control model. He holds a BA in history and human resource
management and an MS in criminology and criminal justice (distinction).
Wallace also holds a law degree and is presently preparing for his call to
the bar in England and Wales. His research interests include juvenile delin-
quency, gangs, policing, law reform, and the tourism/crime relationship.
Interviewees
Lothar Bergmann is currently commissioner at the Inspectorate of

Constabulary in the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Germany. He
joined the Hamburg Police Services in 1970 as a recruit and in 1975 was
promoted to the rank of inspector/chief inspector, taking on the command
of Hamburg Police College. In 1982 he became chief of police. The collision
and sinking of a tourist tour barge in Hamburg port involved 19 casual-
ties, and Bergmann found himself policing a tragic accident. Shortly after,
he transferred to the Hamburg Police Water Division. There he operated
as head of different departments for over 16 years and, in the course of
his time, insisted on qualifying in the same way as is required by every
applicant to the water division; hence, he now holds manifold certificates,
including nautical and technical patents. In 2010 Bergmann was appointed
to the Inspectorate of Constabulary in the City of Hamburg, though he
retains his status and rank as a sworn and active police officer. In his pres-
ent position he bridges the gap between police leadership and political
decision making.
Sir Norman Bettison is the former chief constable of Merseyside, United

Kingdom. He joined his hometown police force in South Yorkshire (in north
England) in 1972. In 1993 he was appointed assistant chief constable in West
Yorkshire (the region around the city of Leeds), and in 1998 became chief
constable of Merseyside (the region around the city of Liverpool). As chief
constable of Merseyside, he was a pioneer of neighborhood policing, in which
police work with the community at a very local level to address crime and
disorder. In 2005 he became chief executive of Centrex, an organization pro-
viding training, development, and operational support to all British police
forces and to international law enforcement agencies. Bettison returned to
an operational role in 2007, serving as chief constable of West Yorkshire
police. He represented the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) on
the Terrorism Committee, with a lead responsibility to address the preven-
tion of violent extremism. He holds a master’s in psychology and philoso-
phy from the University of Oxford and a master’s in business administration
from Sheffield Business School. He retired in 2012.
xxvii
xxviii Interviewees
József Boda is the director-general of the Special Service for National

Security (SSNS) and provides technical support and some intelligence ser-
vices upon the request of agencies such as the police, prosecution office, and
constitution protection authority. Dr. Boda began his professional career in
the Hungarian National Army. He joined the Hungarian National Police
in 1991 as the deputy commander of the Hungarian Special Police Force
(counterterrorist unit). From 1997 he has acted in the police-training field,
mainly in an international dimension as the Hungarian Director of ILEA,
and later, as the director-general of the International Training and Civilian
Crisis Management Center in Budapest. He has been involved with every
Hungarian police mission abroad, including Cambodia, Mozambique, the
Sinai Peninsula, Bosnia–Herzegovina, Georgia, and Kosovo. For decades he
has trained military and police personnel in Hungary and in mission areas,
such as Azerbaijan and Afghanistan. As a presenter, moderator, and facili-
tator, he has participated in various courses and events across Europe and
in many former Soviet countries. Dr. Boda is an active member involved in
numerous international and national organizations, both in professional and
scientific fields, and has worked on establishing many of them. He was the
chair of CEPOL during the Hungarian EU presidency.
Carlos Mauricio Escobar studied law and, after graduating, specialized

in constitutional law, criminal law, and criminal–procedural law. After
spending a year as an honorary judge in the city of Palmira, in 1993 he was
appointed as a local prosecutor in Palmira. After moving to Cali he took up
the position of local prosecutor until 2002 and then as a sectional prosecutor
until 2006. Escobar was then appointed as a special prosecutor, serving as
head of the specialist unit of Cali until 2009. Since then he has been a com-
missioned prosecutor responsible for training other prosecutors and judges
from all over Colombia in the new accusatorial system of prosecution which
was introduced based on European and Anglo-Saxon law.
Tapio Huttunen is chief of police of Turku, Finland. Following his studies at

the Police Academy in Tampere, he studied law at the University of Helsinki.
His first job working for the police was in 1984 with the traffic police of the
Helsinki–Vantaa Airport. Since then he has assumed the following positions:
chief of police of Vaasa, the deputy chief of police of Helsinki, and chief of
police of Turku. Of his current position, he says it is where he feels the most at
home: “close to the action, close to the staff, close to hands-on management.”
During the course of his career, Huttunen has been through several organi-
zational changes, reforms, and operational challenges. When he started as
the chief of police in Vaasa, there were 254 police departments in Finland.
Now there are only 11.
Interviewees xxix
Ogbonnaya Onovo is the former inspector general of police in Nigeria. He

was appointed inspector general in 2009. He enlisted in the Nigeria Police
in 1978. As a commissioner of police, he headed the Ogun State Police
Command until 1998, when he was appointed chairman of the National
Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA). He was deployed in 2000 to the
Police Academy in Kano as commandant. Onovo was appointed assistant
inspector general of police in 2001 and headed the Research and Planning
Department at the force headquarters. In 2002 he became deputy inspec-
tor general and took charge of the Criminal Investigations Department until
2006, when he was placed in charge of administration. He retired in 2010.
Mzwandile Petros, lieutenant general of the South African Police Service

(SAPS), is the provincial commissioner of Gauteng Province, which records
about 50 percent of the country’s crime. Petros manages 43,000 employees
who serve the 11.3 million people of Gauteng. He began his career as a trade
unionist, an administrator of civic organizations, a mathematics and science
teacher, and principal of an adult education center. After the end of apartheid
in 1994, he started his police career as an intelligence-gathering officer and
moved through positions of national trainer of the handler’s course at the
SAPS Crime Intelligence and Detective Academy and as a section head of
National Rapid Deployment Intelligence. He then became a deputy provin-
cial commissioner for crime detection in Western Cape before moving on to
become the provincial commissioner. He is currently completing a master
of public administration for which he has researched the implementation
of sector policing. Petros was awarded the Star of Merit by the Minister of
Safety and Security for his work in combating urban terrorism.
Charles H. Ramsey is the commissioner of the fourth-largest police depart-

ment (Philadelphia) in the United States, overseeing a force of over 6,600
sworn police officers who service over 1.5 million people. Ramsey has over
40 years of policing experience. He started his policing career in the city of
Chicago and advanced to the rank of deputy superintendent before leaving to
lead the nation’s capital city police department in Washington, DC. In addi-
tion, Ramsey serves as the president of the Major Cities Chief’s Association,
which is comprised of the 63 largest law enforcement agencies in the United
States and the 7 largest in Canada. The association serves over 76.5 million
people with a workforce of 177,150.
John Rizzo is the Malta police commissioner, heading a force of 1,800 in a

country with a population of 400,000. He joined the police in 1976 and by
1996 had been promoted to superintendent and was stationed at CID. A year
later, he was appointed assistant commissioner and was placed in charge of
CID. He became commissioner in 2001. Rizzo was at the helm when Malta
xxx Interviewees
joined the European Union in 2004 and when it became part of the Eurozone
in 2008. This means that the small island of 346 km2 has had to reorientate
itself, shifting from a Mediterranean to European and continental outlook in
the span of a few years; adopting this new mentality into its civil service; and
realigning its police culture.
Vernon White is the former chief constable of the Ottawa Police Service,
Canada. In 2012, he was appointed to the Senate of Canada. His experience
in policing extends over 31 years and includes a distinguished career with
the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and as chief constable of the Durham
Regional Police Service (Ontario). Dr. White holds a diploma in business
administration, a master in conflict analysis and management, and a pro-
fessional doctorate in police leadership. He has been an adjunct, visiting,
and part-time professor at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology,
Charles Sturt University, the University of Ottawa, and Carleton University,
as well as a visiting fellow at the Australian Institute of Police Management.
During his career in policing, he was responsible for many innovative prac-
tices in policing, including championing multiagency initiatives address-
ing the needs of at-risk populations. He served almost 19 years in the three
northern territories. Policing in these challenging environments provided
him with the opportunity to develop creative interventions and community
partnerships. Dr. White continues his work as chair of the Senate of Canada
Aboriginal Peoples Committee and as a member of the Senate Human Rights
Committee.
Stephen Williams is the current (acting) police commissioner of the Trinidad

and Tobago Police Service. He was appointed in 2012. In addition to over 30
years in the police service, he holds an executive master in business admin-
istration (EMBA), a law degree, a legal education certificate (LEC), an execu-
tive diploma in strategic management, and a master of studies in applied
criminology and police management. In addition to his police duties, he is
a magistrate at Avason Quinlan. During his tenure as acting commissioner
of police, Williams has sought to modernize the operations of the Trinidad
and Tobago Police Service via local, regional, and international exposure and
in the training of police officers under his command. He has also served
in various capacities in the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service Social and
Welfare Association, the representative body for police officers in Trinidad
and Tobago.
Todd Wuestewald is an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University

of Oklahoma. Prior to joining academia, he spent 30 years in law enforce-
ment where he worked in various departments, including patrol, detectives,
K-9, narcotics, SWAT, professional standards, training, and administration.
Interviewees xxxi
From 2003 to 2011, he served as chief of police for the Broken Arrow Police
Department (Oklahoma). Dr. Wuestewald holds an MPA and a PhD in edu-
cation. He has published on the topics of police leadership and management,
organizational culture, law enforcement education and training, community
policing, narcotic investigations, SWAT operations, and police research col-
laborations. His present research interests include participative management
in policing, police organizational culture, and practitioner–researcher col-
laborations. He also serves as a consultant for the International City/County
Management Association, where he assists with operational audits of public
safety agencies.
Introduction
How shall we produce police leaders from the next generation to take the
place of those we will read about in this volume? What is the mold from
which leaders are shaped? These ten leaders, from the continents of South
America, North America, Africa, and Europe, demonstrate that there is no
single source for those who will go on to significantly affect their nation’s
policing. Many did not even expect to enter policing. One was pointed in the
direction of a policing career when on his grandfather’s knee at the age of
nine, and another by family members who were already in the police force.
Others speak of accidentally being told of a police cadet program by police
officers or of being taken for a ride-along by them. Some joined because they
were impressed by the police officers they met; another joined because he
was concerned with how police officers abused their power to oppress, and
he wanted to change that. Evidently, social conscience, happenstance, profes-
sional ambition, and adult guidance all can play a part in this career choice.
If the mold from which successful police leaders come is unpredictable, so is
the career trajectory. Many were surprised at making it to the top position
and sometimes in a branch of policing and security different from where
they had begun. In contrast, one was surprised at not making it to the top for
what appeared to be political reasons.
Organizational change can be so incremental that its significance is over-
looked by daily observers. It belongs to those looking back over a career’s
service to record generational shifts. In the eyes of these leaders, there have
been substantial changes in policing over the last decades. Perhaps the most
important one, and the one most often referred to, is the move from reac-
tive policing to proactive policing. We are clearly in a new era of public
engagement and preventative measures. For police services across the globe,
the “community” or “neighborhood” has become an indispensable part-
ner, along with other public agencies, in the endeavor to prevent crime as
opposed to simply responding to it. Forward risk assessment is now preferred
to response post facto. For those who started their policing career within
an authoritarian regime twenty years ago, the paradigm shift from regime
policing to partnerships with the public has been even greater than for long-
term democratic police services.
Perhaps it is no surprise to hear how, over a generation, police educa-
tional standards and police equipment have greatly improved, but none of
xxxiii
xxxiv Introduction
these leaders could have anticipated at the beginning of their working lives
the role that electronic equipment would play in surveillance, crime preven-
tion, crime analysis, and crime detection—and, of course, in creating oppor-
tunities for crime. Most applaud the new ability to engage in real-time crime
analysis, but many caution that technology is not always the savior it can
seem to be: computers do not necessarily reduce the amount of paperwork
in getting a case to court, and too great a dependence on technology may
come at the price of undermining civil rights and potentially threatening to
distance the contact between the police and public.
It is still true that women rarely make up more than 30 percent of any
police service and are severely underrepresented in senior management posi-
tions worldwide, but it is clear from these accounts that in the last generation
of policing they have made a welcome appearance in all roles, duties, and
ranks, and that their increasing participation is an unstoppable trend. It is a
pity that their voices have not been captured in these interviews.
Though these leaders come from different cultural environments and
sometimes different institutional roots, theirs is a common focus: they want
the populations they are responsible for to enjoy peace and freedom from
crime, and they want to restore peace and order when it is disturbed. They
want to do this not just in a professional manner, but in a way that wins the
confidence and trust of the people. In today’s societies, divided by class, eth-
nicity, and religion; intersected by international migration and international
crime; stressed by processes that marginalize, stigmatize, and impoverish,
no one thinks this is going to be easy. The consensus is that the police cannot
maintain and restore peace and order by themselves. Yet working with the
neighborhood takes on many forms in police leaders’ visions. For some this
means no less than demonstrating commitment to local concerns by joining
in their activities. Thus, some leaders have their officers working alongside
medical teams and youth clubs in poor neighborhoods or expect their offi-
cers to volunteer as sports coaches and board members of city organizations.
For others, community engagement means working alongside other social
agencies that can prevent or respond to social disharmony or ensuring that
officers know which agency to summon in a given situation. Whatever the
details of the philosophy of policing held by the interviewees, it is clear that
policing in their eyes is seen increasingly as part of a complex network of pro-
viders, rather than as a stand-alone agency. At the practical level, that means
learning the skills of coordination with local people and local agencies.
Although working with others might bring about a more holistic
approach to problem solving, some note a downside. First, the call for closer
contact with the public speaks of small local police teams, yet the necessity for
interagency coordination (which of course stretches not just across a country,
but can stretch across a region, a continent, or the world) demands larger and
more centralized police units. The dilemma remains, therefore, as to whether
Introduction xxxv
police services ideally should be nationally centralized or decentralized and

local, and whether the advantage of national specialized units outweighs the
danger of silos that do not communicate with one another or with the local
units. The second concern with the holistic approach is that the broadening
of what is now expected of police officers puts very large demands on their
required skills. It seems to demand something close to omnicompetence. It
is easy to understand the reaction, which calls for minimalist policing, when
the police focus on the core skills and roles and delegate the rest. These unre-
solved tensions can be sensed within the pages of this volume.
It is evident that the shadow of past failure hangs over public attitudes
toward the police in many countries. For transition countries it is perhaps
inevitable that the police services previously noted for their regime support,
brutality, and corruption still lack support and may even continue to experi-
ence widespread opposition. But even in countries with a longer democratic
history, the baggage of past police indifference and abuse to sectors of society
has not been forgotten. Several leaders note that the socially excluded tend
to hold the most negative attitudes toward the police. In other words, where
crime is most prevalent and the communities most vulnerable is where one
finds the least trust in the police. For the police, therefore, as one leader puts
it, one of the toughest challenges is addressing the communities where resi-
dents have the least hope.
If exclusion is the big social challenge facing the police, most leaders also
agree that the big economic challenge is budget restraint or even budget cuts.
At a time of increasing international policing standards to meet, new national
demands to respond to, and increasingly sophisticated criminality to detect,
budgets are under scrutiny worldwide. The irony is not lost on police leaders
that, as politicians and voters raise their expectations of the police, financial
support for them is weak or decreasing.
For action-orientated, busy officers, academic research often seems a
luxury, and if it comes in the form of negative criticism or unapplied the-
ory, it will invariably be regarded with suspicion. What the leaders in this
book want is a new relationship between research and practice, one where
academics and police services are in a partnership. The desire goes beyond
receiving studies that spell out how to improve police effectiveness or how to
understand the causes and patterns of criminality. It is a call for a partner-
ship where academic and practitioner discuss the research topic and design,
and where the results are fed back as they are observed so as to ensure that
the police can respond immediately rather than after the results (perhaps of
the current police failures) have finally been published. The hope expressed
in this collection is that it will be a partnership where both learn from each
other, rather than the situation where both do their own things and only
meet when academia comes to scrutinize the police as subjects. Interestingly,
too, police leaders are not simply interested in research on the conduct of the
xxxvi Introduction
police and criminals. They are also, like any other big and complex organiza-
tion, grappling with the processes involved in democratizing institutions and
using social media effectively.
None of those interviewed could have guessed the degree to which trans-
national relations would be part of their everyday policing by the time they
were in leadership. The days when it was merely INTERPOL on the scene
are long gone. On one hand, globalization has opened opportunities for the
rapid movement of people and resources; on the other hand, international
treaties and United Nations requirements have significantly expanded the
scope of law enforcement in the area of human rights and in dealing with
international crime, whether drug and human trafficking, e-crime, or money
laundering. For those countries in or joining the European Union, there have
also been large increases in guidelines and legal requirements.
The positive side of these transnational developments has been the bilat-
eral relationships, often personal in nature, forged at international seminars,
training courses, and peacekeeping missions. Learning from and cooperat-
ing with other national and international agencies is now part of the day-
to-day work of senior police management, and without it, much criminal
activity would go under the radar. Yet as these leaders point out, cooperation
is not the same as legal harmonization. Legal systems across the world are
very different, and things are never straightforward when it comes to work-
ing alongside those whose laws, legal traditions, and organization of polic-
ing are unfamiliar or when an international partner’s level of resources and
technology is noticeably more advanced.
Unsurprisingly, the fallout from 9/11 has permeated every police service,
making them aware not just of the presence of international terrorism, but of
global vulnerability. If developed countries make attractive targets in terms
of maximizing international headline news, developing countries constitute
soft targets for the perpetrators of terror. Whether it is daily national brief-
ings between police chiefs, advance passenger warnings, sophisticated secu-
rity planning of mega-events, specialized antiterrorist units, or simply basic
training in counterterrorism for all officers, every police service has had to
adjust to the new world order. No wonder one leader permanently leaves the
TV news broadcast CNN on in his office to be abreast of what international
“tsunami” may be coming his way in the next few hours or days.
In some government and donor circles, democratic policing is consid-
ered something a country either has or hasn’t, and they list “transparency,
accountability, subordination to civil authority, under the law” as if these
were matters of only having the right institutions and procedures in place.
The police officers in this volume will no doubt concur with the value of hav-
ing such a superstructure, but their eyes are much more focused on the actual
living relationship they have with the people they serve. A close relationship
with people and the need to earn their trust and support are a core value of
Introduction xxxvii
democracy, even if one often overlooked by politicians. Close involvement at

the local level and hard work to represent local interests are not something
that a national police oversight body can guarantee, but lie at the heart of
what democratic policing is and what makes policing effective. So although
the leaders would surely subscribe to the necessity of accountability to the law
and accountability to the government for strategy and policy, it is account-
ability to local people that is uppermost in their mind when they talk about
democratic policing. It is also significant that they see democratic policing
as a goal rather than an achievement and that, even while they hope they are
progressing toward it, they are also aware that history shows that a police
service can go backward as well as forward.
The review of their careers has highlighted the changes that these leaders
have experienced. The pattern is remarkably similar despite the differences
in national wealth and democratic timescale. The gap between developed
and developing countries is seen to be much more a matter of degree than
of kind. For all the wide differences in social organization, cultural pat-
terns, state resources, and police availability, it is remarkable how standard
the model of policing that is being pursued worldwide is. The unchallenged
assumption is clearly that the Western model of policing is the one to pursue,
whatever the social and economic context.
When it comes to looking to the future, it is tempting to confuse need
with want or to list dreams rather than expectations. Many of the police lead-
ers see future change as a continuation of the current trajectory. This cer-
tainly applies to issues of training, equipment, and international cooperation.
The only potentially new feature they identify is the impact of social media.
At least two leaders pick up on the new age that is emerging of ubiquitous
cameras and videos. The cell phone, with its camera in the hands of citizens
everywhere, all the time, is not just the prerogative of the developed world.
It is likely to become the universal norm shortly, and policing is unlikely to
be the same again. Police work on the streets will be exposed to recording
and transmitting instantly to a critical world. Police will be in the headlines
much more and their activities will be discussed as never before. How will
policing organizations react? On the one hand, they might be much more
cautious about intervention; on the other hand, they might be much more
lawful, humane, and transparent in their procedures. Either way, police lead-
ers surely will be called to account, more than ever, for the actions of their
officers. They increasingly will have to be good public communicators and
have in place strict supervisory mechanisms and disciplinary procedures.
Covering up misbehavior will not be an option. Honesty and appropriate,
effective action will be called for. They will have to fight for public confi-
dence. Such a globalized world in terms of legislation and crime, and such
a socially networked world in terms of scrutiny, is a more complex world.
Inevitably, it will require a new style of leadership. The hierarchical police
xxxviii Introduction
leader who makes all the decisions is unlikely to survive. As recognized

already in some police services, the future is team leadership that is inclusive
in terms of gender and social groups. It will be a team that incorporates not
just the traditional policing skills, but also the new skills of collaboration,
communication, adaptation, and facilitation.
We are truly grateful for the shared experiences of these leaders. Distilled
in these pages is probably more than 300 years of policing service. Those who
have ears to hear, let them hear!
Carlos Mauricio
Escobar, Special
Prosecutor, Colombia 1
INTERVIEWED BY
ANTHONY LAROSE
CHRISTINE GUZMAN
JOSÉ J. RINCÓN
Contents
Introduction 1
Career 2
Changes Experienced 4
Personal Policing Philosophy 6
Problems and Successes 9
Theory and Practice 11
Transnational Relations 13
Democratic Policing 15
General Assessments 16
Conclusion 18
Glossary 19
Notes 19
Introduction1
The nation of Colombia has suffered many internal problems since the early
1960s. There were times when the country seemed to be falling apart, with
an ongoing civil war, drug cartels’ violence, and often high levels of street
crime. However, the last two decades have seen a dramatic improvement in
the country’s efforts to combat crime and disorder. One of the significant
changes has been in the Colombian National Police, which has gone from
being highly corrupt and oppressive to being an institution people are begin-
ning to trust. In this interview, Special Prosecutor Carlos Mauricio Escobar
explains some of the changes the police have gone through and some of the
issues that continue to need improvement. Escobar graduated with a degree in
law in 1991, when the current Colombian Constitution was enacted, bringing
many changes to the country, including changes to the justice system. Since
1
2 Trends in Policing
then, a new accusatorial system has been introduced, replacing the old writ-
ten system that came into existence at the time of the Spanish Inquisition.
The new system is based on European and Anglo-Saxon law. Escobar lived
through the changes and draws on his experience and knowledge to evaluate
the police and national scene.
This interview took place in Bogota, where Escobar was giving a seminar
to other prosecutors and judges. The interview felt more like a conversation.
He was very clear in answering the questions and waited to make sure he
understood every question before answering. Even though he had just com-
pleted another day of seminars, he did not rush to answer the questions nor
push for the interview to be completed faster.
Career
TL: Tell us a little bit about your career.

CME: I studied law at the Universidad Libre in the city of Cali. The length
of that degree here in Colombia is five years of theory and one
year of practice. Together, it was a total of six years of education
and apprenticeship. I did other studies after graduating and have
already acquired three specializations: constitutional law, criminal
law, and criminal procedural law.
I spent a year as an honorary judge in the city of Palmira as part
of my year of practice. There I gained a great amount of experience.
After that, I worked in the courts running errands and doing office
work. In 1993, a competitive position opened for a job at the pros-
ecutor’s office in which I participated. I then took the exam, got
an interview, received a high score, and was appointed as head of
a unit as a local prosecutor in Palmira. I moved to Cali the follow-
ing year and worked as a local prosecutor until 2002. From there
I was promoted to sectional prosecutor in Cali until 2006, when I
was appointed on merit as a special prosecutor. Finally, I entered a
competition for the position I was holding, to be ratified as a spe-
cial prosecutor. I served as head of the specialist unit of Cali until
March 2009. Since then, I have been a commissioned prosecutor,
responsible for training other prosecutors and judges from all over
Colombia in the new system of prosecution.
TL: What motivated you to enter this kind of work?
CME: I must admit that when I left high school and completed the manda-
tory military service, I had to decide between two universities. One
was the Universidad Autonoma (for mechanical engineering), and
the other was the Universidad Libre (for law). I liked engineering
because I had been very good in math in high school, and I liked
Carlos Mauricio Escobar, Special Prosecutor, Colombia 3
law due to a strong influence from my family. Finally I decided to

pursue law. I think law is associated with serving the community,
working with people, and I liked that idea. My inclination during
my studies was toward criminal law. It caught my attention because
in criminal law I saw the distress of the people, the often cruel side
of society, and what people can be. I understood then that, through
the law, I could help to see justice served. I could improve the lives
of many people. And that was the reason, the trigger, to go ahead
for a degree in law.
TL: What about how your career developed surprised you?
CME: Being a judge at such a young age. Normally, when one ends a degree
here in Colombia, there are two options after graduation. The first
option is to do a research project, which is the thesis. The second
option is to apprentice within the criminal law profession, normally
with a defense attorney’s office, which usually means working as a
defense attorney for one year. However, by the time I graduated
in 1991, the adversarial system and the use of oral arguments and
procedures began to replace our former system, in which every-
thing—all phases of the process—was written. There was a need
to clear out the courts from the old system, which was in writ-
ing. This created the need for additional judges, so they used new
law graduates to help with this job, by appointing them honorary
judges for one year. I worked for one year, and I enjoyed the job of
being a judge and managing the area of criminal investigations.
That’s what surprised me the most and is something that occurred
by chance, because it only happened that year. This event opened
the doors to the start of what is my current career.
TL: Did your work prove as interesting or rewarding as you thought it
would?
CME: Absolutely. Despite the fact that there were times when there were
negative results in certain situations, I am doing what I love, work-
ing on what I studied, and there are many positive things that I
have been able to accomplish with my career. This is not only for
my personal development, but also for the satisfaction of con-
tributing to society through my work. It is very gratifying to be
recognized, not as an individual or an institution, but knowing,
for example, that you are able to end a criminal gang of sixteen to
twenty offenders who had been targeting an entire community and
killing people. Once we brought them to trial and saw the look of
gratitude on the faces of the victims, it was worth more than the
salary I received.
Changes Experienced
TL: What do you see as some of the most important changes that have hap-
pened in policing over the course of your career?
CME: I think the police as well as the justice system have seen some major
changes in their basic philosophy and orientation. I remember how
in the past there was a lot of arbitrariness in how police made deci-
sions. That is, the rules sometimes allowed the police to be arbi-
trary, because the national code of the police in Colombia included
a series of police powers that were completely unconstitutional.
One of these powers resulted in police arresting and taking away a
person’s freedom, when the constitution states that the only peo-
ple who may deprive a person of liberty are the judges. In other
words, police could arrest and hold someone without review by
any higher authority. This was an important jurisprudence devel-
opment, because the Constitutional Court has been responsible for
studying the constitutionality of these laws and has been declaring
a number of regulations and laws unconstitutional. Then the police
had to adjust to the situation and have now become more educated
on the matter.
Today, because of the new constitution and pressure from
citizens to change, the police are studying more and are trained
more effectively. The police also understand now that the old ways
need to change. We definitely think that, although there are many
very good neighborhood police officers, some were very oppres-
sive. They now understand that they have to correct their ways,
and if they don’t, they will face an investigation. The same goes for
the judicial police, because they too have become more educated.
Today we find that many police officers are obtaining advanced
degrees, and that has caused an increase in the quality and level of
the police.
TL: What is the requirement to be a police officer in Colombia?
CME: The minimum is a high school degree.
TL: While they are working as policemen, do they get the chance to con-
tinue with educational programs?
CME: The career of a policeman here is divided into the rank-and-file officer
and the professional officer who eventually becomes an official. The
officers have a higher level of training and almost always should
have a degree. They begin to pursue a degree either in business
administration, law, or some degree related to their career, and that
increases their professionalism and training. I am not saying that
the normal policeman that is on the street has no training; actually,
many of them do their degree work on the side. I know, for exam-
ple, police officers who are lawyers and who have remained in the
institution, have retired, and are currently practicing as lawyers.
TL: What changes in external conditions have had a significant impact on
policing?
CME: As is well known, Colombia has a problem of internal conflict that has
led to the displacement of many people. This has led many people
to become victims of heinous crimes. We have seen a significant
change in the police because we do not see the police only as an
individual who simply asks the citizen to respect the laws; we also
see that there are some sections of the police that have dedicated
themselves to working with poor and often remote communities
that don’t always have access to even basic medical care and some-
times it is the police who provide that service. This can be bet-
ter illustrated by an event that happened recently during this past
winter, which was very harsh here in Colombia. The police played
a very important role, working directly for the collection and dis-
tribution of aid throughout the country. They proved to be of great
help. For example, some police officers have knowledge in medi-
cine and other areas. In other cases, there are police officers who
are working with teachers and the community to teach and edu-
cate minors about avoiding drugs and criminal behavior. The old
view of the police as the punisher, as the oppressor, has changed
significantly, in my opinion.
TL: Overall, has the quality of policing improved or declined?
CME: I can say that improvements are made every day, not implying that
this is a panacea or that there is no more work to be done. Yet, I
believe that the police have made progress on many issues. The
most success has come in the areas of combating crime and crime
prevention. We still have many issues to work on. The problem is
that even though the police are growing and becoming special-
ized, organized crime in Colombia is highly developed and has
a lot of power. In addition, we have a citizenry that is very dis-
trustful of the police, and that limits police–community coop-
eration. The police want the collaboration of the people, but the
people on many occasions fear repercussions. But, overall, I can
say the police have made progress in many aspects, including
communication, technology, and the use of science in the pur-
suit of crime. Even in the area of international relations, there
has been an improvement. Now, Colombia is able to comply with
international agreements regarding policing and human rights.
TL: In general, is it more or less difficult to be a police officer now than in
the past?
CME: Being a police officer is a very noble profession, a profession that is

self-sacrificing. I think that being a cop, in the past or in the pres-
ent, continues to be a very difficult challenge. If we analyze a police
officer’s job, which is mainly in the urban areas, it consists of main-
taining order, security, and the constant prosecution of crime. All
these are not and will never be easy to accomplish, but we have no
choice but to persevere. For me, the police profession is one of great
respect and sacrifice.
Personal Policing Philosophy
TL: What do you think should be the role of the police in society?
CME: The police in a society must defend and support the constitution,
which has given them very clear powers to serve the community.
It must be the guardian of the property, and the life and the honor
of the citizens. It should be understood, from an idealistic point of
view, that the police are the protectors of the citizenry. This should
always be the philosophy of the police. People should never think
of the police with fear, as an organization that is going to hurt them
or get them in trouble, but as the guardians of every citizen’s safety
and property.
TL: What should be their job, functions, and roles?
CME: The primary job of the police should be crime prevention, which is
based on constant vigilance in an effort to avoid crime. The second
function is the prosecution of crime. When crimes are commit-
ted, the police are responsible for having sufficient resources and
professionalism to successfully complete the investigation of the
crimes committed. I also think there should be a unit of the police
which concentrates on building a relationship with the commu-
nity. I am referring to the police officers who make medical cam-
paigns in impoverished areas, or the ones who bring a group of
professionals to accompany them to do dentistry work in the com-
munity. The police have a number of branches that can be covered
to fulfill different functions and thus reduce the social distance
between the police and society.
TL: What should be left to other people or organizations?
CME: If the police have professionals that can fulfill these functions [medi-
cal, educational, etc.], I think that it will be very well received by
the community. For example, although it seems insignificant, these
groups of police officers are dedicated to providing some kind of
entertainment to poor children, holding special events where they
act as mimes, play music, and make a show for the kids. It may
seem that it is outside of their function, but I believe the opposite.

What the police do with these kinds of events is get closer to the
community and gain the trust that has been lost. All that is to tell
them, “We are here. We’re normal people of flesh and bones, and
we want to protect you.” So I think they are doing something very
beneficial.
TL: What organizational arrangements work and which do not?
CME: Although I don’t speak from personal experience, I think we have dif-
ficulties with internal discipline. I have heard that it is not very
successful when cops investigate other cops. Without wanting to
say that there have not been significant investigations in Colombia,
I know we do not have the same level of success, due to partnership
and the knowledge that the other person is a fellow cop. I think it
is important not to have an entity to investigate its own members; I
think a separate agency or office would do a better job.
TL: What hampers cooperation with other agencies?
CME: There can be positive as well as negative issues regarding cooperation
between institutions. One negative example deals with the fact that
there are several investigative agents that have the same objective
but belong to different institutions. A clear example is the national
police, the prosecutor’s office, and the DAS. The national police
have a judicial police section that is responsible for supporting the
research of the prosecutors and the judges. Aside from that, there
is a technical body of research on the prosecution that fulfills the
same functions. There is also the DAS, which performs some of the
functions of the judicial police. Then the problem of professional
jealousy arises because an agency wants to bring an investigation
to success. On some occasions it has been reported that an institu-
tion does not want to release information to another because they
want to be the one to take the investigation forward and receive
the recognition. I think someone should take a look to see if this
is a good method or not. As mentioned before, on some occasions
professional jealousy has hindered investigations.
TL: Is there a line that separates the police from the army? [It is common in
Colombia to see soldiers and police patrolling as well as approach-
ing pedestrians to ask for documentation.]
CME: The functions of the police and the army are clearly defined in the
constitution. For the police, it is to maintain peaceful coexistence
and order and to protect the honor and the lives of those who live
within the country. The army’s job is to maintain the sovereignty
of the country and protect the country from an invasion. The army
should also be concerned with major problems of civil unrest.
For example, in Colombia there is a problem with guerrillas and
paramilitaries. The police are in charge of internal management

of the public order and normal violations of the criminal code. So,
it is strange to find an army check point, when it is the duties of
the police to do that, contradicting the two entities’ constitutional
powers. The army should not stop a citizen to request legal doc-
uments because, in fact, that is not its function. That preventive
function belongs to the police, because Colombia’s army has no
crime prevention function. This situation has been accepted due
to the special crisis of public order that exists in the country, but
in truth this situation has led to the expansion of the functions of
the institutions. This is a wrong step to take, among other things,
because the army does not have sufficient training to handle cer-
tain types of situations.
Regarding arrests, when a crime has been committed, any citi-
zen can detain the criminal. A citizen’s arrest is the only excep-
tion in which a person may be arrested without a warrant from a
judge, but the person has to be committing the crime for this to be
allowed. Therefore, if a citizen can make an arrest, a member of the
army, who has the use of authority, can detain that person. This is
part of Article 32 of the Colombian Constitution.
TL: How should policing be performed? What should be the preferred pri-
orities and strategies?
CME: I think the police must always create tactical strategies where they
can target certain types of crime at a given moment. The police
needs to prioritize. I don’t think the police should always use the
same strategy in terms of crime prevention, because historically
there have been different crimes that impact and affect society to
a greater extent. These are moments where the police must be suf-
ficiently versatile to create strategies and attack a particular crime
from both a preventive and a judicial police point of view. For
example, a few days ago I heard that they are creating a special
anti–hit man unit, similar to what happened with the GAULA,
an entity used for the targeting of kidnapping, which was a very
sensitive and difficult problem to attack. The GAULA are a group
comprised of both the police and the army, specialized exclusively
for combating this specific crime. The attack on extortion and kid-
napping has had great results. With this example I try to explain
that the police must have versatility and stop using so much police
force in areas where they are less necessary and instead relocate
them where they are needed the most.
Problems and Successes
TL: In your experience, what policies or programs have worked well and
which have not? And can you speculate for what reasons?
CME: Let’s begin with the ones that do not work well. Currently we have a big
problem with minors. Crimes committed by minors have increased
dramatically. Minors are being used by adults in crimes because
the charging and adjudication process for minors is more flexible.
A child in Colombia may go to juvenile detention and not a prison.
Of course, that’s understandable, and it complies with international
laws, meaning that minors must have a special system. The prob-
lem is that, in Colombia, people believe that everything is solved
with force. This means that to fix a problem, all that must be done is
to toughen sentences for minors, attacking only the symptom, not
the cause. We would have to look and see why minors in Colombia
commit so many crimes. Why do minors turn to crime? What is
really happening with the situation of families in Colombia?
I think that state programs should be focused on strengthen-
ing the family as the essential nucleus of society, because there are
many dysfunctional families that bring up children who develop
many problems. It is not their fault, but it really is the duty of the
state to protect the core of the family. Take a child who grows up
marginalized, who watches the boys of another social status buy-
ing expensive shoes, who can go to good schools, drive nice cars,
while he does not even have money to go to a doctor or to buy
food, and he tries to make the best out of the options he has. This is
what organized crime exploits. It offers easy money for “working,”
for committing murder or theft. Minors easily accept this because
they do not have enough mental maturity to make a right decision.
I think that from that point of view, what is needed is social invest-
ment. Social investment is not only about spending on manpower
and aggressive policing (not to imply that those kinds of invest-
ment are not useful), but also about investing heavily in society,
by going to slums and putting in place workshops, places to study,
schools, anything that will give them something to do. When they
have nothing to do, no opportunities, they will surely fail.
TL: What is the greatest problem facing the police at this time?
CME: The most serious problems relate to the lack of logistical resources
for operations; for example, in the area of the judicial police who
support the prosecutors. It is sad to see that they do not have the
minimum means to comply with an order given by a prosecutor. If
a police officer needs to question people as part of an investigation,
sometimes they do not have a mode of transportation to do this

job. I know there have been improvements in this regard, but there
is still a long way to go. Many improvements in logistics are neces-
sary. For example, we need more equipment and more personnel
to support the functions of judicial police. Another problem is that
they have a very heavy workload and cannot finish the duties that
they were assigned. There is also an ethical problem. The police
force, unfortunately, has always been challenged by issues of cor-
ruption. That’s no secret, as in all institutions. But for the police,
due to the function it performs, it is very noticeable if any offi-
cer commits a crime or becomes corrupted. I know that efforts
are being made to combat corruption, but it remains difficult to
improve what should be a more efficient functioning police.
TL: What problems in policing do you find are the most difficult to deal
with—internal ones or externally generated ones?
CME: I think that internal and external situations can go hand-in-hand
with each other. For example, my philosophy is that the police
must be well paid—they should receive not only a good salary
but also many benefits. They should receive some kind of assis-
tance to purchase a home. They should be well-equipped police,
and their children should have the opportunity to study in good
schools. Becoming a police officer should be worth the sacrifices
that it requires. That goes hand-in-hand with the other, because
police officers with a low salary or that are overworked are cops
with a tendency to be corrupted and easily bribed. So I think that
if we improve the way cops are remunerated, we can improve their
social status, which translates into respect. If that is achieved, the
second effect can also be achieved: ensuring that the police do not
enter the field of corruption.
Also, when the institution develops programs that deal with
ethical and moral policies, they should look very carefully at who
is allowed to become part of the institution. That is, we need to
make sure we have an effective screening process. It seems that in
many cases the recruiting program is not paying attention to the
candidate’s background and who the person really is. Once the
candidate does become a member of the force, he must receive eth-
ics training.
TL: Is anything about policing easy?
CME: The sacrifice of being a cop is great; it’s a huge sacrifice and risk being
a cop in Colombia. Just the fact of being a police officer or a mem-
ber of the army makes one a military target of any criminal or ter-
rorist organization.
Theory and Practice
TL: What should be the relationship between theory and practice?

CME: I think there should be a complement between theory and practice,
but theory should always be the base. Practice without theory
becomes an experiment in terms of administration of justice and
in police work, which is a very risky experiment. It becomes merely
a system of trial and error. The investigation of a citizen does not
mean that the police can experiment with a citizen’s liberty. The
first thing you must have as a cop, a legal professional, or a pros-
ecutor is a solid theoretical background. Secondly, practical work
should be done in a classroom setting or workshops. My current
work responsibility is training prosecutors, police, and judicial
police to do a better job. I am teaching them how things should
be done and why. This is not done because I think it should be or
I say so; I tell them the reasons for a specific policy and the conse-
quences of their actions.
TL: What can practitioners learn from theory builders, and what can theory
builders learn from practitioners?
CME: In Colombia there are professors who teach theory but have never
gone to a hearing or ever been a defense attorney or prosecutor.
Many who teach theory but have no practical experience will not
understand the real development and performance of the function
and vice versa. It is a mistake if a person is a practitioner without
the inclusion of theory. Consequently, what he or she believes is
right may have a number of flaws due to lack of experience. In my
case, although I was invited from 2008 to be a trainer, I wanted
first to have some years of experience as a practicing prosecutor,
attending hearings firsthand to obtain knowledge. Using only the-
ory, without having had the experience of these hearings, would
have made it difficult to do my current assignment. I cannot teach
without both knowing the theory and having practical experience.
TL: What is the relationship right now between theory builders and
practitioners?
CME: There is a total relationship because one goes hand-in-hand with the
other. Moreover, the law in Colombia is changing and the system
is new. This system started in 1991, so it requires a lot of theory as
well as a lot of practice. We now teach theory and practical applica-
tion of laws during training.
TL: Regarding collaboration or interactions: Does it exist? Does it work? or
What holds it back?
CME: It exists, it works, and it is visible in the results. It is easy to under-

stand, for example, in my case. If a prosecutor does not have
enough background in theory in this new system, it will be dif-
ficult for them to work well, because the new system requires good
oral communication. The prosecutor is required to stand before a
judge to present arguments, without a script or any other aids. If a
prosecutor is not well prepared, it will show. When you are in front
of an audience (a judge, a defense attorney, citizens), they can rec-
ognize when the prosecutor is mediocre or unprofessional. If the
prosecutor falters in his or her speech, or has a false start, he or she
would be corrected or scolded by the judge.
I think the new system in Colombia motivates many prosecu-
tors to seek better training. It is very different from the previous
system, when attorneys simply had to write their arguments and
present them to the judge. In the past, attorneys had the luxury
of taking days to write their arguments while researching previ-
ous cases. But it’s different when you’re in front of a judge and the
defense presents a challenge which is then challenged. Now, in our
courts, if you do not know how to defend your case, they are likely
to decide against you. That affects how colleagues see you, and
your professional reputation may be damaged. That motivates a lot
of prosecutors to continue their pursuit of knowledge.
TL: What kind of research do you find most useful for practice?
CME: To be a good prosecutor in Colombia, one must first of all understand
the new system. In order to do so, people like me, who want to be
better at what we do, study comparative law constantly. For exam-
ple, the accusatory system in Colombia has many features of the
North American (the Anglo-Saxon) and the European systems.
We use comparative law books and study the way they handle their
cases to imitate that in our courts. For example, I used the code of
Ernesto Chesea from Puerto Rico on how to handle “las pruebas
de referencia” (hearsay exceptions). That helps me to understand
much better how these cases are handled in the United States,
Puerto Rico, and in European countries. For cases in Colombia, we
study the philosophy of the courts, jurisprudence of the Supreme
Court in Colombia, and we rely heavily on the comparative system
and the jurisprudence of other courts and their doctrines. We find
that in the books published by experts in the areas of study around
the world. Those are the sources that are commonly used to obtain
information in Colombia.
TL: What could theory builders do to make their products more useful to
you?
CME: I had an interesting experience while visiting courts in the United

States. I noticed that defense attorneys who went to the hearings
had to be very well prepared, as they do not have the time while
in court to do research to answer questions from the judge or to
defend their argument. I noticed they always had a second attorney
at the table, who usually was much younger, gathering the informa-
tion for the main attorney. The main attorney would consult with
the second attorney, who would provide the information needed at
the time. That could be something that might work in Colombia.
What else can we do in Colombia? We should have a central
database for all the agencies. Although the prosecutor’s office
already has a database of case law on particular topics, it would be
very helpful if we had a network on the web to access our database
and other databases through a secure network instantly. Having
a group of individuals dedicated to creating and maintaining this
database would be a good thing. That would be very helpful for
everyone involved.
TL: Where do you find theory-based information?
CME: The first place I look if the law itself is not clear or I think it has been
distorted is the jurisprudence; that is, what the courts have decided
in a similar case. That is my primary source of information. If there
is an issue that we have not dealt with in the past in Colombia, I use
comparative law and analyze the decisions made by other courts
(United States, United Kingdom, and Puerto Rico, since the deci-
sions are in Spanish). That is where I obtain my information most
of the time.
Transnational Relations
TL: Have you been affected, and how, in the work of your organization by
developments outside the country?
CME: Yes. For example, children’s rights have affected the way we deal with
juvenile offenders. Some people criticize the way the government
approaches crimes when it deals with minors. In reality, laws are
more flexible and are designed to protect minors instead of pun-
ishing them. But it is important to understand that the minor may
also be a victim who has been used and should have special pro-
tection status. That should not be viewed as obstruction of justice,
and the argument that the solution to deal with the juveniles who
commit crimes is to give them a harder punishment is not the way
to deal with minors.
Also, international agreements about human rights alone can-

not be seen as the safety net to protect our citizens or the way to
conduct justice. The government has that responsibility, not the
international community. International agreement should comple-
ment the national laws, not make them.
We should aspire every day to have a more humane justice sys-
tem; one that focuses on the individual and individualized justice.
We should even apply philosophies of experts in the area, like Luigi
Ferrajole, an Italian who thinks that criminal law should be kept to
a minimum. He believes that criminal codes should not be as long
as 300 or more codes, but no more than 30 to 50 codes. He also
says that the last option should be suppression and punishment.
He believes there should be other ways of resolving problems and
conflicts between people other than repression and punishment
(jail). The first option should be to go down the path of a reconcili-
ation, compromise, dialogue, or a number of administrative pun-
ishments such as fines to keep the person from being stigmatized
for receiving more serious types of punishment such as prison.
TL: Is there a death penalty in Colombia?
CME: The death penalty and life imprisonment are outlawed in Colombia.
That topic is very controversial and creates important debates
among Colombians. Currently, Senator Gilma Gimerez is trying to
change the criminal laws so life sentences can be given to rapists,
especially child rapists. I respect her position, but I prefer to abstain
from participating in that. I do not believe in life imprisonment or
the death penalty in Colombia for many reasons, including that I
think life is the ultimate and fundamental right of a person, and
from that right the other rights follow. So if we eliminate life, we
eliminate every human right. Besides, no system is perfect, and it
is common to make errors. There are cases where mistakes have
been made by our courts and in other countries with sophisticated
research systems. The ultimate mistake is to realize that an inno-
cent person received the death penalty for something he or she did
not do.
TL: What kind of external international influences are beneficial and which
ones less so?
CME: There are many ways international assistance is present in Colombia.
I am aware of instances in which international aid organizations
like Plan Colombia help by providing funds to facilitate training for
internal institutions (civilian and sworn) in many different areas. I
think that aid is welcome. I know of accusations that international
programs like Plan Colombia are hurting the population—for
instance, by spraying the coca plants with glyphosate. If that is true
(I don’t know whether it is or not), it would be an example where

international aid has impacted in a negative manner. Glyphosate
kills a number of good crops and has made many farmers lose their
products. Their land has sustained severe damage due to the fumi-
gations, and it has depreciated the value of the land.
TL: How have developments post-9/11 affected your work?
CME: One cannot deny that we are facing the phenomenon of globaliza-
tion. It is evident that globalization has no limits and has crossed
national borders. Nations are no longer isolated from the rest
of the world, and their justice systems are affected by what hap-
pens in other nations. For example, the international treaties that
Colombia has with other nations have a direct influence on our
domestic policies, and that is very visible in the way we prosecute
crime. After 9/11, President Bush signed the Patriot Act into law in
the United States, but this law affected not only the United States. It
has influenced how other countries, including Colombia, act when
dealing with terrorist organizations. Terrorists and criminal orga-
nizations are no longer restricted within a nation’s territory; they
move across borders. That forces law enforcement agencies around
the world to collaborate with each other to allow a better, more effi-
cient way of prosecuting those criminals. Colombia has not been a
stranger to that. Colombia has placed into effect many recommen-
dations from the U.S. government, and so we have a similar style
of prosecution now.
Democratic Policing
TL: How would you define democratic policing? What practices would bring
democratic policing to life?
CME: Democratic policing is an idealistic goal. I think we should focus on
the more realistic goals, too—where we are now, not just where
we want to be. We try to have a police force that is more ethical
and better prepared. However, to have a democratic police force
(understood as one closer to the citizens and completely trusted by
them, seen just as a friend, an ally), as I said before, is an ideal, but
an ideal toward which we should aim.
I think they’ve made great efforts. The police are taking steps
to get closer to democratic policing. They have developed plans to
go back to the neighborhood cop—cops who patrol on foot and
in vehicles the same small area in the same neighborhood where
the residents begin to recognize them and let them know of any
problems in the area. The relationship of police to residents is very
important, because programs like the neighborhood watch are

developed by them. That is the goal of the police at this time. It is
very ambitious and idealistic, but it would be very good for every-
one and at least we are currently leaning toward democratic polic-
ing in Colombia.
TL: Can democratic policing be achieved in your country?
CME: At least we can make an effort to make the police a little more demo-
cratic. I’ve always been optimistic. I have always believed that my
country is going to improve, that everything is going on a better
path, and that any difficulty is always an opportunity to improve
and become better. It is doable, but obviously it requires a big polit-
ical effort to take that path. A more important objective is to go
back to the cop who is the friend of the neighbors, the friend of the
population. But as I say, it is the ideal.
General Assessments
TL: Are you basically satisfied or dissatisfied with developments in policing?

CME: I feel satisfied with the developments of the police. I think that
through a lot of hard work, they have improved in many aspects.
Improvements can be seen in the way the police force is dealing
with the ethics of the institution, seeing cops with more integrity,
and also seeing how much better trained cops are compared to
the past. It was common in the past, due to the lack of education
and training, to have a cop abuse or use his or her power exces-
sively. They would abuse their authority and take matters into their
own hands. They would detain someone without any reason and/
or physically punish them with their baton. Nowadays it is differ-
ent. Cops know that there will be consequences to those actions,
thanks to the education and training they have received. That does
not mean that abuses from the police are no longer a problem;
but overall, the police force has improved. Those are the types of
changes that I have seen in my life, remembering how things used
to be when I was younger. In the past thirty years, that has changed
significantly.
TL: What are the most likely developments you see happening and which
would you like to see happening?
CME: One of the most important things that has happened to the institution
is the new level of professionalism. This is an important develop-
ment. I am a strong believer in training and professionalism. The
police have made a dramatic improvement in this regard. I see more
members of the criminal justice system wanting more training and
knowledge. I have not met a judge, prosecutor, or police officer who

is satisfied with the basic level of training. On the contrary, they
want as much training as possible to become better at what they
do. This helps improve the quality of their service. In the future,
from the point of view of my profession, I would like to see a large
number of police to support the prosecutor’s office. When there is
logistical support, the investigations and cases are solved quickly.
This requires a financial sacrifice, but that is what all this is about.
Through this financial support, the agency would be able to pro-
vide better logistical support and more officers, as it is needed in
the current criminal justice system.
The ideal is to see judges with smaller workloads because a
smaller workload per prosecutor and per judge has a direct impact
on the quality and speed of the process. This will result in better
courtrooms and more police officers to support the investigation
needed by the prosecutors together with additional logistical sup-
port. Police officers, judges, and prosecutors should also be well
paid.
That is the quick rundown of the improvements that I would
like to see. With that, the police will be able to obtain a better social
status, which will translate into respect and pride in the work. It
will also reduce the likelihood of corruption, with better training
and instilling ethics in criminal justice professionals. This will help
them to provide a better quality of service.
TL: Do you think your job is respected and/or admired by the public?
CME: I think so. The work of the prosecutor’s office, with all of our flaws and
constraints, has achieved important results that allow society to
look at us with respect and admiration.
TL: What is the perception of the police by citizens?
CME: The national police remains a prestigious institution, although unfor-
tunately there are a few [but nationally known] members of the
institution that sometimes go astray, falling to corruption. These
are a few, but through all the publicity these cases receive from
the media, the public gets the impression that the majority of the
members of the institution are the same way. That is incorrect. I
personally know some very good officers, very dedicated, very pro-
fessional. That is why I truly believe in the institution.
TL: Has this perception changed over the past decades?
CME: This perception has substantially changed from the past. Personally,
my perception has changed for several reasons. First, when I was
young and an ordinary citizen, I saw the police as a group of abus-
ers. Today, the laws have given the police a new mentality. Today
the police are more humane, comply with the laws, and respect the
rights of the citizens. My new opinion of the police is also because

I work with them on a daily basis, and I have more respect for them
from all angles.
TL: Is the Colombian National Police force ready to fight the new types of
crime?
CME: We are still in need of improvement in that aspect. The criminal sys-
tems should be designed to eliminate policies about crimes that
no longer affect the population and it should be able to attack the
new crimes that we are facing nowadays. The prosecutor’s office
recently released policies about cyber-crime. However, before we
can really attack these types of crimes, we need to have additional
resources, such as teams with vanguard technology and skilled
people in that field. We need improved tools to fight crimes like
cyber-crimes. For example, we have had several crimes commit-
ted through the Internet, defrauding bank accounts. We have seen
some results, but not as much as I would like. There is always going
to be a gap between us and the criminal. They always aim to be a
step ahead of us.
TL: Are criminals really a step ahead of the police?
CME: I do not think they are a step ahead. I think what happens is that
they always make the first move but we always catch up with them.
When we are attacking a crime, they are already working on a new
form of crime. Ideally, we should always be on standby awaiting
that new crime, and when it comes out, we should have the means
to attack it.
TL: If you could go back in time, would you do it all over again?
CME: Absolutely! I love what I do.
Conclusion
Colombia’s reputation for law and order has constantly improved in recent
years, thanks in part to the emphasis on security by the federal government.
Even though Colombia is a developing country, it has spent a lot of resources
on improving the criminal justice system. Changes made to the system since
1991 have laid the foundation for a more democratic police. It is very interest-
ing to see that the police keep changing to provide a better service. Colombia
has a long way to go, but numerous positive steps should help rebuild the
relationship between the police and the citizens.
Glossary
Constitutional Court: Colombia’s Supreme Court.

DAS: Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (Administrative
Department of Security).
GAULA: Grupos de Acción Unificada por la Libertad Personal (Unified
Action Groups for Personal Liberty).
Police official: Refers to higher ranked police officers in Colombia, due to a
military-style ranking used in the Colombian National Police.
Notes
1. Thank you to Amy Fowler, Lucero Contreras, and Vanessa Marin for their help
in translating the interview.
Sir Norman Bettison,
Former Chief Constable,
West Yorkshire Police,
United Kingdom
2
INTERVIEWED BY
RICHARD HESLOP
Contents
Introduction 21
Career 22
Early Influences 22
On the Beat 23
Detective 24
Promotion 25
Personal Policing Philosophy: Neighborhood Policing 26
Personal Leadership Philosophy 30
The Future of Policing: Democratic Policing and Elected Police and
Crime Commissioners 33
Conclusion 35
Glossary 36
Notes 36
References 37
Introduction
The UK police are not a unitary body similar to the national police forces that
exist in many parts of the world. In England and Wales, forty-three police
constabularies undertake territorial policing on a geographical basis, each
being led by a chief constable, or “commissioner” in the case of London’s
Metropolitan Police Service. Sir Norman Bettison is unique among chief
officers, being the only person to have been chief constable of two different
provincial police forces: Merseyside (1998 to 2005) and West Yorkshire (2007
to 2012).
21
Bettison is a career police officer, having joined his hometown police force
in South Yorkshire as a police cadet in 1972. In 1993 he was appointed assis-
tant chief constable in West Yorkshire before leaving in 1998 to become chief
constable of Merseyside. As chief constable of Merseyside he was a pioneer
of neighborhood policing—a policing style that provides dedicated teams of
police officers and community support officers (CSO) who work with the
community and partners at a local level. In 2005 he became chief executive
of Centrex, an organization providing training and operational support to all
British police forces and to international law enforcement agencies.1 In 2007,
he returned to an operational role as chief constable of West Yorkshire Police,
the third-largest provincial force in England and Wales.
He holds a master’s degree in psychology and philosophy and a master’s
degree in business administration, and was recently made an honorary doc-
tor of Huddersfield University. He is a graduate of the British Civil Service
top management program and a graduate of the executive program of the
U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Bettison is the vice president of the
Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and represents ACPO on the ter-
rorism committee, with a lead responsibility for addressing the prevention of
violent extremism. He was awarded the Queen’s Police Medal for Distinguished
Service in 2000 and a knighthood for services to policing in 2006.
As I am a sergeant in the West Yorkshire Police, Sir Norman Bettison
was my “boss.” The context of this interview is somewhat different, there-
fore, from others in this book. The interview took place in January 2011 at
Wakefield, West Yorkshire, in the chief constable’s office. Bettison was cour-
teous and engaging and spoke candidly and expertly on the topics raised.
Career
Early Influences
RH: What made you decide to join the police?
NB: My first memory of the idea of a career in policing was at the age of
about nine. I was sitting on my grandfather’s knee and he said,
“You’re going to be a policeman when you grow up.” That stuck
with me, and I can remember where I was, and I can remember
the occasion. I was not thinking about a career at that stage, but
it seemed like a proposal that had merit. It seemed like a proposal
that would have the approval of my grandfather, to whom I looked
up a lot. So from the age of nine I don’t have any recall of consider-
ing anything else. I had a careers teacher at school who for some
reason talked to me about accountancy, for which I am completely
the wrong person, and also about quantity surveying. I told him
Sir Norman Bettison, Former Chief Constable 23
that I wanted to be a policeman, and I stuck with that and I haven’t

regretted that decision for a single day in the thirty-eight and a half
years of my career to date.
Almost immediately after leaving school, Bettison joined the Sheffield

and Rotherham2 police cadets, where he “set out to be” and achieved Cadet of
the Year honors, before joining the police at the age of nineteen.
RH: You are enjoying a very distinguished career, having been chief of two
police forces and being awarded a knighthood for services to polic-
ing. Did you anticipate any of this when you joined the police at the
age of nineteen?
NB: No, I find those people who plan their careers frightening. So as you
have said, I have been chief constable of two police forces, but I
never intended that. When I joined the police I didn’t join with
the intention of being a chief constable. I wanted to be a bobby
[English term for a police officer]. I know it sounds wet, but I joined
the police with the intention of making the world a slightly better,
happier, safer place, as far as I was able to influence it. I drew on the
fact that when I was a prefect at school I was always called upon to
sort the bullies out. So I always saw myself as the person wearing
the white hat and the sheriff’s badge. They were my drivers; and I
honestly believe that, although people will express them in differ-
ent ways, they are the drivers that bring 99 percent of people into
policing. It’s a vocation (that’s what I am trying to say in a colorful
way), so that vocation has stayed with me throughout. All I ever
wanted to be was a cop. I had a very happy early experience in
policing in that my first two years everything fitted into place.3 The
concept of being a round peg in a round hole. I was that round peg.
This was my career.
On the Beat
He explained that a formative experience for him was being given his own
beat, which influenced his thinking with regard to developing the concept of
neighborhood policing later on in his career.
NB: After all this time I could still tell you the boundaries of the beat and
could probably still name some of the people on that beat. And
what I developed at a very early stage was the concept of ownership
of a beat. Ownership of a very small part of a community, but it was
mine, and if any of the residents got burgled I took it personally. If
somebody told me something then I did something about it, and
the next time I saw them I told them what I had done. So what was
born in me was the concept of being accountable, dedicated, and
familiar at a local level to a particular community and geographi-
cal area.
Detective
Although Bettison was happy working as a uniformed beat officer, he was
soon posted into the criminal investigation department, where his “focus
shifted from wanting to be a cop to wanting to be a detective.”
NB: I was a reasonable detective because I was creative, I was dogged, and
I was resolute. But I also cared about people who were vulner-
able, people who were victims, and I was determined, because of
my interest in justice, that I was going to bring people to justice.
Bettison explained that although as a detective he dealt with many seri-

ous cases, such as murders and rapes, his “most memorable job” was dealing
with two brothers who operated a credit agreement scam, defrauding 106
people, many of whom were vulnerable.
NB: The case I really remember was putting those two brothers behind bars.
They lived in very fancy houses and drove very fancy cars, and I
abhorred the idea that they were ripping off these very vulnerable
people.
Another reason Bettison enjoyed his time as a detective so much was that
it allowed him the scope to deal with an investigation from start to finish, as
well as the discretion that came with the role.
NB: There is something about being a detective whereby you get the direct
and personal fulfillment of seeing a job well done that you have
started at the point of meeting the victim and you have followed it
through to the final outcome. That for me was fulfilling. But also
I was a detective at the time of the UK TV series Life on Mars.4 I
was Life on Mars vintage, and that might need explaining in an
international context. But you can imagine that detectives in those
days had huge discretion about how they went about detecting
crime and bringing offenders to justice. So I loved that feedback
and direct satisfaction that one got from a job really well done, and
I also loved being able to use my discretion in getting the job done.
Interestingly, he said, “the higher up the career ladder I have got, the less
discretion I have.” He was asked to expand on that.
NB: Well, as a chief constable I am closer to a wider range of accountabilities,

whereas my accountability as a detective was to the law and also to
my detective sergeant. As a chief constable, however, I have got the
police authority, the government, the home secretary, the IPCC, the
audit commission, and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary.
People often think, “if I were chief constable for a day, I would
change this and that.” Actually, what I need to say is that even when
you are a confident, self-assured, long-standing chief constable like
me, there are all sorts of constraints on what you can do and what
you can achieve. And I feel those constraints more as a chief con-
stable with thirty-nine years’ service than I did as a detective with
three years’ service. That’s what I am trying to convey.
Promotion
The British police service is a meritocracy, and all recruits, regardless of back-
ground and academic qualifications, are currently required to start at the low-
est rank of constable. Indeed, in terms of education, until relatively recently,
even the majority of chief officers were not graduates when they joined the
service (see, e.g., Reiner 1991). Bettison clearly believes that the secret to suc-
cess in policing as well as in other areas of life is hard work and determination.
NB: People used to say that I was a lucky detective. Then one day I discovered
a saying by the great golfer Gary Player, who said to a commenta-
tor, who commentated on a “lucky putt”: “You know, the more I
practice the luckier I get.”5 Police work is similar, and I used to turn
that quote on people who said I was lucky.
Bettison explained that he was “talked into” taking the police promotion
examination. However, after narrowly failing the examination at the first
attempt, he was “so appalled and angry” with himself that he was determined
he was not going to fail it the following year.
NB: So even as a busy working detective, I committed myself to study, and

that has always given me the view that, actually, if you want some-
thing badly enough you will achieve it. It is rarely a question of not
having enough talent; there is usually the problem of not having
enough perspiration and will.
He passed the promotion examination with high marks and, as such,

was eligible and encouraged to apply for a national accelerated promotion
scheme, then called the “special course.”6
NB: All police leaders need a mentor, and we need several mentors as we
go through our careers. My career could have gone in a com-
pletely different direction, but Charles Alan Robinson was a very
thoughtful chief superintendent, and I know from what he told
me later that he had noticed me and he started to make some
enquiries about me and then he sent for me. He asked me if I had
heard about the special course and Bramshill. I had never heard
of Bramshill or the special course. But he gave me an information
booklet and he encouraged me to apply. And I can remember going
home that night and thinking, “No, I am not going to do that.”
But knowing that I had got to face him the next day, I decided to
put an application form in and I was eventually selected. Then
you are on a promotion conveyor belt. And it’s a conveyor belt
that picks you up as a young, newly promoted sergeant with six
years’ experience as a detective and dumps you somewhere down
the line as a chief superintendent, having been sponsored to go to
Oxford University to read a degree in psychology and philosophy.
Personal Policing Philosophy: Neighborhood Policing
As signposted earlier, Bettison was a pioneer of neighborhood policing. He

explains how this came about.
NB: From around the early 1990s, I would describe my personal polic-
ing philosophy as being neighborhood policing focused. I was
not the inventor of neighborhood policing, but I was among the
vanguard of people who were trying to push the idea forward. I
also didn’t select the name, as there were various names that were
being attached to this trend at the time, but I thought that the most
appropriate one was neighborhood policing. This was in order to
differentiate it from the concept of community policing, which I
thought was pure tokenism, and also to make it clear what it is
about. I came across other terms, such as total geographic policing
and phrases such as that, which to a man or woman landing from
Mars would not mean anything. Neighborhood policing captured
it for me, and there were three things that were catalysts to me
adopting the philosophy.
The first was my experience as a beat officer in South

Yorkshire, where I had grown up with the realization that I
couldn’t look after a beat by myself and needed other people
to look out for the beat on my behalf and give me information
about what was going on and take an interest in criminals or
vulnerable people that lived on the beat. I did not call it partner-
ship working in the 1970s, but I had the concept of a dedicated
patch and I had the concept of feeling accountable for what
went on in terms of social order, in terms of criminality. I was
responsible and accountable for what went on in that patch. So
that was a key milestone.
The second thing that happened was that in the early 1990s I can
remember doing a survey of victims of crime in my native South
Yorkshire and not being surprised by, but actually being troubled
by, the results. These showed that the public was losing confidence
in the police generally and losing confidence in our ability to detect
crime and keep them safe from disorder. I did the survey after a
few years of the police service being sacrificed on the altar of effi-
ciency, and we were pretty clumsy in our adoption of efficient ways
of doing things. And what I learned in that survey was that actu-
ally it wasn’t the outcome of the crime or incident that mattered to
people as much as the way that the police dealt with them. So that
was a powerful driver as well.
And then the catalyst that really brought those two things
together was that I went on a conference and I came across the
chief of police of Edmonton in Canada. He was a very impressive
speaker and some of what he was saying might have been post hoc
rationalization, but he was talking about how he had transformed
the relationship between the police and the public in Edmonton by
selling off the police stations, which were old and past their sell-by
date and there was no money in the city to replace them. So they
decided to get rid of the whole of their estate apart from a single
central headquarters from where they conducted highway patrol
and some other things. They concentrated all of their business sup-
port and all of their operations support in a central police station
in Edmonton and sold off all the rest. But what he did was that
he identified that there were twenty-seven different neighborhoods
in Edmonton. He then got twenty-seven of his best lieutenants
and gave them a number of officers and told them that they were
responsible for the policing of that 27th of the city, 24/7, 365 days a
year, and the only thing that they could rely on was an emergency
response that was deployed from headquarters and the special-
ist services that went with it. And he talked about the reduction
in crime, he talked about the reduction in disorder, but the most

impressive statistic he was able to quote was drawn from surveys of
public opinion. Interestingly, he also talked about the volunteering
that was triggered by the police service being as local as it is to the
community. So there in Canada he tapped into the idea that Sir
Robert Peel7 had about the police officer being a citizen in uniform,
doing what all citizens have a duty to do in terms of protecting
social order.
So this was a revelation to me. Nobody was thinking in this way
in the UK. It was an epiphany for me. It was a seminal moment.
And I came away from that conference determined that if I became
a chief constable I was going to initiate what I was starting to
think of as neighborhood policing. Then sometime later as chief
constable of Merseyside, when I first operationalized the concept
neighborhood policing, I said that my vision was of a team of offi-
cers dedicated to a particular area coming on for a 5 a.m. briefing,
going out and executing warrants, then dealing with the people
they had arrested and later that same day telling everybody in the
local community about the results.
So neighborhood policing is for me a commitment to not only
be a visible and accessible and familiar presence in an area, but
to be professionally determined, audacious, and effective in deal-
ing with the issues that the public are concerned by. And actually,
when we do take action in the way that I described, then the public
will recognize the difference. As chief constable, my achievement
is judged by the level of public confidence in the force that I head.
In the same way that a retail concern counts the money in the tills,
I count the level of confidence that there is in the public at large. So
when you see that public confidence in the police of West Yorkshire
has risen by over twelve and a half percentage points over the last
three years, and when you see that the proportion of the public
responding to the statement that “antisocial behavior is getting
worse,” has come down from 44 percent of the public surveyed to
14 percent, what you get a sense of is communities who notice that
the police have taken control again.
RH: I have personally been present on a number of occasions when you have
addressed members of the organization and told them that your
vision is for West Yorkshire Police to deliver “customer focused
policing, of the sort that my mum and your family would expect.”
Is this also part of your personal policing philosophy?
NB: Well, one of the things that a chief constable has to do is they have to
set a vision for the organization and communicate and convey that
vision. That’s why I talk in metaphors a lot, that’s why I tell stories a
lot, because that’s the way of actually conveying what the vision is.
Not by writing it out on a fifty-three-page document and putting it
on everybody’s shelf, or having mission statements. I hate mission
statements, because they are meaningless, so I am not a mission
statement person and I am not a fifty-three-page strategic plan per-
son. I am one side of A4 paper chief constable with some rhetoric
and storytelling. And I repeat myself a lot. And the reason I repeat
myself a lot is not because I am losing my memory; it’s because I
know that repetition is a way of reinforcing the vision and values.
So I chose that phrase as rhetoric, because I know that it con-
nects. I said earlier on in this interview that 99 percent of colleagues
who join the police do so because they want to see justice for people
and protect the vulnerable. That’s what brings them into the job;
not the salary or the pension. But what happened a few years ago
was that we started to be really focused on performance and we put
pressure on officers and staff within the organization to do things
in a certain way and to achieve certain outcomes. I believe that it
is possible to achieve those outcomes without having any concept
at all for the people that we are doing it for. And what I think that
leads to, if we are not careful, is we can point to doing things right
and we can point to improved performance in a statistical sense,
but we can’t always find the people in the community that have
got a good word to say about what we are doing. So when I talk
about citizen focus and when I use the rhetoric of, “we’ve actually
got to deal with this in a way that my mum would be satisfied by,”
what I am trying to connect with is that latent vocation that lies
within all of us. And to strip away the layered constraints that we
have put on people over recent years, over the late 1990s and early
twenty-first century whereby they are going through the motions
of being a cop. So my idea of community focus is doing a job that
leaves the person who we are interacting with feeling as though
they have had not only a professional service, but a compassionate
and courteous and empathetic service. I think that matters. I think
it matters not only to the public that turn to us for help at times
of trauma, tragedy, and distress, but I think it matters to the men
and women who are doing the job of policing. Because I think that
without it we are denying some sense of moral purpose for what
we are doing. If all we are doing is complying with processes and
performance targets, if all we are doing is making arrests, but then
never going back to the public who are concerned by those arrests
and telling them what we have done, we might be going through
the motions of being professional, but we don’t get any job satis-
faction or we don’t get as much job satisfaction out of doing it. So
for me, customer focus isn’t just about the customer; it’s about the
purpose of policing.
Personal Leadership Philosophy
RH: This is a book about police leaders. As well as exerting a strong leader-
ship presence in West Yorkshire Police, you have also, in a more
academic context, published several articles on police leadership.
Could you please tell me about your thoughts on leadership?
NB: Well, first of all, I think it’s important to say that leadership is contex-
tual. I think that there are some themes of leadership and I will
try and pick one or two of those out. I think that you can’t be a
leader without some sense of personal responsibility, and the best
leaders are the people with the highest developed sense of personal
responsibility. So that’s number one. Number two as a theme is that
you can’t be a leader without being confident. I remember an old
sergeant once saying to me, “Remember, lad, even when chaos sur-
rounds you, the job of a sergeant is to make it seem to everybody
else that you know what you are doing.” I think that is a wonderful
piece of advice for leadership, because it’s about self-assurance, but
even in the rockiest moments, sort of role-playing confidence.
So there are some themes, and I could continue to list the themes,
but leaders have to do different things at different ranks and at dif-
ferent times. I think leaders naturally grab situations because of
that heightened sense of personal responsibility, because of that
well-developed sense of confidence and self-assurance that when
things go wrong, when there is a critical incident, they tend to
come to the fore. So I think that leaders are given the opportunity
to lead. Winston Churchill was anonymous till the outbreak of the
Second World War, and yet academics would regard him now as
one of the great leaders. He had a sense of personal responsibility at
the time of his nation’s need. With his bulldog spirit and his cigar
and his victory sign he exuded confidence, which is what people
wanted to see around them, and he just maximized the opportu-
nity that presented itself. I don’t think that there is any difference
in leadership in other contexts.
In my view, what the chief constable or chief executive of an orga-
nization has to do is four things. First thing, as I said earlier, is to
set a vision and ensure that that vision is understood. If colleagues
do understand the vision and it resonates with them, because they
share the values, then they buy into that vision and they start doing
things in a different way. I am an organic person, and what I mean
by that is that you don’t change organizations through blueprints

and program development and management. You do it by getting a
critical mass of people focused on doing things a different way and
then leaving it to them. So the first thing that you do is to set and
embed a vision.
Second thing that you do is set a tone in what you do. It needs
to be consistent, but I am clear about what is part of my tone and
its humanity. Other aspects of my tone are fairness and a sense of
wanting to ensure justice. As a leader, every day something will be
presented to you as a dilemma or a decision and you just decide and
convey and communicate according to that set of values, and that
creates a tone in the organization. Then before you know where
you are, that becomes part of the received and rehearsed behaviors
of others.
The third thing that you do, and I believe that you cannot del-
egate this, though some people do and I think they are foolish, the
third thing you do is that you personally take a responsibility for
selecting people who are going to be critical and central to deliver-
ing the vision. I personally approve everybody of superintendent
rank and above in the organization and when selecting them the
things you are going to be testing are not how good they have been
in their last job. The thing you want to be testing and looking for
is whether or not they share the vision. Have they got ideas about
how to take the vision forward? And do they echo or complement
the tone that I am trying to create? So, the third thing that a chief
constable does is put priority and effort into the selection of senior
staff that are going to take the organization forward.
The fourth thing that a chief constable does is manage the repu-
tation of the organization. On a day-to-day basis, I am interested
and pedantic about how are we presenting ourselves as an organi-
zation, to the world at large, to partners, and internally. And what
I think a chief constable has to do, he or she has to be around to
deal with critical situations for the organization. Because in being
around for those critical situations, when the world’s eyes are
upon the organization, he or she gets the opportunity to commu-
nicate tone and vision as well. And people notice at those times.
Rudy Giuliani,8 in his autobiography, had a wonderful chapter
entitled something along the lines of “weddings optional, funer-
als a necessity.” And what he meant by that, and he went on to
explain it, is that when things are going well in organizations or
families, whether you are there or not doesn’t make much differ-
ence. But when things are going badly you have to be there. When
the world’s media is asking questions about, say for example, your
ability to find a missing child, then you have to be there to respond

to the growing criticism. So the four things that a chief constable
does, as well as the general themes or underpinnings of leadership,
are set a vision and embed it. Set a tone and ensure it. Select people
that are going to lead the organization. And manage the reputation
of the organization.
Theory and Practice
RH: You hold two master’s degrees and for a period between 2005 and 2007,
as chief executive of Centrex, you were also responsible for the
Police Staff College at Bramshill. What are your thoughts on the
relationship between theory and practice?
NB: I think that in the UK there is a culture of doing things the way we have
traditionally done them. Doing things until we are told to do them
in a different way. And there isn’t a sufficient curiosity and open-
mindedness about doing things in a different way. And there isn’t
a great body of work that lies behind UK policing. So in answer to
your question, I don’t think that the police in the UK do enough
theorizing about policing. I think there is a better history of think-
ing about policing models in the United States than there is in the
UK. I think that policing theory has always got to be integrated
with policing practice, and it’s rarely possible to restructure and
refocus on the basis of a new theory. But I am prepared to say that
I think that the UK would benefit from a greater body of police
theory and a greater interest from those practicing the profession
in what we can learn.
The obverse side of that same coin is that there are some com-
mentators who go off to other countries and find theories and new
practices and imagine that they are the holy grail that can simply
be transplanted into a UK context. Actually, the UK has got an
awful lot to teach other countries, but it doesn’t have the academic
underpinnings that are available in other countries. And when you
look at some of the great academic works in policing, like “broken
windows theory” and “zero tolerance” and “community policing,”
which are being talked about in an international context, actually
they are learning the lessons of how policing has been done in the
UK. Because historically policing has been conducted in the UK in
a community-based way and covering a wide spectrum of issues
and transgression. Other countries are learning that the police in
their local context would benefit from doing things in that same
way. So the great theories owe an awful lot to practice in the UK,
but the bottom line of the question is that I do think that the UK
would benefit from a greater body of work around thinking about
and talking about and developing ideas about doing policing in
different ways.
The Future of Policing: Democratic Policing and

Elected Police and Crime Commissioners
The current system of holding the forty-three forces of England and Wales
accountable has been characterized as the “tripartite structure” of police
accountability. The tripartite system distributes responsibilities between the
chief constable, the Home Office, and the local police authority. This tripar-
tite system provides accountability to government through the home secre-
tary, who is responsible for policing policy at a national level. It also provides
accountability to local populations through the local police authorities, which
comprise elected local councilors, magistrates and business representatives.
As Bettison indicated earlier, the autonomy of chief constables is arguably
limited by the current arrangements, although case law has made it clear that
the police are the servants of the law in terms of their operational discretion
and are not subject to administrative or political direction in this respect.
However, the British government is in the process of reforming police
governance arrangements by replacing police authorities with directly
elected police and crime commissioners (PCCs). The responsibilities of PCCs
will include the following:
• Setting the police budget

• Appointing (and dismissing) the chief constable
• Consulting widely with local people to establish what they want
from their local police
• Setting local policing plans (Home Office 2010)
RH: Do you think that the proposed new governance arrangements will
strengthen democratic accountability of policing in the UK?
NB: I honestly believe that it’s not up to me as a chief constable to decide
that question. I honestly believe that it is the democratic right of
those elected to determine the relationship between the police, and
the public and that’s been one of our great strengths since the days
of Robert Peel. But in case that sounds too contrived, I will say a
couple of other things.
One is that I think there is a misconception regarding what the
public wants to see in terms of democratic accountability, because
I don’t think they want to see it at a force level. I think that they are
satisfied that it exists at a force level in terms of policies and proce-
dures. So the idea of greater democratic accountability at the level
of West Yorkshire, where somebody on behalf of 2.2 million people
holds me to account, isn’t what the public wants. I think what the
public does want is greater accountability at a neighborhood level
to ensure that the police are tackling their priorities. So is the new
relationship going to do anything to meet that at a neighborhood
level? The jury is out for me.
The second thing I would say is that professional policing is over
180 years old, and there are certain things that have been critical
and have been constantly rebalanced in the history of policing, and
whoever is drawing up the accountability structures of the future
needs to take account of the past. The chief constable is at the cen-
ter of three separate accountabilities. One is to the law and always
has been. The second is to central government for the national stra-
tegic and serious threats that face the country. And the third is
to some local governance to ensure that policies and practice at a
local level are in accord with what the public in that locality wants
to see. There is just a danger in the way that the current bill is writ-
ten that those three separate accountabilities get skewed to a very
local accountability as seen through the eyes of one person who
might be acting in a political way.
So we need to be very careful, and this isn’t a criticism of the
proposals that are on the table, but we need to be very careful that
we protect, at the same time as strengthening the local account-
ability, that we protect the accountability to the law and to the
independent ethical position that the chief constable holds, and
accountable also for the serious strategic threats and risks that
face the country. Unlike in some countries that have local police
and a state police, you can affect the local accountability knowing
that you maintain a state police to deal with strategic and serious
threats and risks. In the UK context it’s the same police that deal
with the whole spectrum, from counterterrorism to people who
drop litter in the street, and therefore the new arrangements need
to take account of the fact that those accountabilities to the nation
and to the central government can still be met.
Due to time constraints, the interview had to be concluded at this point.

However, a few weeks later, I was fortunate to attend a lecture Bettison had
been invited to deliver to a group of criminal justice practitioners and aca-
demics at the University of Leeds.9 The lecture was entitled. “The Future of
Policing,” and Bettison kindly supplied me with a copy of his notes, from
which the remainder of this section is derived.
In the lecture Bettison focused predominantly on the structure of polic-
ing, both locally and nationally. In doing so he returned to a number of the
themes discussed earlier, including the way that his formative experiences as
a junior officer had shaped much of his strategic thinking as a chief constable.
Bettison explained that one of the central challenges facing contemporary
policing in the UK was to secure and embed local neighborhood policing,
alongside the delivery of effective strategic policing, at a time of severe finan-
cial constraints. Although he spoke about a number of possible models to
achieve this—including amalgamation of some police forces, which Bettison
thought was now unlikely—he did envisage a greater role for increased col-
laboration between forces on a regional basis.10
NB: My vision is, in simple terms, to drive an unerring local focus for uni-
formed policing delivery, but to find more creative and collegiate
ways to address strategic threats, harms, and opportunities across
administrative boundaries. I am looking to build capacity and
capability in the supply line by working with other forces in our
region to do those things—like forensic science and criminal jus-
tice administration—at one place, rather than multiple sites in this
region. As chief constable of the third largest provincial police
force in the country, I am also putting on offer to smaller forces the
capability that I am retaining to meet strategic risks to be drawn
upon across a wider footprint. I believe that at a time of public
spending reduction this will enable us to build sustainable societ-
ies at both the local and the national level.
Conclusion
There is certainly much in the interview for us to think about as either prac-
titioners or researchers. Speaking personally, our conversation caused me to
reflect on my own experiences as a young officer (in my case, working the
beat in Leeds, England) and how these remain influential to much of my cur-
rent thinking about policing and police research. In an era when we are con-
stantly being advised to look forward and “reform,” there is still much that
we can learn from the past. What connects everyone in law enforcement is
the ethos of public service, and surely that is the constant to which we should
always attend during times of change.
Glossary
Audit commission: A public corporation in the United Kingdom with the pri-
mary objective to improve economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in local
government and related areas through the audit and inspection process.
Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO): An independent, profession-
ally led strategic body that, in equal and active partnership with
government and the Association of Police Authorities, leads and
coordinates the direction and development of the police service in
England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. In times of national need,
ACPO, on behalf of all chief officers, coordinates the strategic polic-
ing response.
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC): In England and
Wales, HMIC is responsible to the Home Office and is tasked with
reporting on the activities of the territorial forces of England and
Wales and other bodies involved in law enforcement.
Home secretary: The secretary of state for the Home Department. The
government minister in charge of the Home Office of the United
Kingdom. The remit of the ministry includes policing and matters
of national security.
Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC): The primary pur-
pose of the IPCC is to increase public confidence in the police com-
plaints system in England and Wales. It also investigates the most
serious complaints and allegations of misconduct against the police
and handles appeals from people who are not satisfied with the way
police have dealt with their complaint.
Police cadets: Traditionally, young people in the United Kingdom from the
age of sixteen could apply to join a police force as a full-time and paid
police cadet (if that force operated such a scheme). The police cadet
position was seen as a precursor to joining the police force at age nine-
teen, although there was no compulsion for any cadet to do so.
Police community support officer (CSO): A uniformed nonwarranted
officer intended to be used on high-visibility foot patrol, providing a
strong public reassurance presence, and focusing predominately on
lower level crime and antisocial behavior.
Notes
1. Centrex was the common name of the Central Police Training and Development
Authority. From 1 April 2007 the functions of Centrex and other bodies were
merged into the National Policing Improvements Agency (NPIA). In 2012 the
NPIA became the College of Policing.
2. Sheffield and Rotherham Constabulary was a short-lived police force in England

from 1 June 1967 to 1 April 1974. It was amalgamated in 1972 with parts of West
Yorkshire Constabulary to form South Yorkshire Police.
3. All police officers in England and Wales are required to complete a two-year
probationary period before they can be confirmed as constables.
4. A popular British science fiction/police procedural television drama series, Life
on Mars has received critical praise for its premise and depiction of police work
in the 1970s.
5. Quote attributed to South African golfer Gary Player, following his win at the
U.S. Open in 1965.
6. The scheme has undergone much change and rebranding since Bettison was on
it in the 1970s, being variously called the special course, the accelerated promo-
tion scheme, the graduate entry scheme, and, in its current format, the high
potential development scheme.
7. Sir Robert Peel (1788–1850) was a British statesman who, although helped by
the home secretary, created the modern concept of the police force, leading to
officers being known as “bobbies” (in England) and “peelers” (in Ireland) to this
day.
8. Rudolph William Louis (“Rudy”) Giuliani is a lawyer, businessman, and politi-
cian from New York. He served as mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001.
Giuliani gained international attention for his leadership during and after the
September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center.
9. From Sir Norman Bettison’s lecture for the “Building Sustainable Societies”
master class series, University of Leeds, 16 March 2011.
10. For instance, four geographically neighboring police forces comprise the
Yorkshire and Humber region: West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, North
Yorkshire, and Humberside.
References
Reiner, R. (1991). Chief Constables: Bobbies, Bosses or Bureaucrats. London:
Clarendon Press.
U.K. Home Office. (2010). Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill.
Brigadier General
Dr. József Boda, Director
General, Special Service
for National Security
3
(SSNS), Hungary
INTERVIEWED BY
ZSOLT MOLNÁR
Contents
Introduction 39
Career 40
Looking Ahead 50
Note 52
Introduction
Dr. Boda is the director general of the Special Service for National Security
(SSNS), part of the national security structure of Hungary established in
1996. SSNS provides technical support and some intelligence services to the
law enforcement agencies. It is a unique organization in that it performs its
duty at the request of those agencies that are entitled to deal with confiden-
tial information (e.g., the police, the prosecution office, and the constitution
protection authority). SSNS has become a strong partner of foreign special
services and law enforcement agencies.
Dr. Boda has served thirty-five years in law enforcement, starting his pro-
fessional career in the Hungarian National Army. He joined the Hungarian
National Police in 1991 as the deputy commander of the Hungarian Special
Police Force (counterterrorism unit). Since 1997, he has been involved in
international police training as the Hungarian director of ILEA Budapest
(International Law Enforcement Academy) and later as the director gen-
eral of the International Training and Civilian Crisis Management Centre
39
in Budapest. He has been involved in every Hungarian police mission

abroad, including Cambodia, Mozambique, the Sinai peninsula, Bosnia-
Herzegovina, Georgia, and Kosovo. He has been a trainer for decades to mili-
tary and police personnel in Hungary and on foreign missions in Azerbaijan
and Afghanistan. As a presenter, moderator, or facilitator, he has participated
in various courses and events across Europe and in many post-Soviet coun-
tries. Dr. Boda is an active member of numerous international and national
organizations, in both professional and scientific fields, and has worked on
establishing many of them. He was the chair of the CEPOL (European Police
College) during the Hungarian EU presidency.
The interview was conducted in the office of Dr. Boda in Rózsadomb
(Rose Hill), Budapest. Three walls of Dr. Boda’s office are covered with mem-
orabilia from different foreign or national missions and activities.
Career
ZM: Will you please give some details about your career history?
JB: When I was nineteen, after receiving the secondary school diploma, I
joined the military college and was in its combat intelligence fac-
ulty. In my second year of college, I got married. After graduation
I was sent to Szolnok, which was my mother’s town. I went back to
my family and started to work as a young lieutenant leading a long-
range reconnaissance group.
After five years as a platoon leader, I was deployed to
Szombathely and was promoted to company commander. I spent
three years there. During that time, I was sent to the military
academy in Budapest, where I spent three years. I became a
middle military manager. After graduation, I was sent back to
Szolnok and became the chief of staff of the long-range recon-
naissance battalion. I spent four years there. Those years were
difficult, especially the last one, because the Yugoslavian War
started and the Romanian revolution took place as well. So, my
unit and my soldiers were deployed to the Hungarian border in
order to reinforce the Hungarian border guard. We monitored
and carried out reconnaissance, but only on the Hungarian side
of the border.
In 1991, I received a call from police headquarters to join the
counterterrorist unit as a deputy commander. After an interview
with the chief commissioner of the Hungarian National Police,
General András Túrós, I accepted his offer and I was transferred
to the Hungarian National Police on 1 August 1991. My first task
was to organize and assist security for Pope John Paul II, who
Brigadier General Dr. József Boda, Director General 41
was visiting Hungary at that time. My counterterrorist unit was

responsible for securing the location he was visiting.
Compared to the army, the police was professional, but the
atmosphere and the thinking and even the job were very differ-
ent. To be honest, it was quite difficult to integrate myself with the
police service in the beginning.
I was then sent to the United States of America for a month’s
counterterrorist training. It was “real” counterterrorist training on
VIP protection and tactical shooting. There were twenty-four from
Hungary. Sixteen qualified as excellent from my unit, so they were
well trained on shooting and sharpshooting. Map reading was my
profession before, so that aspect was not such a challenge.
The next year, I was asked again by the police commissioner to
lead the Hungarian contingent with one hundred policemen to
Cambodia for a UN peacekeeping mission. I became a so-called
expert of UN peacekeeping missions during that fifteen-month
mission. So in the following years I was involved in every UN
peacekeeping mission in which Hungary took part.
ZM: What did you find most attractive in the police service?
JB: In the beginning, the motivation was the counterterrorist service, because
I was always looking for real challenges. As a young officer I liked
very much the different kinds of operations that I had to plan and
carry out with my unit. It was a very well-trained unit. Most of the
officers came from my former parachute unit and I knew many of
them before as conscripts. I think it was a good combination of
professionals and newcomers. I was always dreaming about going
to a UN mission. It came to the police service in 1992, so that was
the second thing that attracted me to the police service.
Changes Experienced
ZM: How do you see the Hungarian Police in terms of its evolution?
JB: The Hungarian Police became very unstable during the changes at the
beginning of the 1990s. Police officers were not sure what they were
allowed to do. I had a lot of difficulty in disciplining my 100 police
officers in Cambodia during that transition period in Hungary. I
had to send home four of my police officers for disciplinary rea-
sons. After this the Hungarian contingent understood that they
had to follow the rules and the regulations, not only of the UN, but
of Hungary as well. Year after year the police and the Ministry of
Interior paid more attention to education and they introduced new
training for the police; hence, the situation improved.
Besides the internal problems of the police, political influence

also undermined developments, as it did in some other countries
in the region as well. Especially during election time, the police
were used by some politicians for security reasons. It was always
something in the toolbox preferred by politicians, but it was not
helping the stabilization and improvement of the police. Even the
management of the police was changing. The average time the
chiefs spent in their position was approximately one or two years,
since they were often rotated. Such short terms were not enough
for major developments or for carrying through the changes. The
attitude of Hungarian police officers was always a key issue in my
training activities. I was involved, together with U.S. colleagues, in
a community policing training for Hungarian police officers. It was
a one-week training course with experienced U.S. colleagues. We
learned that problems were deeper in the countryside of Hungary.
To that end, we tried to provide training for county chiefs and also
for the city commanders in the ILEA, for we believed that those
police leaders could have a direct impact on the whole system if
they choose to.
ZM: How did 9/11 terror attacks change your work?
JB: After those global threats most of the police forces and the law enforce-
ment agencies focused on counterterrorism. We provided more
training and did more research. We also reinforced our security
system or security measures in our compound, because I was work-
ing together with Americans, so we had to introduce new security
measures upon entering and leaving the compound. We also tai-
lored our international training programs according to the experi-
ences of 9/11. We organized more counterterrorism training. We
included this counterterrorist training as part of the peacekeeping
training.
ZM: Did you experience more emphasis on international police cooperation
after that?
JB: Of course. Mainly with Americans, but also other countries were affected.
For instance, Russia requested more cooperation.
ZM: Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the development of the police in
Hungary?
JB: I can say that the Hungarian Police went through a lot of changes and
reforms. Most of them provided better training and equipment, as
well as more knowledge for the Hungarian police officers. I think
those changes were mainly positive. I have to repeat that the politi-
cal involvement and the use of police bodies during election time
was something dissatisfactory.
ZM: Moving on to your personal policing philosophy, what is your idea

about the role of the police in Hungary?
JB: Though I graduated from the criminal faculty of the police college, I
have not worked as a regular police officer in Hungary, because
the counterterrorist unit was like a paramilitary policing service. I
have never worked as a station commander or in a similar executive
position. It was the UN police and peacekeeping missions that gave
me a lot of experience on how to deal with day-to-day policing. My
activities in those missions were mainly assisting and supervising
the local police and working together with my Hungarian and for-
eign police colleagues.
I personally believe in democratic policing, and I believe in com-
munity policing too. I always tried to introduce these two main
approaches when I got to different countries, such as Cambodia,
Mozambique, Bosnia, and Georgia. I mainly undertook middle
and higher management positions. I think these missions were
very successful and we trained a lot of local police officers on these
issues. After I came back from the Bosnia-Herzegovina UNIPTF
mission, I was transferred from the counterterrorist unit to the
International Law Enforcement Academy. I tried to learn more
about police education or training. Fortunately, I had a diploma on
pedagogy from the military college, so I had the basic knowledge
of teaching, learning, and psychology. Actually, it was the second
milestone in my life, when I left the operational field for the train-
ing dimension and became the Hungarian director of the ILEA.
ZM: You were serving in a paramilitary policing unit and yet at the same
time you taught community-oriented policing. Did your interna-
tional experience and activities affect your dedication to the com-
munity-oriented policing style?
JB: I think so, because I learned the effectiveness of this kind of policing
style. If you approach the local people with the idea of involving
them in their own safety and working together with the police, you
always get better results. It is better than trying to be very strict
police officers and only focusing on prevention or on instructing
the local citizens or issuing fines for different kind of incidents.
That is not the way to build the confidence of local citizens.
ZM: You met many police leaders and managers coming from different
areas of Hungary and abroad. Did you have any conflict because of
your opinion about democratic policing or community policing?
JB: I met different kinds of reactions. Most of the police officers could or can
be convinced on the effectiveness of this kind of policing. In some
missions abroad I had to deal with war criminals and criminals
within the local police. Sometimes we were in a situation faced with
those persons when the negotiation could not be stopped or the
relationship with them had to be maintained. Here in Hungary, I
did not have much conflict with my fellow officers, mainly because
my international experiences gave me credibility.
ZM: What was your impression about acceptance of your ideas about the
international experiences and your philosophy of policing?
JB: There were diverse responses from police chiefs. Some managers or
leaders supported the idea and assisted me to share that with
others. I was invited several times to the chief commissioner’s
meeting and I had the chance to talk about my mission and
training experiences. And there was a lot we did in ILEA too.
Some of the chiefs of the police considered me as not capable
of running a police station because of my military, paramili-
tary, and foreign service background. Sometimes I had a conflict
with one of my superiors, when I was in Bosnia-Herzegovina. I
was the deputy chief of counterterrorism during my stay with
the mission when my chief back home stepped down. I came
home and applied for the position and I was told by my newly
appointed boss that I was not capable because I did not know
what the difference was between a police station and police
headquarters. As a matter of fact, I was leading a regional police
force in Bosnia-Herzegovina at that time. So there were different
kinds of leaders with diverse approaches.
ZM: Have you ever been faced with the expectation of police officers that
military policing should be prioritized?
JB: Not really, because there has been a lot of positive change in the police
organization. After the democratic transition, the new government
decided to appoint new police chiefs and it was based on appli-
cations and competition. A new and young generation of police
officers became middle-level managers and got in higher positions
later on. Most of them had similar ideas and they were very happy
to rebuild a democratic and community-oriented police force.
Many of these officers were coming to the ILEA for training. We
had a lot of exchange programs and they were really motivated to
change and follow the European and American style of policing.
ZM: What do you consider as the greatest problem in Hungarian policing?

JB: Currently, there are several problems. The first is the financing—not
only the budget for the police as a whole, but also the salaries.
The low salaries are problematic. Honestly speaking, it leads to an
increasing corruption rate among the police officers, especially the
noncommissioned officers, who have to work among the citizens.
Bribing can easily happen, especially with the traffic control offi-
cers. These things are well known by the people. These things are
very bad for the reputation of the police.
In addition, there is the problem of the acceptance of police offi-
cers in the community. We are not that popular, because of the
political games of the last years and because in 2006 the police
were used for political reasons. That spoiled the reputation of the
police. We need to rebuild our reputation in the community. The
new government and the new leadership of the police are trying
to introduce new methods. They are trying to change to a citizen-
oriented policing style. A helping type of police is needed and not
a police that goes only for punishment. There are many tasks keep-
ing police officers busy and because of that they can hardly con-
centrate on the real police jobs. For example, there are so-called
community police officers in the villages and in the small towns,
and they were ordered to work on different kinds of gatherings or
demonstrations instead of doing their daily job of dealing with
local citizens.
ZM: What do you think is working well in the law enforcement organization?
JB: Two years ago the previous chief of police introduced the code of ethics
for the Hungarian Police, which was very important. Most of the
young police officers and most of the leaders are very proud of their
job and their uniform. So I think a code like that really motivated
them. I believe that despite some shortcomings of the police ser-
vice, the majority of the police officers are working for the citizens
and they believe that they can do more and better with effective
leaders. It is a crucial issue to have effective and well-trained police
leaders, and we are on that way. The new government is working on
the new training system and the new management training struc-
ture as well. Actually, there is progress on a new education system
for the whole law enforcement area. This could be the beginning
of a brighter future for the police. The young generation now at
school or university is becoming motivated to become good police
officers.
ZM: Which problem(s) can be solved easily and which will be the most
difficult?
JB: In this global economic crisis it will not be easy to increase salaries suf-
ficient for the well-being and satisfaction of the police community.
It is a political question as well. The last pay raise was in 2002. That
would be the easiest way to have a better and disciplined police.
The prime minister has promised that when the financial situa-
tion gets better in Hungary, the payment of the law enforcement
agencies will be revised. In addition, we must decrease the level of
corruption with good internal controls.
Reforms, development, or any changes are not easy. It would be
difficult to find a state or even a community in which there is not a
group or individuals that are seeking some form of domestic secu-
rity sector reform, whether that reform is community oriented,
principled, or simply self-serving.
The Ministry of Interior is putting together different kinds of
programs and using different kinds of international assistance.
For instance, the establishment of the Roma International Law
Enforcement Association is a good example. As we all know, a huge
number of the Roma people in Hungary are living in inappropri-
ate conditions. They do not have jobs so they can hardly keep their
family. In some areas they have lots of problems. In some places
they are very violent or they commit crimes or disturb other citi-
zens. Lots of incidents happened in the past and also lots of crimes
were committed on the basis of ethnic origin. It shows an increas-
ing tension between the different groups of the population. This
became very critical and more serious not only in Hungary but
also in Central Europe. That is why the Hungarian EU presidency
initiated a new Roma strategy for the EU. The recruitment of the
new police officers from ethnic minorities will help in solving
these problems.
There is another project in which I was asked to assist. It is a new
community policing project financed by the Hungarian Ministry
of Interior. This started in 2011, and I think there are good signs
that it will continue the progress of democratic policing. It focuses
on those police stations where there is a higher crime rate. And
we also have a neighborhood watch association led by a former
chief of police. They have about 90,000 members nationwide. They
are assisting the police officers even in those villages where we do
not have police. They do not have the right to carry out investiga-
tions, but they are provided with communication tools and they
are patrolling their areas, and when there are incidents they call
the police.
ZM: Would you please share your opinion about the importance of interna-
tional relations?
JB: I started policing in 1992, as I mentioned already. When I joined the ILEA
in 1997, I had more opportunities to work together with police offi-
cers coming from different countries. Actually, the teachers and
the trainers were coming from the U.S. The students were from
the former communist countries. It was interesting to see the dif-
ferences and also the common topics they were discussing during
their free time.
It was also very significant when I attended the FBI National
Academy course for three months. I spent eleven weeks together
with American and international police officers in the Quantico
FBI academy. The world opened up for me and I could under-
stand many things afterwards. We had the chance to undertake
joint patrols and criminal investigations with American col-
leagues. We could see how they were working, so we had the
chance to learn the methods and style of U.S. police officers. I
also had the chance to work with Georgian, Russian, Nepalese,
and Indian colleagues and to learn from different cultures.
When I returned home I managed to combine those experiences,
especially on the training field. From 1999, I became the direc-
tor of the International Training Centre (ITC) for the Ministry
of Interior and we had separate training from the ILEA, such
as community policing courses or police peacekeeping training.
Everything was interesting for the former communist countries
we organized.
By 2001, we were invited to the European Police College as
observers, and after Hungary joined the EU in 2004, we became
full members of CEPOL and as a result we organized courses for
other EU member states. I think all these contacts gave lots of
opportunities for different countries to work together on various
levels.
ZM: You experienced the cultures of the post-Soviet and Western countries.
What did you find common and different between these police
communities?
JB: Fighting against crime and criminals is common in every society.
Criminal investigators easily understood each other, even when
they did not speak the same language. For example, we all know
how to conduct an exercise on car searching or planning police
operations. I can say that in the beginning our students were better
educated than the trainers coming from Western countries. Most

of our students had a university degree or law degree. American
trainers came from different police stations, and they were teach-
ing practical knowledge to their students. The difference was
mainly in the structures and also the thinking. Western countries’
police officers and the American police officers were trained prag-
matically and they grew up in the community policing culture.
The communist countries’ police officers believed that they had
the right to instruct the citizens and to tell them what to do or not
to do. Their citizens did not hesitate to follow the orders of local
police officers. In the Western countries, sometimes police have no
rights even to stop locals if they are not breaking the law.
ZM: Do you think that Hungary’s position as a bridge between West and
East has meant that it has had an impact on democratic policing in
Eastern Europe and countries in transition?
JB: We have now two academies in Budapest: the Middle European Police
Academy (MEPA) and the International Law Enforcement
Academy (ILEA). Hungarian police officers are teaching in both.
Because of the successful operation of ILEA Budapest, four ILEA
academies were opened by the U.S. State Department around the
world. The former communist system gave us a good experience
and now we are accepted in many EU “candidate” or transitioning
countries. I have visited many of them and assisted personally in
the reforms of their police education; for example, in Montenegro
and Macedonia. I also sent out our Hungarian experts to many
countries in order to share our experiences and to explain our
understanding on democratic policing and police training systems.
Once, I spent two weeks in Baku, Azerbaijan, for training the
internal security company and the station commanders as well
as the deputy station commanders. We taught them how to pro-
vide protection and organize the security of public events such as
a demonstration. We trained them how to provide security in a
democratic way, because a few years ago they fired into the crowd
instead of using tear gas or other peaceful methods. We provided
training for trainers and for the commanding officers.
ZM: How can the Hungarian Police benefit from the international activities?
JB: I have always been asked about this. I used to say that the Hungarian
Police is much more popular abroad than in Hungary! I think it
is mainly because of the performance or the experience and the
professionalism of the Hungarian officers. The feedback we receive
from different missions or other events organized by the interna-
tional community is always like that.
ZM: How does CEPOL impact the police in the EU and in Hungary?
JB: The strategic documents regarding European police education show an

increasing importance given to public security and safety in the
region. The changing perceptions of security and the increasing
expectations of the citizens have brought huge challenges to member
states’ law enforcement agencies and necessitated greater cooperation.
I do believe that there is an opportunity not to be missed. When
we analyze the benefits resulting from increased operational and
legal integration at the EU level, we should also ask ourselves
whether these can be further optimized by envisaging a stronger
European training dimension that can best equip our officers to
cooperate and make best use of the available instruments, prepar-
ing the hearts and minds as well as the skills of our law enforce-
ment officials. After observing closely what CEPOL has been able
to achieve through the years in spite of its limited resources, I am
confident that this may be the case.
The major social and global development issues that face the
world today are to do with failures of human security. Whether we
are focusing on economic development, poverty reduction, justice
reformation, or counterterrorism, the solutions are improved levels
of human security. Individuals within any society need basic secu-
rity to maintain shelter, secure food, conduct work, and exchange
goods and services. Within a governed society, the first level of
security is frequently provided by the state’s police officers. It is
therefore critical to any development initiative that police services
effectively provide a basic level of security for the community. This
requires a commitment to fundamental human rights, a sense of
professionalism, and an effective command-and-control structure.
Today, we are familiar with talk of globalization, but its social
and regional impacts on crime and law enforcement are often for-
gotten. Police leaders around the world are faced with both local
and global expectations of their work, even though they may be
struggling with limited resources for funding, training, equip-
ment, and even staffing.
The Stockholm Program1 has given a clear picture to the EU
members that Europe is dedicated to the protection and the respect
of human rights. In this context, CEPOL is a good example of a
deepening cooperation among police forces and officers. In the ten
years of its operation, CEPOL has proved that learning together
and from each other creates a common language among the par-
ticipating individuals and their organizations. CEPOL has become
a platform for the member states to exchange ideas and experiences
and to lay the foundations for future joint activities on policing. It
has helped to develop a common European policing culture. For
the future, we need to keep in mind the evolving role of the police
forces. One of these new responsibilities for the police is commu-
nity development. This requires special skills and competencies
from the law enforcement agencies and new strategies on policing
styles. Developing the knowledge, competencies, and skills will be
the future tasks of the police education.
CEPOL has been tasked with addressing European police coop-
eration through learning since its foundation. An essentially inter-
governmental body at first, it was established as an EU agency in
2005. Achievements have been many, and their impact cannot
be underestimated. Thousands of police officers from European
as well as developing countries have benefited from the range of
products delivered by CEPOL, which have included courses, semi-
nars, conferences, common curricula, exchange programs, all
underpinned by an electronic network to facilitate access to these
and other training tools. I am convinced that these instruments
should be maintained and improved, as they have surely led to a
better understanding of the European aspects of law enforcement
cooperation and their complexities. The exchange program has
offered police officers the opportunity to familiarize themselves
with other member states’ ways of conducting business, and this
has led to improvements at the organizational and individual level.
A renewed “student exchange” type program could lead the way
to further achievements. Another key achievement, perhaps less
immediately tangible or measurable yet crucial, is the contribu-
tion CEPOL has made to building confidence and trust among law
enforcement organizations and individual professionals.
Looking Ahead
ZM: What should the police focus on in the future? Which directions should
be followed?
JB: In the case of the police, they are frequently the most visible agents of
the state, authorized to exercise the state’s greatest powers over
its citizens—those being the power of detention and in certain
circumstances the power to take life. Because the police are the
most visible arm of the state, the public generally perceives that an
accountable police service is one that has effective civilian control
and oversight. A fair assessment is that good policing equals good
governance. We are on the right track.
We have to serve the citizens. This is the main responsibility of
the police for the future. We have to protect and assist them, and
help all, from the child to the elderly. That is the task in the future
for the police. They need, of course, education that is tailored to
these different changes in the security situation, nationally and
internationally. They also need to improve technically and follow
new technical developments, especially concerning the Internet.
More research is needed as well.
What is currently missing and I personally am working on is
the history of the Hungarian Police. We must take care about the
traditions. We have some difficulties in this area since we do not
have a law enforcement memorial. All the police officers must be
recognized who lost their lives in the protection of their country
and/or the citizens. My aim is, and I managed to convince the
minister too, that by 2014 we will have a law enforcement memo-
rial, including a museum with a visitor center for all law enforce-
ment agencies. There we can teach the young generation about
safety and security. The museum will include all the vehicles and
police equipment which we used in the past. The location should
be in the place where the first Hungarian police barrack was built,
called Mosonyi. That is a project we are putting together currently.
It would, I think, be very good for our reputation and an opportu-
nity for the young generation to learn about the history of different
law enforcement agencies. The Hungarian criminal police began
110 years ago. That is a big event for promoting the tradition of
the Hungarian Police. This is currently missing in the system. The
idea comes from my international experience, for I saw in Western
countries that the police take care about their traditions.
ZM: How about your own current position?
JB: On 1 July 2010, I was appointed by the prime minister, on the recommen-
dation of the minister of interior, to be the director general of the
Special Service for National Security. It is an intelligence service in
Hungary, mainly providing technical intelligence and surveillance
for other law enforcement and intelligence agencies. We support
nine agencies in Hungary, such as the National Police, the Counter-
Terrorist Centre, the Constitution Protection Office, and others.
The task of the Special Service for National Security of Hungary
is the promotion of effectiveness concerning the Hungarian
Republic’s national defense and justice, as well as the prevention
and the uncovering of criminal activities.
The SSNS provides classified and covert information and a data
gathering service, as well as expert support to other national secu-
rity services and law enforcement agencies with legal clearance.
The aim of the SSNS is to defend the fulfillment of the “rule of
law” requirements with full respect to the regulating acts. Its other
important goal is to continuously strengthen the public confidence

in the national security service and activity.
The Special Service for National Security does nothing on its
own initiative; it only acts when other agencies officially request
assistance. Most of these requests need to be authorized by a judge
or by prosecutors.
It was very important from the beginning to define the orga-
nizational strategy for SSNS, so I have created a small group of
people who are responsible to assist the strategy-making process.
The top management had been working on it for months and now
we are very proud to have produced it.
Note
1. The Stockholm Program provides EU guidelines on the topics of protection
of fundamental rights, privacy, and minority rights. It also plans for further
extension of police cooperation through Europol, the establishment of interop-
erability of police databases, and the expansion of the European Gendarmerie
Force.
Charles H. Ramsey,
Commissioner of
the Philadelphia
Police Department,
4
United States
INTERVIEWED BY
CHRISTOPHER CHAPMAN
Contents
Introduction 53
Career 54
Advice on Police Misconduct 64
Conclusion 70
Glossary 70
Introduction
The task of leading and policing large active multicultural city police depart-
ments is among the most complex propositions in U.S. policing today. It is
extremely difficult to educate a large multicultural city population of the
critical need for public safety to be a shared responsibility and that all within
the city must work collaboratively to make the city a safer place.
According to Michael A. Nutter (mayor of Philadelphia), “Public safety is
at the heart of what any great city must provide to its citizens.” A significant
portion of a large city police officer’s time is allocated to addressing serious
violent crime and drug-related activities, while still responding to citizens’
requests for nonemergency police assistance.
The Philadelphia Police Department, like other large active multicultural
city police departments (New York, Houston, Los Angeles, Detroit, Newark,
53
and Chicago), has been the topic of national media attention related to alle-
gations of police brutality, departmental scandals, and corruption. However,
in spite of the many challenges and changes, large active multicultural city
police departments continue to make significant progress in reducing seri-
ous violent crime and drug-related activities and are holding their police offi-
cers accountable to the highest level of integrity.
Charles H. Ramsey, affectionately referred to as the “godfather of U.S.
policing” by other U.S. police leaders, is the leader of the fourth-largest
police department (Philadelphia) in America. He oversees a force of over
6,600 sworn police officers who serve over 1.5 million people. Commissioner
Ramsey has more than four decades of policing experience, starting his
policing career in the city of Chicago, advancing to the rank of deputy super-
intendent before leaving to lead the nation’s capital city police department,
Washington, D.C. In addition, Commissioner Ramsey serves as the president
of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which is comprised of the sixty-three
largest law enforcement agencies in the United States and the seven largest in
Canada. The association serves more than 76.5 million people with a work-
force of 177,150.
The interview took place in April 2011 in Commissioner Ramsey’s office
conference room, which displays life-size photos of police officers who gave
their lives in the line of duty while under the commissioner’s watch. The
commissioner comes across as one who knows how to get things done, a well-
polished police professional who is not afraid to tell it like it is, and a very
honest and thoughtful global citizen. The commissioner openly and honestly
addressed some of the most serious issues facing law enforcement today.
Career
CC: Commissioner, please explain a little bit about your background in law
enforcement.
CR: I’m a native Chicagoan, born and raised. I began my career in law
enforcement at eighteen years old when I became a Chicago police
cadet. I worked my way through the ranks, served in a variety of
assignments and positions. In 1998, I was the deputy superinten-
dent in the Chicago Police Department. I was one of the finalists
for the position of superintendent and was not successful, but soon
after I received a call from a search firm in Washington, D.C., ask-
ing if I would be interested in a police chief’s position in D.C., and
I took it.
CC: Did you know when you were growing up that you wanted to be in law
enforcement?
Charles H. Ramsey, Commissioner 55
CR: No, I never once thought about being a police officer that I can recall; I
just kind of accidentally became one. I was working in a grocery
store, right out of high school in 1967. There were a couple of cops
from the Chicago Police Department that used to be there when
we closed because one of their sisters was a cashier. It was a rough
area in the city, and they took a liking to me and my buddy who
worked there, and once when we were talking they told me about
the police cadet program. What was really attractive about it was
the fact that the city paid your college tuition. At the time I was a
freshman at the University of Illinois and I was paying my own way
through school. I actually had thoughts of becoming a doctor, so I
was in kind of a pre-medicine curriculum. But once I came on as
a police cadet, all that changed. I just fell in love with law enforce-
ment. My father drove a bus for thirty years in the Chicago Transit
Authority. My mother was a nurse. A very solid family. Great par-
ents. They did all they could for us, but I just had no exposure to
law enforcement.
CC: What would you say about your career surprised you the most?
CR: I don’t know if I was surprised, but early on I knew I wanted to advance
through the ranks, so probably the most surprising thing was not
making it to the top position in the Chicago Police Department but
becoming police chief in Washington, D.C., and now police com-
missioner in Philadelphia. I never would have guessed that I would
have left Chicago.
CC: Why is it that you would have never guessed you would leave Chicago?
CR: Because Chicago is my hometown. I’m third generation Chicagoan. I
never saw myself going to another police department.
CC: Based upon your expectations of policing when you first started
compared to what it is now, has law enforcement lived up to
your expectations?
CR: Yes, I think so; it certainly has evolved over the years. When I first
entered law enforcement, technology was incredibly limited in the
early 1970s, late 1960s. There was a lot of segregation within the
police department. There were no women in the field [on patrol];
in Chicago women either were youth officers or matrons. A matron
is someone who ran the female lock-up [jail]. Those were the only
positions women held on the sworn side, and then, of course, in
the mid-1970s they entered into the actual work forces, full-fledged
police officers assigned to field duties. That was a huge change. So
I’ve seen changes over the years take place, but you know, when
you’re living in that time, that era, it is what it is. But it pretty much
has been what I expected.
Changes Experienced
CC: What do you see as the most important changes that have taken place in
policing during your career?
CR: Moving away from what we call the traditional model of policing where
the whole emphasis is on rapid response to calls for service, preven-
tive patrol, and after-the-fact criminal investigation. Moving to a
more proactive mode and involving the community more in terms
of actually forming real partnerships and collaborations. When I
entered law enforcement, everything was, “police do this, police
do that.” If you have a crime problem, hire a few more cops. Get
some more cops in the area and we’ll fix the problem, as opposed to
really working as a partnership with the community. I think that
was a huge change philosophically in police departments across
the country. The change started in the 1970s, but most depart-
ments did not catch on until the 1990s.
The use of technology—what we refer to as CompStat [com-
puter/comparative statistics] or processes like them, where we
are actually in real time looking at trends and patterns and then
making deployment decisions based on data analysis, was a huge
advance from what we used to do with pin maps and reading
reports. I used to get computer-generated crime analysis when I
was a district commander in Chicago. That was great; however, the
problem was it would be July and I would be receiving the crime
information from February. The data was not timely at all and it
was always in an unreadable format. It wasn’t readily accessible, so
you couldn’t make critical decisions in real time; but now you can.
With evidence-based policing we are working with the academic
community and we are starting to learn about what really works
and, just as important, what doesn’t work. So we are not wasting
resources. We can target a problem with a specific strategy that
has been proven to work, and that’s important, especially in these
times when you have limited resources. We don’t have 100 cops to
put toward a particular problem.
CC: You mentioned community policing. Can you have true community
policing with intelligence-based policing, without making com-
munity policing a public relations affair?
CR: We just recently worked with Dr. Radcliffe from Temple University,
where we identified 120 intersections in the city that had a lot of
crime and disorder violations occurring in public space. Sixty were
controlled areas. We took another sixty where we put foot patrols—
these are small areas, two blocks by two blocks. We had about a
22 percent decline in crime. It was right in the neighborhoods; it

wasn’t just a commercial corridor. People loved it. One thing we
proved was that foot patrol can be a very effective strategy. It’s not
public relations; it can be an effective strategy for dealing with
crime, and it also helped build relationships. For years we made
the mistake of putting cops in cars, and they roll up their windows
and drive 30 mph down the street. Nobody knows who they are
and they don’t know who the people are. That’s not conducive to
building any kind of partnerships or collaborations. I go to com-
munity meetings all the time and people want this, people want
that. Ultimately I have to decide what is the best strategy or tactic
to use to deal with a particular problem. We don’t have enough
cops to put one on every corner. We have to explain our limitations
to the community, and sometimes we say “yes,” sometimes we say
“no, we simply can’t do that.” That doesn’t mean that you can’t have
a good partnership with the community and work with the com-
munity to solve crime problems.
CC: Overall, has the quality of policing improved or declined from when
you started?
CR: It has improved tremendously in a lot of different ways. I mentioned the
use of technology, holding people accountable for crime conditions
in their area of responsibility. Those are all positive things, very posi-
tive things. I think we’re light years from where we used to be.
CC: Going back to the individuals that make a department, do you think an
individual who has a college degree makes for a better police officer
than someone who has, let’s say, real-world experience?
CR: It’s a hard question to answer because you will find exceptions on either
end of the spectrum. I’m personally in favor of education; in fact,
we just raised the standards here in Philadelphia. Previously nine-
teen years of age and high school degree or high school equivalent
were all that were needed to come on the job (and obviously a clean
background). Now it’s going to be, beginning 2012, twenty-one
years of age, at least sixty college semester hours, and three years of
driving experience. We think driving experience is something that
is very important. If we are bringing on eighteen- and nineteen-
year-old kids that have never driven a car before and then you give
them a Crown Vic [Ford Crown Victoria car] with lights and sirens,
we should not have to wonder why they are damaging the vehicles.
So we check their driving record and things of that nature. I believe
some college education is good because of the age in which we live,
the complexity of policing. I don’t think asking for sixty college
credit hours is too much. Now, would a person be better with a
four-year degree? I don’t know. I guess we could argue either way.
If nothing else they would be older and more mature perhaps. A

college degree doesn’t mean they necessarily will turn into the best
police officer. We have made some allowances for people serving in
the military. They still have to obtain sixty college credit hours, but
we give them the advantage of at least being eligible to come on the
job. This is just a boost for being a veteran. They have chosen that
path, as opposed to going to college, so I don’t know how to answer
that. It all comes down to that individual, whether one makes a
better police officer than another.
CC: Now I would like to focus on your personal policing philosophies. You
mentioned before that police have a lot of different roles, but if you
were speaking to an international audience, what would you say
the primary role of police in any society should be?
CR: Preserving the peace. I mean, you’re a peacekeeper. You’re there to estab-
lish and maintain order. In our democratic society you are there
to uphold constitutional rights of individuals. I think that is very
important, although it is rarely mentioned by police officers or police
administrators as being one of their primary functions. In a demo-
cratic society we should see ourselves as protectors of constitutional
rights. We’re not there to violate or somehow take away your rights.
Granted, you arrest an individual and take them into custody, and all
of those kinds of things, but it must be justifiable. I think you are also
protecting the constitutional and civil rights of those individuals that
are being harmed by the individual who is being taken or removed
from the streets. So I see that as being the main function of police.
CC: What type of calls for services would be better handled by another
entity, separate from the police?
CR: That’s a hard question. We’re a twenty-four-hour, seven-day-a-week ser-
vice, so people tend to call 911 [emergency access number] for a lot
of stuff, not all of which are necessarily a police-related function. I
don’t know if the community would ever be at a point where they
would be able to make those kinds of judgment calls without call-
ing 911. I think what’s important for us is for us to know where that
person should be directed and be the link that connects the citizen
to the service that they really need. Often times the cop just doesn’t
know. They see something going on within a household—maybe
the citizen needs assistance from Social Services or they need some
other form of intervention or help—and as police we tend to see
it as either violating the law or not violating the law. If they did
violate the law, we’re going to lock them up; if they didn’t, we don’t
do anything and we walk out. Yet the household is still at risk, and
the citizen still needs help. We don’t adequately train our officers
in what other services are available, what they should be telling
the citizen so they can get into contact with the correct services.
We are always going to be seen as the general practitioner. We are
needed to go in and assess the situation and then determine which
way it ought to go. I’m guilty of the same thing. I don’t think we’ve
made officers aware here in Philadelphia to the extent that we need
to, but I do think we’re better at it because of the collaboration and
the partnerships we are developing at the operational level.
CC: If you had to pick one, I know it may be difficult, what do you think
should be the preferred priorities and strategies for policing?
CR: Twenty years ago, twenty-five years ago, I would have said violent crimes,
no question about it—murder, rape, robbery. I was trained that
way, oriented to that. One time my parents’ house was burglarized.
It was the house I grew up in; we lived in that house for many years.
When my parents came home it was fortunate that the burglars
weren’t there, because the way things were, these guys will come
in on an elderly couple quicker than they will anything else. They
found somebody had been in the house and taken the TV, been
through the drawers, taken this, that, and the other. My parents felt
so violated and their sense of security had been shattered to a point
where it made me understand and appreciate the impact of prop-
erty crime on people. They wound up moving. They couldn’t live
there any longer—the house we grew up in. We had to move out of
it to the suburbs, that’s how bad it affected them. When as police
we have our crime briefings, we talk about crime, we’re looking at
an icon that represents the particular type of crime. But there is
a real human being behind that icon you’re looking at whose life
has been changed forever because of crime; whether it’s property
crime, violent crime, or whatever. For that person, their situation is
as important as anybody else’s. I think that is the attitude we have
to have. And, of course, the media plays up violent crime more
than they play up anything else. What I mean is the job is about
service. It’s about serving others. That’s what it’s about.
CC: I would like to turn our attention to problems and successes. In your
experience, what policies or programs have worked well and which
have not?
CR: I don’t know so much about policy, but as far as strategies, I think
CompStat. We call them crime briefings here, as they are a more
tactical approach than most CompStats are. I think they have been
very effective in terms of seeing things in real time and having the
ability to deploy and redeploy resources as you see fit. It also helps
when we are able to identify very quickly the people who are out
there doing harm, so that feeds into the intelligence-led policing
and evidence-based policing. I think all of those things have had
a tremendous impact and have taken us light years from where we
once were. But probably the most important thing in this change
has been our acceptance that the community does have a role
beyond eyes and ears. They can actually make a difference. We can
take back the neighborhood, but only they can sustain it long term.
We may have to help organize them in some cases. However, in
many cases, they are already organized to the point where they can
step up and take care and deal with the issues on their own, with
police support. Allowing citizens to take the lead in solving com-
munity problems I think is probably the biggest shift in thinking
in policing during the time I have been involved in policing. In the
1960s and 1970s, that was not the mindset. Even going into the
1980s in most departments, it was not the mindset at all.
CC: What would you consider the greatest problem facing policing today?
CR: Politics is always going to be around, and sometimes it works in your
favor and sometimes it doesn’t. Budgets some years are better than
other years. You can’t cry about it. You just gotta make do and do
what you gotta do. I think the most difficult challenge is continu-
ing to build relations with many of our poor communities, our
minority communities, communities that feel disenfranchised. I
think that continues to be a struggle for us. The communities that
need us the most are the ones that trust us the least, and that’s
troubling. That is very troubling. And, man, that’s a difficult one.
CC: Why do you think that is?
CR: Well, because one, we carry a lot of baggage and rightfully so, because
we have some police officers that abuse folks. It’s complicated. For
years and years and years, and it continues today, many of our
communities don’t feel that police departments are adequately
diverse. They lack people of color, females, and others that really
grew up in certain communities and can relate to certain com-
munities in a different way. That is a concern that I think a lot of
people have. Where is most crime occurring? Most crime occurs
in poor communities. Where do we have the bulk of our police
officers assigned? Poor communities. Where do most of the arrests
take place? Poor communities. Who is being arrested? People in
poor communities, their relatives, their friends. It’s not the best
of situations to begin with. So you have to work extremely hard
to maintain good relationships with decent, law-abiding folks who
live in these neighborhoods. You can’t have police officers that
aren’t in touch with the community and think that everybody in a
given neighborhood is bad, or every kid, every teenager is a gang-
banger. A lot of the baggage comes from the years in which our
officers were not in touch with the community. We weren’t try-
ing to engage on a positive level. We were either writing a ticket
or writing somebody up [arresting]. That’s why I think the foot
patrols are excellent in building public trust. All of my officers
when they graduate from the academy start on foot patrol. They
don’t see a car for almost a year. They start at foot patrol right in
the neighborhoods; all of them.
CC: Why is that?
CR: Because that’s the way to build relationships. That is the way you get
to know communities. You can’t do it driving down the street at
30 mph. When you start walking down these side streets and get
to know people sitting out on the front porch that want to have a
conversation with you, offer you a glass of ice tea or something,
you find out that not everybody is bad. You build relationships.
And in a city like Philadelphia and a lot of big cities, you can grow
up in one part of the city and never be exposed to some of the stuff
in another part of the city. Just because you’re from here doesn’t
mean you understand the dynamics of what is going on in a given
community. And if you are from that community, it doesn’t mean
that you actually understand some of the darker sides of that com-
munity, because you may not have been a part of it. It’s probably
why you’re a cop; you can become a cop as opposed to something
else. So you can’t make those kinds of assumptions. So I think it’s
important that we break down barriers. But we break down barri-
ers one person at a time and it comes from personal interactions. So
the next time you are in that car and you see a group of kids on the
corner, you know that’s the basketball team practicing, that’s not a
group of gangbangers standing on the corner waiting to do some
harm, because you know the kids. You know what they’re about.
You know where they’re from. You may stop and say, “Hey, what’s
going on. Where are you playing next?” It’s a different dynamic
that takes place. It comes from getting to know people. And I think
part of the problem is that for years we just policed communities;
we never bothered to get to know the community.
CC: Excellent. What problems in policing did you find the most difficult to
deal with?
CR: That to me is the single most difficult thing—building relationships in

these communities.
CC: What is the easiest thing to change within the police department?
CR: I’ve been a police chief since 1998 and I have yet to find anything easy
to change in a police department. If you know of one, please let me
know because I would love to know.
CC: Well, why is change so difficult?
CR: Police organizations are traditional organizations. People who are
attracted to this business, some of them are people who like struc-
ture. We have rules, we have regulations, we have all of this struc-
ture. We tend not to change unless there is pressure to change.
There is change all around us, but we don’t look at it that way. There
is a certain comfort in doing something the same way all the time.
I think that people in policing are far more receptive to it now than
they were, but I still think that any real significant change is dif-
ficult in a police organization. There is just a lot of resistance to
it. And in some cases, because of unions, you can’t change things
because it is changing the work rules and that can be an issue.
Theory and Practice
CC: Do you think there is a difference between policing in action and polic-
ing written about in textbooks?
CR: Sure there is. There are always some differences. Some books are
based on realities of what is going on in the streets, while others
are written from a theoretical standpoint where the researcher/
academic has no real understanding of what takes place on the
street. I think it is important that researchers and practitioners
work together to form an understanding of each other’s perspec-
tives. Whatever the topic is, they need to understand it not only
from the research perspective, but they need to be on the ground
living it and understanding. It is complex and there are dynamics
that if you don’t really appreciate it and understand it, it’s hard
to capture in a sterile environment. You have to get your hands
dirty, get out there and see it for yourself, some of the stuff that is
going on. Now I think more and more academics and researchers
are starting to do that, and that’s a good thing, but there are still
some that would rather come up with a theory. I had a conversa-
tion earlier about something I’m supposed to do at an evidence-
based policing conference. Someone wrote a paper about taking
money away from corrections and giving it to police as being
the right thing to do. They said that the police can have a bigger
impact on preventing crime whereas correctional institutions

don’t really do anything to alter behavior. Therefore, we should
take the money from them and give it to police. I don’t know
where that came from, and there may be some truth to some
parts of it, but I just don’t think that is what you do. I don’t think
it is an either/or proposition. Granted, our correctional institu-
tions don’t do very much to try to rehabilitate the individuals,
legitimately rehabilitate. But just doing it all on the front end of
policing is not the solution either. So, that’s something I have to
address at the conference. But I think that comes from a person
who just didn’t bother to really look into it and see if the money
really matters.
CC: What would you say the relationship should be between boots on the
street and academics; what type of things would be important to
you?
CR: There are too many things that haven’t been researched. I think that
there is always room to continue to research, evaluate, take into
account shifts in attitudes and issues and problems. The relation-
ship we have now with Temple University is a very healthy rela-
tionship. Academic partnerships have helped us enormously with
foot patrol, smart policing that we are involved in and domestic
violence issues. I think academic relationships are very valuable,
we need partnerships, and I think that when we are working with
an academic, it has to be a give and take. In other words, years ago
when I was in Chicago, we worked with Northwestern University
and they were evaluating community policing in Chicago. We
came to an understanding early on that every quarter, as they were
getting ready to write the next part of their research, that we would
receive and review the findings, so that we would know where we
were with certain things. They would give us unbiased feedback;
a chance to look at where we were and how we were doing. We
did not ask them to change what they wrote, but my concern was,
“Don’t look at us for three years and then write a book that I read
five years later about all the things I did wrong.” When something
ain’t working, and if I know it’s not working, then it’s up to me to
fix it. I said, “Now, part of your book is whether or not we fixed it.”
That to me is also an indication of what can work and what doesn’t
work. Northwestern University agreed to that, and I think it was
successful because of that feedback—why some beat meetings were
more successful than others, and training implications, and per-
sonnel implications.
Based upon the feedback provided from Northwestern University
we were able to evaluate the effectiveness of our programs and
make inquiries as to why some strategies worked and others did

not. We thought perhaps some people just weren’t committed to it
and intentionally didn’t try to make it work. There are a whole host
of things to look at, even with the foot patrol. Are these foot patrols
being effective? Are they doing what we thought they would do
when we sat down and talked about it? And if the answer was “yes,”
that’s fine. And if the answer was “no,” then why? Did we pick the
wrong spot? Is the officer not doing what he should be doing? Did
he not make the contacts? Do we have too few of them or too many
of them? Would a bike patrol be better? Whatever the questions
are, you can ask those questions if you know in almost real time
what is going on and what’s not really working. Too often there
was this notion that to keep the research pure, “we can’t divulge
this,” “we can’t divulge that.” Don’t expect me to open my doors to
let researchers just see everything that’s going on and then in five
years from now a book is written slamming me. If it’s not work-
ing, it’s not working, but there’s got to be a partnership between us
and the research because the whole goal is to make policing bet-
ter. Now if I don’t do it, that’s a different thing, and I’m not asking
researchers to change any of the results. It is what it is. But then
four months from now, when the researchers see it again, has there
been any improvement because I will have done X, Y, and Z? And
what impact did X, Y, and Z have on that same meeting that was
all screwed up the first time you saw it? That sort of research helps
everybody.
Advice on Police Misconduct
CC: What advice would you give to a police leader, either in the United States
or in another country, who is the focus of media attention for alle-
gations of police misconduct that are sustained? How should they
respond to the media or the citizens?
CR: Be honest. Don’t try to cover it up because it’s not right. I’ve had the
issue here in Philadelphia. We are right now going through a ter-
rible string of these things, but we are doing everything we can do
to root it out. I have made it clear, it’s going to get worse before it
gets better, because we do have some problems. But that is all part
of getting well. Sometimes you get a little sicker before you start to
really improve. But be honest. Don’t try to sugarcoat it. Don’t try to
cover it up. It is what it is. There are some people that have lost their
values; they’ve lost focus on what they do. You have to reinforce
that. You’re not just speaking to the media. You’re also speaking
to your own people, and you have to be very, very firm in your
approach toward dealing with it, and let people know that you’re
not going to put up with it, you’re going to deal with it. Policing
is a complex and difficult profession. Over the years officers see
so many things that can actually cause them to lose sight of their
values if they’re not careful. For people to say that it hasn’t changed
them, I don’t know where they ever were. It does change you and
make you a bit jaded over time.
But one of the things that I am big on is symbolism, and the
one symbol that I think is for all of us is right here: the badge. So
there’s a couple of things I do. I’ll go back to our recruits. We used
to hire people and the first day they get sworn in, they get their
badge: “Here’s your badge, but you’re not a full-fledged policeman.
You have no arrest powers.” The uniform they used to wear at the
academy was very similar to the actual uniform that is worn after
graduation. I put the kibosh to all of that. They’re in brown khakis
now. They don’t get their badge until they’re almost ready to gradu-
ate; in other words, there’s a rite of passage. You earn the right to
wear the badge, to wear the uniform; it’s not a given. When they
get the badge, they also get with it a listing of all the people that
have worn the badge with honor before them. So they understand
that you’re part of a legacy of service. Some believe it’s the old-
est police department in the United States, although Boston I am
told laid some claim to that. I don’t know. But anyway, if we’re not
the oldest we are one of the oldest, and there is a legacy of service
there. And a lot of people have worn the badge and have worn it
proudly. Your job is to keep that badge untarnished and continue
to wear it with honor and pride until you hand it to the next per-
son. When I have an officer that commits a crime and does some-
thing wrong, we take that badge, melt the badge down, just as we
do with old guns, and then I have a new one made up with that
same number, and that becomes the new badge. When that offi-
cer gets the list of names, the officer who tarnished the badge, his
name doesn’t appear. They will no longer be a part of that legacy
of that badge because they dishonored it. It’s the symbolism, and
the understanding of what it means is important. When we have a
badge ceremony, a family member pins that badge on for the first
time, and that’s what we say to them: think about that, you’ve now
shared that with somebody who means something to you. Don’t
do anything to disgrace that at all. Before the last class of recruits
graduated, we went through a period where we had several officers
that had been protecting drug dealers. I made a video, I talked to
the rank and file, and did media interviews, and it struck me that
we had a group of 180 recruits in the academy and some of these

kids are probably sitting around thinking, “What the hell did I
get into?” Every time they turn on the news there was some new
stuff, and it got me nervous. I went over to the academy to address
them. I told them that’s not what policing is all about. Most of our
people are doing the job and doing it right. But what I also told
them was that I was giving them a homework assignment. I had
them write a short essay. I told them, “Now today you’re in the
academy and soon you will be graduating from the academy. But I
want you to fast forward thirty years and you’ve done thirty years
in the Philadelphia Police Department and now you’re at your
retirement party, and someone is getting up to speak to summarize
your career. I want you to write that speech. What would you want
someone to say about you thirty years from now?” That was their
assignment. And I said to bring it to graduation and they did, and
they had them in envelopes. I didn’t want to collect them. I told
them, “I want you to keep that, I don’t want to read it, I don’t want
anyone else to read it. But as you go through this journey being a
police officer, there are going to be some very challenging times
and things that you will be confronted with. Whenever there is a
moment of doubt, whenever you lose sight of what this is all about,
I want you to pull that letter out and I want you to read it. I want
you to think about it. Am I on track for somebody to honestly say
these words about me thirty years from now? If the answer is yes,
keep doing what you’re doing. If the answer is no, you better stop
and think about it now.” I think that’s important. We don’t think
about those kinds of things and we allow ourselves to get caught up
in this world where there are too many shades of gray. Sometimes
we’ve got to stop and think, and you have to remind yourself that it
is very easy to slip. So I would say, be honest, reinforce your values,
and if you don’t have clearly articulated values, you need to get
some. Ours are “honor, integrity, service.” It’s right on our badge,
but what does that really mean? These five years since I have been
a member of the department, these [pointing to life-size photos of
each officer on his office walls] are my officers that got killed in the
line of duty since I have been police commissioner. That’s sacrifice.
That’s service. That’s honor. I keep them close. I don’t ever want
to forget them. I don’t want to add to that list, for sure, but that
also keeps me grounded. We have officers out here who give up an
awful lot and the families that give up an awful lot for this job. And
you’ve got to keep that close to you. Never forget. I make sure that
when I sit here and make a decision, they’re looking over my shoul-
der and make sure that the things I do are the things that continue
that legacy that you see there. So that’s really the foundation of the
department. Those that betray it, you deal with it. But you’ve got to
be honest, you’ve got to be firm, you’ve got to deal with it, you’ve
got to instill the values and reinforce those values throughout the
time the person is on the job.
CC: Have events post-9/11 affected the way in which you do policing?
CR: Oh, yes, absolutely. I was police chief in Washington, D.C., on 9/11. Talk
about a place to be when something like that is happening. In D.C.,
we always paid a little attention to national events. I’ll call it “home-
land security,” but I had never heard that term until after 9/11. But
because of the president and vice president, we were very security
conscious and even more so after 9/11, there is no question about
that. The same attention applied in D.C. has carried over here. One
of the things about Philly, it’s between New York and D.C.; so the
harder they make New York or D.C., the better Philadelphia looks
[as a target for terrorism]. And we are where it all started, so we
have a lot of prime targets. In fact, we start each morning with
a conference call at 08:10, and the first group that has to report
is Homeland Security. Is there anything going on today? Is there
something we need to know about? Do we have any visiting heads
of state? Have there been any threats to the city? That’s how we
start each day. So, yes, absolutely.
CC: Do events that take place outside of the United States have an effect on
how you do policing?
CR: Yes. If you look in my inner office right now, you would see CNN on.
I keep it on and I see what is going on and where it’s happening,
because we live in a global society now. It’s no longer just New York,
Chicago, Philly. Now what happens in London can affect us. What
is happening in the Middle East can have implications here. So, yes.
CC: Have the days of non-information-sharing ended or are there still law
enforcement organizations that won’t share with others organiza-
tion because they don’t want them to steal the arrest or take away
their glory?
CR: There’s still a bit of that going on. There is a little less of it, but there is
still that little pettiness going on. But with connectivity, the chiefs
all know each other a lot better. I had lunch with Ray Kelly [NYC
police commissioner] two weeks ago. We were both in Washington
for an event and we are very good friends and we stay in touch. I’m
president of the Major Cities Chiefs [MCCA], so we now spend a
lot of time talking about these kinds of issues at our meetings. We

have some internal subcommittees, and a lot of barriers have been
broken down. Not all of them, but many of them.
Democratic Policing
CC: Do we have democratic policing in the United States?

CR: Yes, but some within policing do not think of it as democratic policing.
You reflect what you believe and what you think, and I think one of
the mistakes we made in our profession years ago is when we began
to define ourselves as law enforcement officers. Law enforcement is
just one narrow piece of what we do as police officers. When I use
the term “police officer,” I think of a range of things that we can do,
some of which is enforcing law. Some of it is just helping people—
people that need help and need assistance. It is keeping people free
from harm. It’s all of those kinds of things that go into it. It is a
much broader description, I think, than just law enforcement.
What made me think about it in this way was (I didn’t always
think this way), was when I took over the Washington, D.C.,
Police Department. I had an invitation to visit the U.S. Holocaust
Museum. I was invited by David Friedman from the Anti-
Defamation League in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Holocaust
Museum. It was just a relatively short visit, but it turned out to be
the most powerful experience I have ever had as a police officer,
probably as a person. It was haunting when we went through the
museum. I was with a survivor, a woman by the name of Irene
Weiss. So she is walking with me and she is explaining everything
and what it was really like when she was a teenager going through
that. We came to this big boxcar that was used to transport Jews
into the detention camps. She tells me, “This is like the car my fam-
ily was on,” and they were in there for days at a time, and people
died and were just laying there. It was really a horrible scene. We
walk out and there is this huge photograph, and she points to it
and says, “that’s me right there.” There’s a soldier and he’s got two
lines—one going to the left, one going to the right—and what he
was doing is deciding who was going right to the gas chamber
and who went to work. The guy looked at her for a moment and
couldn’t figure out what to do with her. She was only about thirteen
years old. He sent her mother and her younger sister into the death
line, put her in the work line, and at that point, somebody snapped
a picture. When she pointed to the picture you could look at her
and tell that it was actually her. That’s how powerful an experience
it was. But when I left there, something was bothering me. I didn’t
quite know what it was, so I went back on my own two days later.
I took my time and went through it. And when I looked at the pic-
tures on the wall, what I saw were police officers that were with the
soldiers, rounding up Jews and rounding up people to send them
to the death camps, and it made me think. Here was a democratic
society at one point in time; those police officers had a code of eth-
ics that had all the same stuff that we go through now probably. So
what happened? What made them turn and shift to a point where
they started to participate in the unthinkable? That’s what made
me start thinking about the importance of the role of policing in
a democratic society. Police have been dealing with issues of racial
profiling and all of this other stuff, and every time we would put
together a class to address the issues, it wound up with conflict. We
had white officers on this side, black officers and Latino officers on
that side. People were not talking or listening. It’s just too sensitive
an issue. So I thought about it: we could have a program where we
used the historical event which took place during the Holocaust,
not in the sense of just learning about it, but about police in a dem-
ocratic society, the importance of protecting the constitutional
rights of people, especially groups of people who get isolated for
whatever reason and treated differently from the mainstream. We
could use a historical event that is far enough away in history that
people don’t have frayed nerves about it, but yet is close enough
that we can relate to it. So I sat down with the Anti-Defamation
League. Then we sat down with the Holocaust Museum and came
up with a training program called, “Police in Society: Lessons
from the Holocaust.” We started the training with my department,
my command staff, and now more than 80,000 law enforcement
officers around the country are going through that program. The
U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations has it as mandatory training.
Most of the federal agencies and a lot of the local agencies have
it as a mandatory training. I never thought it would get that big.
From the Holocaust, we start talking about, What about now?
What about this issue of profiling? What are the current issues that
we are dealing with today? The discussions we’ve had have been
remarkable. The whole thing has made me start thinking about the
role of police in a democratic society and the issue of being a pro-
tector of the Constitution, and not that notion that the exclusion-
ary rule and the Fourth Amendment get in our way. People don’t
know what they’re talking about when they claim they ought to be
able to search for anything they want and for whatever reason. We
need to be the protectors, because once you give up the right, you
are not getting it back. And you have to be very careful because
those are my rights too, and my family’s rights. We have an obliga-
tion and a responsibility to make sure that we uphold it and not
abuse the authority that society has given us to be able to take a
person and actually deprive them of certain rights through arrests.
That’s an awesome responsibility that we should not take lightly.
So I really do think that it is important that we have this discus-
sion in the United States. It’s like that old metaphor: we are a thin
blue line. I have said it publicly in speeches: we are this thin blue
line which stands between good and evil. I would like to describe
us more as a thread woven throughout the communities that we
serve. The thread really helps hold that fabric of that community,
and even democracy, together. That’s the role of policing in our
society. So we are not a line; we are more of a thread that is woven
throughout. If you see yourself as something that is separate and
distinct from either the good guys or the bad guys, I think you set
yourself up for the conflict. That’s why we have so much conflict in
our communities, I think, because we don’t see ourselves as part of
the communities that need us the most.
CC: Thank you very, very much.
Conclusion
Commissioner Ramsey has a comprehensive understanding of the complexi-

ties and problems presented within each of the numerous neighborhoods that
make up Philadelphia. He recognizes there is a relationship between crime and
social justice issues, such as homelessness, poverty, and domestic violence. To
this end, the Philadelphia Police Department continues to embrace a neigh-
borhood-based policing model wherein the department in partnership with
the community develops strategies to solve quality-of-life and crime problems.
Under his efficient and effective leadership, the Philadelphia Police Department
has significantly improved the quality of life of its residents and visitors to the
City of Brotherly Love (nickname of Philadelphia) by reducing serious violent
crime, drug activities, and other chronic crime and disorder, all while staying
true to its departmental values of honor, service, and integrity.
Glossary
Boots on the street: Patrol and/or detectives patrolling a geographical location.

CompStat: Real-time statistical information (crime analysis and crime map-
ping) relating to reported crimes, arrests, and other police activities.
Evidence-based policing: The utilization of scientific research to implement

policing strategies.
Exclusionary rule: An interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment by the
U.S. Supreme Court which holds that evidence seized in violation of
the U.S. Constitution cannot be used in court against a defendant.
Said evidence is suppressed (not allowed to be used in court).
Fourth Amendment: An amendment governing the U.S. Criminal Justice
System, contained within the U.S. Constitution—“The right of the
people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects
against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,
and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported
by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be
searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Intelligence-led policing: The allocation of resources to key criminal activ-
ities, to. Within the United States, a tremendous amount of these
activities take place within fusion centers, which serve the needs of
multiple policing and law enforcement organizations.
Matron: A woman who is responsible for the monitoring of all female pris-
oners and children brought into the police department who are under
arrest, care, custody, or control of the police department.
Police cadet program: A program where college and university students
between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one assist police officers
with clerical duties and obtain hands-on police experience, which
assists the students in learning what it takes to be a professional
police officer.
Stephen Williams,
Deputy Commissioner
of Police, Trinidad and
Tobago Police Service
5
INTERVIEWED BY
WENDELL C. WALLACE
Contents
Introduction 73
Career 76
Conclusion 88
Glossary 88
References 89
Introduction
Trinidad and Tobago’s policing system has nine large police station divisions,
sixty-four smaller police station districts, and numerous branches, depart-
ments, and sections under its jurisdiction (CAPA 2011). Its national system,
the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS), has its genesis in a system
of policing that was introduced by the Spanish colonialists in 1592 (Ottley
1972) and has under its jurisdiction the Municipal Police and Special Reserve
Police as well. Presently, policing in the island is conducted using the tradi-
tional policing model (British Colonial Model) as part of its later colonial
legacy. Mawby (2003) noted that the British Colonial Model “was first tried
in another British colony, Ireland which presupposed a lack of public consent
and was used throughout British controlled Africa, Asia and the Caribbean,”
inclusive of Trinidad and Tobago.
73
Over time, the TTPS has established a unique jurisdiction encompassing

community and national policing. Its priorities are set through the Ministry
of National Security, and areas of focus beyond everyday protection and law
enforcement include combating organized crime, transnational crime, peo-
ple smuggling, major fraud, illicit drug trafficking, and e-crime. The organi-
zation works closely with a range of other local, regional, and international
law enforcement bodies to provide a secure national, regional, and global
environment. The TTPS provides protection security services for dignitaries,
witnesses, and special events as well as community services to the people of
Trinidad and Tobago. Its articulated mission is “to protect and serve, with
pride” (CAPA 2011). The organization is governed by the Police Service Act
#7 (2006) and the Police Service Regulations (2006) and regulated by the
Police Service Commission.
The organization is hierarchical in nature and consists of the first and the
second division. The first division, which is the upper echelon of the organi-
zation, consists of the following ranks in ascending order of responsibility:
assistant superintendent, superintendent, senior superintendent, assistant
commissioner of police, deputy commissioner of police and commissioner
of police. The second division consists of the following ranks: constable,
corporal, sergeant, and inspector, again in ascending order of responsibil-
ity. Individuals joining the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service enter as con-
stables in the second division and work their way to the first division by a
system of promotions. Presently, the organization is headed by a Canadian
national, Dwayne Gibbs (CAPA 2011).
As a member of the TTPS since 1979, Deputy Commissioner of Police
(DCP) Stephen Williams’ thoughts, philosophical orientation, and senti-
ments are influenced and shaped by his experiences and history, as well as
the culture, history, and practices of the organization to which he belongs.
Perhaps because of this experience, he regards policing as much more than a
strict law enforcement exercise. For him, police officers hold a pivotal role in
society in shaping the future and bringing about the common goal of safety
and security. He has a distinct philosophy of policing that is largely aligned
to the nine principles of policing articulated by Sir Robert Peel in 1829. He
believes that community–police relations are key to any crime reduction
initiative and that neither party by themselves can reduce crime and devi-
ance. Additionally, he believes that policing is a holistic event that must be
performed by all key stakeholders and not just by the police. DCP Williams
has made many contributions to local communities and has engaged in vol-
untary activities aimed at creating safe and secure communities, especially
in some of the impoverished inner city areas in the capital, Port-of-Spain,
which have high crime rates. Furthermore, he encourages communication
and the formation of links with the public to improve public attitudes by and
toward the police.
Stephen Williams, Deputy Commissioner of Police 75
DCP Stephen Williams joined the TTPS in 1979 and rose through
the ranks in a period when the police were regarded as the most progres-
sive and innovative in the Caribbean, but also derided as the most corrupt.
Mr. Williams’ policing career began at the guard and emergency branch.
During his career he has worked in court prosecution, criminal investiga-
tions, administration, and as a change agent in the transformation team of
the TTPS. During the period 2005–2009, he was in charge of the police sec-
retariat, which was responsible for the transformation of the organization
and oversaw the initial changes that were part of the government’s Vision
2020 document. In 2009, Mr. Williams attained the rank of assistant com-
missioner and in 2010 was appointed the deputy commissioner, assuming
management responsibility for the organization’s administrative activities.
In addition to police duties, Mr. Williams has enjoyed playing football,
cricket, and hockey and has worked for the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service
Social and Welfare Association (TTPSSWA), the representative body for police
officers in Trinidad and Tobago. He has served as the TTPSSWA’s assistant
secretary (1995–1998) and president (1998–2001). In 2006, DCP Williams
was appointed as the law enforcement expert on the cabinet-appointed tran-
sitional committee to develop plans for reforming the TTPS. He was also the
chairman of the cabinet-appointed steering committee to review the opera-
tions of the Special Anti-crime Unit of Trinidad and Tobago (SAUTT). DCP
Williams has been the recipient of several internal awards from the TTPS
for meritorious service, dedication to duty, and diligent and painstaking
enquiries. In 2009, Mr. Williams was specially recognized by the Ministry
of National Security on behalf of the government of Trinidad and Tobago for
leading the multinational security task force for the Commonwealth Heads
of Government Meeting that was held in Port-of-Spain.
He holds an executive master in business administration (EMBA) from
the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business, a law degree from the
University of London, a legal education certificate (LEC) from the Hugh
Wooding Law School, and an executive diploma in strategic management
from the Chartered Management Institute. He has also successfully under-
taken a course of studies in international strategic leadership training in the
UK, which is the highest level of training a police officer in the Caribbean
can undergo.
In 2008, he made history when an interview process conducted by the
Penn State University assessment team resulted in him being ranked as the
top choice for commissioner of police in Trinidad and Tobago. However, in
an apparently politically motivated move, he was not appointed to the posi-
tion by the then Patrick Manning–led government because he was seen as
not being aligned with the political desires of that regime. In 2010 he was
appointed the deputy commissioner of police in the TTPS, a service that
employs approximately 7,500 sworn officers and serves 1.3 million people.
Currently, DCP Williams has responsibility for all administrative duties of

the TTPS, which includes general administration, transfers, promotions,
finance, and human resource training.
The interview was conducted on 22 May 2011 in DCP Williams’s office in
the police administration building (headquarters of the Trinidad and Tobago
Police Service), Port-of-Spain, overlooking the inner city and out to the vast
suburbs. In keeping with his personality, DCP Williams remained cordial
and pleasant throughout. The deputy commissioner was clearly delighted to
be interviewed for this project and spoke glowingly, openly, and frankly on
a wide range of issues.
Career
WCW: Tell me a little about your childhood and adolescence. What influ-
enced you to join the police?
SW: I was born in 1960 in the rural community of Talparo in the eastern
part of Trinidad to relatively poor parents. I had six brothers and
one sister and spent all of my childhood and also part of my adult
life in that community. I had just turned eighteen and was in my
first employment as a water works operator trainee at the Water
and Sewerage Authority when I decided to join the TTPS, as the
profession was always attractive to me. As a young boy there is
something attractive about aspiring to engage in some professional
activities, and policing was my aspiration. So at the first opportu-
nity, I got my father’s permission to enlist in the TTPS. However,
he was skeptical, as he thought that I was “too soft to become a
policeman.” Nevertheless, he endorsed it and I enlisted at the age
of eighteen years and a few months.
WCW: Have you ever thought, “What have I gotten myself into?”
SW: I have had an interesting career and there were a few times when I asked
myself that question, but the main occasion, my main reality check,
was when I applied for the position of commissioner of police.
Prior to that, there were the usual challenges which are associated
with the job as a police officer. However, I was always able to over-
come those challenges as I am a positive thinker. In 2007, I was a
superintendent of police when I applied for the position of com-
missioner of police, as I wanted to test my readiness for high office.
I had taken on this challenge with immense zeal and optimism,
knowing that the odds would be against me because of my rank
and the fact that I was a local police officer in a field with persons of
international repute. I was shortlisted to the top ten candidates and
went into the assessment arena, which was conducted by the Penn
State assessors from the USA, minus any local assessors. I felt that
the assessment was skewed against me. I was then further short-
listed in a list of the top five candidates for selection to the posi-
tion of commissioner of police by the Police Service Commission.
Out of this further interview, I was selected by the Police Service
Commission as the number one candidate for appointment to the
office of commissioner of police. Being young and naïve, I thought
that if the selection process was open and transparent and you
come out as the number one choice, then it would only be for par-
liamentary approval and appointment to the office. However, after
the Police Service Commission publicly announced me as the can-
didate of choice for the office, the government of the day decided
that I should not be appointed. The government then found an
innovative way to appoint someone else to the office by declaring
that the promotion system which was used was flawed, a system
which they themselves had designed and developed. The govern-
ment argued that they needed to amend the legislation and restart
the process of finding a commissioner of police. There was a huge
national outcry at the government’s decision, but it presented to
me an obstacle which I never foresaw and which led me to dig deep
inside to truly overcome the extent to which politics could play a
role in the leadership of the police service as an organization.
It did not take very long for me to overcome that obstacle and
I then refocused on my career path as a police officer, as during
the assessment I was elevated to the rank of senior superintendent.
So I decided that I would not let that obstacle throw me off my
course, as my main thrust in becoming a police officer was not to
attain high office but to deliver to the best of my ability in a realm
that I thought was my calling. I was given a baptism of fire by offi-
cers who were senior in rank to me for “being farse [rude] and out
of place” for having aspirations to consider attaining high office.
And I was made to undergo a period of internal pressure. Maybe
their intention was for me to demit office and leave the Trinidad
and Tobago Police Service But I withstood the pressure and it only
served to strengthen my resolve.
WCW: Tell me a little bit about your career: length, organizations worked in,
movements, and specializations.
SW: After graduating from the Police Training College in 1979, I was posted
to the guard and emergency branch, where I provided security for
key national installations and VIPs. I was then transferred to the
eastern police division, where I served in various capacities such
as general policing, detective, and head of the divisional task force.
I stayed in the eastern division until I was promoted to the rank
of inspector in 1996. I was then transferred to the Port-of-Spain

division. In 1995 I became qualified as an attorney-at-law and con-
tinued to perform duties as a police prosecutor in Port-of-Spain.
During the period 2000–2001, I was attached to the planning and
development unit of the TTPS, which had the responsibility for
implementing plans for the organization. In 2005 I was transferred
to the executive secretariat to head this unit which had oversight
for the transformation of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service.
WCW: What were the main stages of your career up to deputy commissioner
in the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service?
SW: That would be from 1996 to 2002, when I was a court prosecutor in the
court and process branch, where I prosecuted criminals. On sev-
eral occasions I was selected by different commissioners of police
to visit different police station districts and advise, guide, and
prosecute very difficult criminal matters.
Another main stage in my career would be my work in the
Trinidad and Tobago Police Service Social and Welfare Association.
Between 1995 and 1998 I was the assistant secretary and from 1998
to 2001 the president. This period was very critical, as it afforded
me the opportunity to meet with the line officers in the organiza-
tion and build a good relationship with them, and this served me
in good stead in 2010 when I had to make some tough decisions as
the acting commissioner of police.
Then another key stage would also include the period 2000 to
2001, when I was attached to the planning and development unit of
the TTPS with responsibility for implementing plans for the orga-
nization. Finally, there was the period from 2005 to 2009 when I
was attached to a transformational team known as the executive
secretariat to support the change efforts which were then being
implemented in the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service.
WCW: What surprised you about how your career developed?
SW: Everything surprised me, because I never dreamt that I would have
attained such high office; even more-so the speed at which I pro-
gressed through the ranks of the organization. For example, I am
the most senior local police officer in rank in the Trinidad and
Tobago Police Service, having attained the rank of deputy com-
missioner of police at the age of forty-nine. This is in the context
where traditionally most police officers in the Trinidad and Tobago
Police Service attain executive rank close to their retirement age of
sixty. This is also against the background that attaining high office
was not my major goal when I enlisted in the Trinidad and Tobago
Police Service—my aim was to contribute to the best of my ability
in a realm which I loved.
WCW: Did your work prove as interesting or rewarding as you thought it

would?
SW: Yes, indeed. As you move up the ranks, the work becomes more inter-
esting and rewarding. As a young officer, your interest is different
from that of a senior officer. Working as a member of the Trinidad
and Tobago Police Service has proved both interesting and reward-
ing to me. As a senior officer, my reward is to see the organization
grow into being a premier professional body, based on efficient,
high-quality service delivery that the citizenry of the country
expect and deserve. For me the reward is to see us moving toward
becoming a professional organization and to clearly see the stages
of that movement and development. That gives me satisfaction and
provides me with high levels of interest to continue despite the
internal dynamics related to the relative age of some senior officers
and the external dynamics of politics.
Changes Experienced
WCW: What do you see as the most important changes in policing over the
course of your career?
SW: I entered the TTPS when it was still in a traditional mode, operating on
a reactionary model of policing, where police officers sit in the sta-
tion and wait on persons to make reports before responding. The
level of proactivity was then basically minimal and my early career
in policing was spent in a reactionary mode and model. Over the
years, however, there has been a movement away from that fixed
reactionary model toward one which is now being built around
high levels of proactivity; one which features a clear understanding
of the important role of partnering with the communities; and one
which recognizes the importance of technology within the realm
of policing but always remembers that there is no substitute for
information being generated within the communities. The citizens
within communities are critical as you do policing, and you can-
not sit in stations to get information coming to you. You have to go
out to the public and win the confidence and trust of the people.
You have to build relationships by creating a familiar type relation-
ship with the people in the community, so that you gain their trust
and confidence and they will share information. So we have moved
from the reactionary model to a proactive-type model, and that
has been a massive move.
WCW: What are your views on advertising in the international market for a
commissioner of police for Trinidad and Tobago?
SW: Personally, I have no difficulty with the process of advertising in the

international arena for such a local post. But I think that becomes
important if there is no local person or persons in the country
who are capable of fulfilling the role of leading the organization,
because local knowledge of Trinidad and Tobago is so critical in
leading this organization, with the environment being a dynamic
one both from the internal and the external perspective. Because
of the relationships that you have to work through with all the key
stakeholders, including the government of the day, it is important
for anyone to have a sound appreciation of that local knowledge.
No one coming from a foreign environment can gain that local
knowledge within a short period of time. So, by way of my pres-
ent experience and having seen the recruitment of a commissioner
of police from Canada, you almost have to make a big effort for
this person to function. If you do not offer that kind of support to
someone who does not know from experience the societal culture
and the dynamics of society, then they will not be able to function
adequately or use their key leadership skills, knowledge, and com-
petencies to move the organization forward. In the present situa-
tion, you have to actually make an exceptional effort to familiarize
the leader in the organization with the environment and the cul-
ture. This really takes away from the progress of the organization,
and from that position I am saying that there is a downside to it.
If the society does not have people with the skills and competen-
cies to fulfill that high office, then I say, yes, you should go outside.
However, I do not think Trinidad and Tobago needs to go outside
at the present point in time. We have trained a lot of local offi-
cers who have been exposed to all types of training throughout the
world. The officers locally are highly trained, highly skilled, and
capable of fulfilling the role. Therefore, going global in an effort to
recruit a commissioner is not essential and necessary at this time.
WCW: What changes in external conditions have had a significant impact
on policing?
SW: There have been both positive and negative changes. One major nega-
tive was the People’s National Movement government’s decision
to form the Special Anti-crime Unit of Trinidad and Tobago.
This was almost a rival law enforcement agency, and as a result
that government neglected the TTPS, which is the national
police organization charged with the responsibility of deliver-
ing policing services in Trinidad and Tobago. It meant that the
TTPS was neglected by way of not providing it with the resources
to deliver the service and simply created almost a monster which
just absorbed billions of dollars in resources. We now have to
come through that period of neglect and now refocus and say the
TTPS is charged with the responsibility of providing policing
services for Trinidad and Tobago. So that’s the negative.
A positive is the fact that from October 2010 the commissioner
is the chief accounting officer, with full responsibility for manag-
ing the financial resources for the governance of the TTPS. This is
a major break in tradition, since in the past the commissioner had
to depend on the whims and fancies of the permanent secretary in
the Ministry of National Security for funding. This gives the police
service the opportunity to proceed with its plans at a faster rate
than having to go through the bureaucracy of seeking permission
for funding from a permanent secretary.
WCW: Overall, has the quality of policing improved or declined?
SW: I would say that we have gone through a series of ups and downs, where
the quality of policing has improved and declined at particular
points. We are now at a point where we are at an upswing, where
the quality of policing services is increasing at a rapid rate. If we
continue to improve the quality of policing services, we will then
be able to reach a point, in my projection within two years, where
the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago will be able to recognize that
improved quality of service that is delivered to them. Presently,
positive reviews are being given about the police service in some
areas and some negative reviews being given about the police ser-
vice in other areas. The organization has not yet reached that point
where we can deliver consistently across the whole of Trinidad and
Tobago that high-quality policing service to the citizenry.
WCW: In general, is it more or less difficult to be a police officer now than
in the past?
SW: The environment has changed, so there are some key difficult issues
that we are confronted with now, and one of the big, difficult issues
is that firearms have become a major feature within the realm of
crime. Traditionally in Trinidad and Tobago, criminals would have
committed crimes, but firearms would not have been the weapon
of choice. What we have seen is that in 1998 there were 98 homi-
cides, of which 20 percent were caused by firearms; however, by the
end of 2010, there were 470 homicides, but the average use of fire-
arms in homicides is now around 70 percent. Looking at the past
and present in terms of policing, that has been one of the major
changes on the criminal landscape.
WCW: What do you think should be the role of the police in society?
SW: I personally believe that policing should be so intertwined with nor-
mal life existence that people should recognize that police and the
citizenry should be operating on a consistent partnering basis.
Policing should really be a supportive role to normal existence
within society. That supporting role is because from time imme-
morial there has been criminality within society; so there is always
a function for police officers within all societies. But the stage
should be reached where the citizens realize that police are avail-
able to work hand in hand with them to improve life within their
communities. So the strict enforcement rule that was tradition-
ally there for policing should change and take what I would call a
backseat. What should now exist is a heavy crime prevention and
management of the environment being at the forefront. There must
be a community effort, as life in communities should be shaped by
the community residents working hand in hand with the police
department to find ways of improving life in that community. It
should not be for the police strictly to focus on enforcement of the
laws, but on how we can contribute to improving life in Trinidad
and Tobago; in other words, a partnership role.
WCW: What organizational arrangements work and which do not?

SW: For me, I think overemphasis on the creation of units has not worked
in the TTPS. It actually has turned out to be more harmful to the
organization than beneficial. In recent history, commissioners
have created a series of small units such as a crime suppression
unit, crime intelligence unit, and numerous task forces. Every time
you create a new unit you take officers away from being in sta-
tions to work in specialist units and you do not deliver the ser-
vices that society is looking for or a reduction in crime generally.
What has worked well is community policing, and this should be
reemphasized and expanded. This would see police officers work-
ing together with communities to proactively improve life. In the
TTPS, community policing has been done differently by different
police leaders. It has worked by means of police youth clubs and
neighborhood watch groups and the like. Another arrangement
which works is what I call hot spot policing; that is, focusing on hot
spots of increased crime, providing a heavy concentration of high-

activity policing in key areas. In my estimation, this has worked,
as is evidenced by a reduction in crime where it has been used for
some periods in 2010 to 2011.
WCW: What policies on relations with the community, political groups, and
criminal justice organizations work well and which do not?
SW: Actually, what works well would be what has been legally mandated;
for example, the stakeholder relationship between the regional
corporations and the police service. The regional corporations
are mandated under the law to have the police represented in a
stakeholder group to address issues within a region in Trinidad
and Tobago. By way of arrangements with stakeholders, the police
service has focused on building relationships with key stakehold-
ers, such as the chambers of commerce, other NGOs, faith-based
organizations, and others, and has actively sought to build rela-
tions with them. As a clear policy position, we have proceeded by
holding town meetings in all communities throughout Trinidad
and Tobago. Many town meetings have been held, but more con-
centration is needed in this regard. As mentioned, there is a clear
policy on holding regular town meetings with community resi-
dents. We took a decision to engage young people in every com-
munity throughout Trinidad and Tobago through the police youth
clubs. We are expanding that thrust so that in every police station
district we will have a police youth club. The reason for this policy
position is that police youth clubs allow the police to have a direct
relationship with the young people in communities, for the young
people of today will be the criminals of tomorrow if they go in the
wrong direction. If they are facilitated in going in the right direc-
tion, they become productive citizens of tomorrow. It’s a big stake
we have in the future, so we are investing in the present.
What will hamper the cooperation of, for example, police and
young people via the police youth clubs will be the poor police rela-
tions with some communities. If the police have an antagonistic
relationship with communities, where the police are seen as almost
an enemy in the community, then people will not want to have
their children go to the youth clubs and enter into an environment
with their enemies. So it is critical that the police focus on building
good relationships with the communities they serve.
As it relates to the regional corporations, what happens is that
the police service should work with the entity; but this relationship
is hindered by issues of politics. For example, if the chairman of a
regional corporation views the police as being subservient and not
as a key stakeholder, the treatment of the individual police officers
when they meet may hamper continued relations. So it is critical

that a relationship be built between both bodies from a leadership
perspective, so that the divisional commanders can see the benefits
of working with the regional corporations to improve the lives of
the communities in those regions.
WCW: How should policing be performed? What should be the preferred
priorities and strategies?
SW: There must be an admixture. Traditionally, I have seen policing from one
eye; that is, enforcement has been the major driver. However, I now
see policing as a flexible grouping of key areas of focus. That means
that there are times when there will be tough policing, such as in
times of rising crimes and almost facing a crime crisis or a spate of
crimes in a particular area. This then calls for the administration
of high-activity policing in those areas. However, I see the realm
of enforcement in the future policing landscape taking a backseat.
There is far greater value in crime prevention, whereby if you deal
with stopping crime from occurring, it is a major cost saving to the
society. The excessive cost of police in relation to the courts, the
cost of the judiciary, and the cost of prisons can be saved by invest-
ments in crime prevention to ensure that the directions of young
people are shaped and clear provisions are made for improving life
in communities. Even from a law enforcement perspective, I now
see where minor infractions of the law can be dealt with via facili-
ties such as community service rather than having to put somebody
away for, say, six months in prison. This is due to limited resources
and the need to run a country wisely and efficiently.
WCW: What would you consider to be the greatest problem facing the police
at this time?
SW: The impact of transnational organized crime is the greatest problem
which faces the TTPS at this time.
WCW: What problems in policing do you find are the most difficult to deal
with?
SW: The most difficult problem is addressing communities where resi-
dents have lost hope; for example, in the Laventille community
[district of Port-of-Spain]. To effectively police such communi-
ties is the most difficult thing to deal with at this time. There
are high levels of hopelessness and criminals basically run the
show. The difficulty speaks to reshaping a culture which has
been facilitated through so many years of neglect by the gov-
ernments of the day and broken promises to facilitate those
communities where basic amenities are not present. They have
been heavily neglected, and they see everyone in the context
of an enemy. And they see no hope for themselves and their
children. Crime is seen almost as a way out, and if their chil-

dren are involved in crime and can come home with money,
they see it as a benefit. So it’s really changing that culture, and
culture change is always difficult. But in the context of crime
in those communities where the communities are so hurt over
time, where they have lost hope, it becomes even more difficult
to change.
Theory and Practice
WCW: What do you think should be the relationship between theory and
practice?
SW: There should be a critical partnering role between the theorists and
practitioners, and by extension I see the need for taking theory and
putting it into practice. In other words, how best can you work
with the police to use theories (experiments) to allow the practi-
tioner to get results in order to implement changes? For far too
long in Trinidad and Tobago the University has had criminolo-
gists at the institution and persons with training in criminology,
but that is as far as it goes. You have people who are trained and
pursuing education and training and academic development. But
the partnering of the university and the criminologists with the
police service requires us to say, “We have problems with crime,
and this particular theory dictates A, B, and C. Can we work with
the police service to test this theory and build an experiment on
the organization?” This would allow for empirical evidence as to
what can work and what cannot work. I speak from the position
that during my career this has never happened and there is now
a big opportunity for partnering of the police and the University
of the West Indies in the sense of testing theories and advancing
knowledge. The benefits of this relationship are mutual.
WCW: What is the relationship right now?
SW: That relationship is basically nonexistent. Outside the efforts of George
Mason University from the USA working with the TTPS, the rela-
tionship does not exist, and even that relationship was based on a
contractual obligation by the government as it related to the model
station initiative and not one of a mutual desire. In terms of what
is holding back the relationship between the police and theorists, I
attribute that to a straightforward situation where the criminolo-
gists are not making a real effort to build the relationship and the
police are not making the effort from their end.
WCW: What kind of research, in what form, on what questions would you
find most useful for practice?
SW: I would say experimental research. Researchers can make their prod-
ucts more useful to the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service by con-
ducting local experiments that will assist the police, for example,
on the routine activity, legitimacy, and deterrence theories. They
can examine what I called “hot spot policing” via experimental
research and by testing them on the TTPS to determine whether
it is workable by giving us empirical evidence. There should be
experiments involving police stations used as a control station
and the development of a policy by theorists on hot spot policing.
I spoke earlier about using hot spot policing and its success, but I
had no true empirical evidence and this is the kind of research that
is most useful for practitioners of policing. If hot spot policing had
been tested, I would have been able to see whether the results were
true or a fluke, look at the results, and probably expand it to other
crime hot spots in the country and even develop a policy on hot
spot policing in Trinidad and Tobago.
WCW: Where do you find theory-based information?
SW: The TTPS in all fairness has not done much in the context of enrollment
and access to international journals and publications. However, it is
critical, and it is critical to the point where recently I have engaged
myself in the pursuit of academic studies at the masters level at the
University of Cambridge in applied criminology and police man-
agement, and this will benefit the organization.
WCW: Does the organization do research on its own?
SW: Whilst individuals have conducted research on various aspects of the
TTPS (information technology, human resource practices, levels
of police–community involvement and compensation), very little
research has been conducted by the organization. The research
done by the TTPS is negligible and the organization must expand
its research capacity and research development. As a matter of
fact, the organization has recently recruited a researcher to build
up a planning, development, and research unit to strengthen the
research capacity of the TTPS. As such, I envisage that we will be
doing more research in the future.
WCW: Has the TTPS been affected by developments outside the country?
SW: Yes, I have been affected by developments which are extraneous to
Trinidad and Tobago. For example, globalization has now created
borderless countries and the Internet has created e-crime. However,

the benefits of constant and intimate interactions with Interpol
have allowed the TTPS the opportunity to manage persons enter-
ing the local jurisdiction. These external developments have led to
the creation of legislation being passed in our legislature which is
abreast with the international nature of crime. Further, some of
the decisions which have emanated from the United Nations have
imposed upon us the need to get up to a certain standard by way
of legislation; for example, in dealing with money laundering and
the proceeds of crime. There is now a financial investigations unit
in Trinidad and Tobago. In terms of human rights, this has not had
any significant impact on the TTPS, as the local constitution has
ensured that all persons are protected and that citizens’ rights are
protected and that all persons are treated with dignity.
WCW: Have those interactions been beneficial or harmful?
SW: Some interactions have been beneficial, as there are now advanced pas-
senger warnings available to local police officers when there was
none before.
WCW: How have developments post-9/11 affected your work?
SW: The events of 9/11 have affected the TTPS in a positive manner, as it has
opened the eyes of local policing to terrorism. It is not that the eyes
were closed, but they were jolted to the fact that no place is safe. It
has triggered positive reactions in that the capacity of officers to
deal with terrorism has been enhanced. Police officers in the TTPS
are now trained to deal with terrorism from a counterterrorism
perspective. The negative impact of 9/11 on policing in Trinidad
and Tobago is that it has created worldwide interest, for example,
in fanatics or borderline fanatics and they now have a new cause in
shifting to soft targets such as Trinidad and Tobago. 9/11 has made
a target of Trinidad and Tobago, as embassies which are located
in Trinidad and Tobago can be attacked. There is a now a strong
likelihood of terrorist attacks in Trinidad and Tobago and this has
caused the TTPS to lift its game.
General Assessments
WCW: Are you basically satisfied or dissatisfied with developments in polic-

ing? What is most needed now to improve policing in Trinidad and
Tobago?
SW: I am basically dissatisfied with the fact that we have not reached the
stage that we should have reached at this time; however, a lot is
happening in terms of development. My dissatisfaction is with
the level of development. I believe that a more aggressive policing

plan is needed to fast track the TTPS to that level of desired polic-
ing. What is most needed now to improve policing in Trinidad
and Tobago is a focused effort by the organization and embracing
the available opportunities to work with theorists in identifying
through experiments what can work in the context of policing and
thus shape the TTPS policies consistent with what has been proven
to be workable in our country, and not plans which are imported
wholly from the UK, USA, and Europe without consideration for
the dynamics of the local environment. There must now be a part-
nership arrangement between theorists and the police practitio-
ners, and that would give the added impetus to get to that point of
development within the realm of policing.
Conclusion
For an individual who had enlisted into the TTPS with the main aim of
delivering policing services to the best of his ability and who was seen by
his father as being “too soft to be a police officer,” Mr. Williams has been
remarkably successful. He has achieved both an institutional position
and professional and academic recognition. Evidently, DCP Williams is
not one of those police officers who rest on their laurels when they reach
the zenith of their careers. He is actively pursuing additional academic
work-related studies that can only enhance him and by extension the
entire organization. He is a proud, passionate, committed, and dedicated
individual with a vast and impressive array of innovative ideas aimed at
a total transformation of the TTPS from a reactionary-type organization
to a more proactive, contemporary police organization within a reason-
able timeframe.
Given his dedication to improving not only the TTPS, but also the qual-
ity of life for residents in Trinidad and Tobago with his vision of policing, it
is likely that DCP Williams will make significant contributions to the legacy
of his predecessors in the TTPS.
Glossary
Commissioner of police: Chief of police in some jurisdictions.

Police division: A large geographical area consisting of several police
stations.
Police station: The precinct in some jurisdictions.
Police station district: The geographical area of responsibility by a police

station.
Regional corporation: A state political entity with responsibility for geo-
graphic regions.
Special reserve police: Auxiliary or part-time police officer.
TTPS: Trinidad and Tobago Police Service.
References
Crime and Problem Analysis Branch (CAPA). (2011). The Statistical Department of
the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service.
Mawby, R.I. (2003). Models of Policing. In T. Newburn (Ed.), Handbook of Policing
(15–40). Cullompton, UK: Willan.
Ottley, C.R. (1972). A Historical Account of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service
(1592–1972). Trinidad: Syncreators.
Vernon White, Chief
Constable, Ottawa
Police Service, Canada 6
INTERVIEWED BY
CURT T. GRIFFITHS
Contents
Introduction 91
Royal Canadian Mounted Police 92
Provincial Police Services 92
Regional Police Services 93
Municipal Police Services 93
First Nations Police Services 93
Career 94
The Changing Context of Policing 103
Relationships with External Agencies 104
Priorities of the Ottawa Police Service 105
Role of Research in Policing 106
Looking Ahead 107
Conclusion 108
Glossary 108
Introduction
Public policing in Canada is carried out at four levels: federal, provincial,

municipal, and First Nations. In addition, there are private security services
and para-police services. The latter are generally staffed by officers with spe-
cial constable status. Five Canadian police services—the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police (RCMP), the Toronto Police Service, the Ontario Provincial
Police (OPP), the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), and the Service de Police de la Ville
de Montréal (SPVM)—account for just over 60 percent of all police officers
in Canada.
91
Canadian police services vary greatly in size and in terms of the areas
for which they are responsible. At one end of the scale, there are three-
officer RCMP detachments in many remote northern communities; at the
other, there are thousands of officers in the urban centers of Toronto and
Montreal.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police

The RCMP is unique among the world’s police forces and is organized into
sixteen divisions, fourteen of which are operational divisions. The RCMP Act
provides the framework for the operations of the RCMP. As the federal police
force in all provinces and territories, the RCMP enforces most federal stat-
utes, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Securities Act, and lesser-
known statutes such as the Canada Shipping Act and the Student Loans Act.
Under the RCMP Act, RCMP officers have the powers of peace officers as
well as the powers of customs and excise officers for the entire country. This
makes RCMP members unique among Canada’s police officers.
Although the RCMP is a federal police force, roughly 60 percent of
RCMP personnel are involved in contract policing, serving as provincial
and municipal police officers under agreements between the RCMP and the
provinces and territories. To provide policing services under contract, the
RCMP, through the government of Canada, negotiates municipal policing
agreements with individual municipalities. The RCMP’s reach extends to the
international level: there are RCMP liaison officers in a number of countries
in the Asia–Pacific region, in Europe, and in the Americas. RCMP liaison
officers provide a bridge between foreign police forces and their Canadian
counterparts; they also assist in cross-national investigations.
Provincial Police Services

There are currently three provincial police forces in Canada: the Ontario
Provincial Police (OPP), the Sûreté du Québec, and the Royal Newfoundland
Constabulary. Provincial police forces police rural areas and areas out-
side municipalities. They enforce provincial laws as well as the Criminal
Code. Some municipalities in Ontario are policed under contract by the
OPP. Except in Ontario and Quebec and certain parts of Newfoundland
and Labrador, the RCMP provides provincial policing under contract with
provincial governments. When the RCMP acts as a provincial police force,
it has full jurisdiction over the Criminal Code as well as provincial laws.
Similar to the RCMP, provincial police officers may be rotated between
detachments.
Vernon White, Chief Constable, Ottawa Police Service, Canada 93
Regional Police Services

Especially in the eastern regions of the country, regional police services are
a key feature of Canadian policing. Most of these services have been formed
through the amalgamation of several independent police departments
into one large organization. Regional police services have been a feature of
policing in Ontario for many years. Today a number of regional police ser-
vices, including the Peel Regional Police (the largest regional police force
in Canada) and the Durham Regional Police, provide policing services to
more than half of Ontarians. In Quebec, the Service de Police de la Ville de
Montréal (SPVM) provides policing services to the city of Montreal and sev-
eral surrounding municipalities.
Municipal Police Services

Municipal police services have jurisdiction within a city’s boundaries.
Municipal police officers constitute two-thirds of the police personnel in the
country and enforce the Criminal Code, provincial statutes, municipal bylaws,
and certain federal statutes such as the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
Most police work is carried out by services operating at this level.
Municipalities can provide police services in one of three ways: (1) by
creating their own independent police service; (2) by joining with another
municipality’s existing police force, which often means becoming involved
with a regional police force; or (3) by contracting with a provincial police
force—the OPP in Ontario and the RCMP in the rest of Canada. Quebec is
the exception, having no provision under provincial law for the Sûreté du
Québec to contract out municipal policing services.
First Nations Police Services

Aboriginal peoples have become increasingly involved in the administration
of justice, especially in the area of policing. This is perhaps appropriate, given
the conflicts that have arisen between the police and aboriginal peoples both
now and in the past. There are autonomous aboriginal police services in all of
the provinces except Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador,
although there are none in the territories. Among the larger aboriginal police
forces that are involved in policing multiple reserve communities are the
Ontario First Nations Constable Program, the Six Nations Tribal Police,
and the Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service in Ontario, the Amerindian Police
in Quebec, and the Dakota-Ojibway Police Service in Manitoba. There are
smaller aboriginal police forces in Alberta and British Columbia.
Aboriginal police officers generally have full powers to enforce the
Criminal Code, federal and provincial statutes, and any specific laws enacted
by the chief and council on First Nations reserves—and in some circumstances,

off reserve as well. There are also band constables, appointed under provisions
of the Indian Act, who are responsible for enforcing band bylaws. Band con-
stables are not fully sworn police officers and their powers are limited.
The interview with Chief Constable White was conducted in Vancouver,
British Columbia. Chief White responded to all of the questions that were
posed to him and answered in a forthright and candid manner. With the
exception of a few introductory comments and some editing, the following
comments are those of Chief Constable White.
Career
VW: I was a bartender in Cape Breton Island (Nova Scotia), and two cops
used to come in every Friday night. One of them asked me if
I wanted to go on a ride-along and I told them that I had been
arrested a couple of times and (therefore) had been on ride-alongs.
And then I made a comment that, “You don’t hire people like me.”
They convinced me to do a ride-along and I did about 400 hours of
ride-alongs over a six-month period. I was attracted by the imme-
diacy of problem solving. You got a call, went to the call, solved the
problem. The first call I went out on was a domestic violence call. It
was almost like a drug to me. You could actually deal with things
that quickly.
I applied to the RCMP, and it took me a couple of years to get
in. This was the early 1980s. They had a number of priority hiring
groups, and I didn’t meet any of them. There were no regular white
guys from Cape Breton who spoke English on the list, so it took
me a while. I was posted first to Stephenville, Newfoundland, for a
couple of years; then Nain, Labrador, Inuvik, Aklavik, Yellowknife,
all in the Northwest Territories; the small Inuit community of
Kimmirut in the territory of Nunavut; did a couple of months in
Iqualuit, Nuavut; back to Yellowknife, to Whitehorse, Yukon, and
back to Iqaluit. So nineteen of my twenty-four years in the RCMP
were in the North. Then I went down to Ottawa as an assistant
commissioner in the RCMP in 2003. I went North in 1984 and
came out in 2003.
In 2005, I left the RCMP. I was challenged by what I call the
“Johnnie many-hands” in Ottawa, where, no matter what you do,
fifty-two other people had to touch it before you actually saw any
end to it. The bureaucracy was just overwhelming, having always
been in the North, where you saw the results of your work and labor,
and all of a sudden you’re in Ottawa and seldom saw the results of
your work and labor. In fact, it wasn’t appreciated, I thought. So I

left to be a chief somewhere and went to Durham Regional Police
(Ontario) for two years and then got headhunted back to Ottawa as
chief constable of the Ottawa Police Service in 2007. I’m in my fifth
year now. So, there’s thirty years of policing.
Going North had a significant impact on my career. Initially,
it was a way to get back to Nova Scotia (although I never did go
back), since you get your choice of postings after doing a tour in
the North. Going North, I had no understanding what that meant.
Being in the communities, there was so much work and you could
learn so much so quickly. It was like drinking from a fire hose.
There was always so much work on the go and you would be so
busy. The second piece I took from the North that was absolutely
overwhelming was community engagement. If you were engaged
in community, they loved you. And they treated you, not like their
own because you weren’t, but they treated you like a person who
cared and they cared about you. I’ve been in fights in Inuvik where,
outside a bar trying to arrest a guy, there were ten guys that I had
met in the community who were running programs, who kept
people away so I could make the arrest. That was not something I
would see in my hometown, to be honest. The other piece was the
fact that, in those communities, you could make a difference. And,
you could do it quickly. Whether it was starting a restorative jus-
tice program in Nain or Inuvik and some of the other communi-
ties, you could really make a difference. All you had to do was show
the community you wanted to.
The difficulty with that, and the hard part, and it took me two
or three communities to realize that, you better have a community
connection as well. Otherwise, when you left, it left. You couldn’t
depend on the next Mountie. I’ll give you an example. When I was
in Kimmirut, I did everybody’s income tax. For the whole com-
munity. They would all give me $10 apiece to do their income tax,
and I’d put it into a turkey-purchasing fund. And I bought all of
the turkeys for the whole community. Shipped them up in the boat
and used them for the community feast. The year after I left there,
the biggest complaint about the corporal who replaced me was that
he refused to do everybody’s income tax. And they were mad at
him. They complained to the officer in charge of the district. That’s
one of the times when I realized that, whatever you do in the com-
munities, it has to be sustainable in the community after you leave.
That applies in Ottawa as well. We rolled out a two-pronged pro-
gram for drug addiction. One is an early-intervention program.
Every high school now has a full-time early-intervention counselor.
We raised $6 million to run the program. The other component

was two drug treatment centers that are now funded by the pro-
vincial government. If you look at the group of nine people that
put that initiative together, I am the only person who is a tran-
sient. The rest are all community members. I will pick up and go at
some point and the other eight will continue to run it. There will
be community capacity. There is a member of parliament on that
committee who understands what it is like to lead something. So
that legacy is left.
Changes Experienced
Chief Constable White identified a number of changes that have occurred in

Canadian policing during his career:
VW: The amount of paper that is required to get a case into court. I thought
that when we went to much larger files, that technology would have
helped. There has been some assistance in certain types of case
investigations, but the front end of the process has remained much
the same. Perhaps the biggest challenge—it’s not a problem—is
the fact that cops today are different. They live longer; they have a
better home life, a better work–life balance. They won’t put in the
seventy hours of work a week for free. And I’m not condemning
them for that. Older cops are dying much younger than the average
Canadian because we’re running ourselves into the ground. That
will allow them to live longer; but we haven’t figured out what the
impact of that is going to be. You don’t get that free service any-
more from those officers. But, ultimately, we’re not worse off for
that.
I asked Chief Constable White how his policing philosophy has changed and
how policing philosophies in general have changed.
VW: When I started thirty years ago, it was all about putting assholes in
jail. It took me about five years to realize that the swinging gate
is not a success story. You need the enforcement to keep the com-
munity safe, but you have to have a number of other strategies. I
call the drug treatment centers the greatest crime prevention tool
ever built. Every time I put someone in the treatment center for
ninety days, you’re taking them off the street and the four crimes a
day that they are committing. That’s 360 less victims. You have to
think differently than when I started in policing. So, that strategy
for me has changed.
For policing overall, the strategy that has changed is the expec-
tation we have for community engagement. I expect every officer
and employee to belong to something. I have 1,400 employees right
now who are volunteering somewhere, for something. I don’t think
that expectation was on me when I became a police officer. Maybe
to coach a hockey team. But I have board members on both our
missions, the Shepherd of Good Hope, our food bank, the Boys
and Girls Club, Big Brothers and Big Sisters. I could go on. There is
not an organization in Ottawa that I don’t have one or two of my
people sitting on the board of directors. That wasn’t an expectation
of policing. It’s an expectation I had of my officers in Nunavut, I
had in Durham Regional Police, and I certainly have in Ottawa.
An expectation that your job doesn’t end when you leave the office.
I don’t know if that’s an expectation of all police leaders. I don’t
think it is. Some police chiefs are in a difficult situation. For some
chiefs, a high percentage of their officers don’t live in the city they
police. In Toronto, 80 percent of the officers don’t live in the city of
Toronto. Eighty-five percent of my officers live in the city of Ottawa.
So that makes it a little bit easier for them to become involved.
What’s changed is that, when I became a police officer, no one
cared whether a staff sergeant had an opinion about anything. Your
job was to make sure that cops were out investigating. Today, peo-
ple want to know your opinion. The story I tell is that when I first
got to Ottawa, they wanted to know: “What do you think about the
crack pipe program?” I said, “As a parent, it doesn’t make sense to
me. As a community member, explain how it is supposed to reduce
risk and reduce harm. And, as a police officer, how do I give them a
tool to use an illegal drug? And from a medical perspective, I’m not
a doctor.” And they said, “Well, as a police officer, you must have
an opinion.” No I don’t. If someone were in here for a liver disease,
would you expect me to have an opinion about whether the treat-
ment was appropriate? I have no idea if it will save lives. Don’t ask
me. Ask these people. And if they give you a flaky answer, refuse
it. And that’s the challenge for police leaders today: to have a frank
discussion about what we do know, instead of knowing it all.
The discussion around the firearms registry is a great example.
I’ll tell you that it’s not used 10,000 times a day, as is reported by the
Canadian Chiefs of Police. It might be used 80 to 100 times a day.
So, tell the truth about it. Those who want to keep the registry say it’s
used 10,000 times a day, and those who want to scrap it say it’s rarely
used to solve crimes. Is it of value at $100 million a year? That’s the
question. And the answer for me is that the Canadian public will
decide. I said before the (federal) election, when I was asked about it,
that if the Canadian public wants the registry gone, they will elect a
majority government for the Tories. And it will be gone. If they don’t
want to it to be gone, they will elect a minority government.
Then there is the issue of gender in policing. When I first joined
the police, if you had a woman in policing, it was, “How do you
prepare her for the crime prevention job, the drug awareness job,
or community policing?” That was the role in the late 1980s. There
was certainly never any discussion around equality in policing.
They didn’t even dress as police officers. Everyone else was in a
uniform and they were in a skirt and had a purse that held the
gun. Certainly, in the beginning, it wasn’t a real role. Now, I look
in Ottawa and 24 percent of my officers are female. Some of my
best leaders are female officers. Some of my best cops. There is no
separation for me. Even ten years ago, when an officer was tak-
ing over a unit, a question might be, “Is that a female officer?”
Now, it’s “How much experience do they have?” Female or male
in the Ottawa police service matters not. There may be personal
biases, but not organizational bias. The officers don’t care. They are
focused on their 37.5 hours a week. They work their asses off in
that 37.5 hours. Much brighter, much smarter. Not going to the bar
after work. They are going home to their families. They really don’t
care about whether an officer is a female. Everything they grew up
with was gender equality; we grew up with “Can we get to gender
equality?” It’s a nonissue.
Or take diversity. Diversity was like a farm; diversity was whether
you were farming sheep or cattle. In the beginning of policing,
diversity really wasn’t a discussion point. If you had a person of
color join the detachment, there would be questions about the
community they came from. So certainly we’ve come a long way
from there. Still have some challenges around understanding what
they bring. I’ll give you an example. Last week I spoke at a mosque.
I spoke at three masjids in three nights. We had arrested a couple
of local Muslims who were allegedly involved in a terrorist plot.
In one of the mosques, one of the questions that came in from the
other room was a woman who said she wanted to be a police officer
and would I allow her to wear a head scarf. And I said, “As long as
it’s blue. It has to match your uniform. I don’t want you wearing an
orange one. It can’t have sparklies. Yes, absolutely.” That discussion
wouldn’t have taken place a decade ago. I’m not sure I would have
been there a decade ago.
There is a group of twelve agencies in the community. The group
used fifty different factors to identify the top ten highest risk com-
munities in Ottawa. Three of the ten are predominately Somali
communities. So each of the agencies around the table have to
dedicate a resource to target those communities. There are after-
school programs, the Success by Six program, youth development
programs, a Somali youth basketball league. We’ve recruited four
Somali officers out of that program. We’re engaged with the Somali
community to help build a new school in Somalia. We’ve helped
raise $60,000. A Somali businessman in Ottawa is going to pay for
the school’s teachers for the first two years. At the same time, we’re
building a new playground at the predominately Somali Islamic
school in Ottawa. And we’re planning to do a simulcast between
the school in Ottawa and the one in Somalia. So, we’re in the com-
munity to show them how much they matter. If we don’t, that’s
where the next terrorist or gang member may come from.
I met with the Black community about a month ago. There were
thirty-seven different countries represented at the meeting. In
Ottawa, there are 137 embassies, so it’s not that hard to do. They
were talking to me about how Black recruiting had to be a priority.
And I said, “Why Black recruiting?” And they said, “We need to be
represented.” And I said, “Let’s talk about representation. What do
you think is the number one language, after English, that is spoken
in the city of Ottawa? What 180,000 of 920,000 residents speak in
the home? Arabic.” That’s my diversity. It can’t just be skin color.
It’s got to be language. It’s got to be culture. It’s got to be religion.
It’s got to be background. My diversity can’t be just what you look
like any more. The last three classes of thirty we’ve hired, there
are seventeen different languages spoken in the graduating classes.
Seventeen languages in each of the three. That’s diversity. So I need
to be aware of what I need to police the city, not what I need to look
like. And so I need languages; I need representation. But I can’t
necessarily see that all of the time.
It’s a lot of work. And it’s not work that is captured in traditional
policing stats and reports. I’ve got full-time mobile mental health
crisis units that are overrun right now. But almost everything they
do is noncriminal. So reports don’t capture these time-consuming
activities; nor do the reports capture the community engagement
piece, which is very time-consuming.
VW: Leadership development, the way in which it is currently done, doesn’t

work. Officers should be trained based on what is expected of
them, not based on their rank. Right now, we train based on rank.
Officers who are not at a specific rank can’t get the training. Leaders
need to be trained way before they reach the higher ranks. To be
fair, I haven’t had a police course outside the FBI and a few oth-
ers between 1997 and 2010. Thirteen years since I’ve had a course.
I have my own learning plan. [Chief White is currently working
on a doctoral degree.] A key element of leadership development
is having a learning plan. If you are going to be expected to be a
leader, whether it’s a constable on the street or a chief, then I need
to know if you have a learning plan. That may be a conference on
gang intervention; maybe a conference on dealing with the crack
cocaine problem we have right now that is continuing to grow.
The leadership piece is really about individual development. But
it can’t just be about, “Oh, you’re a sergeant. We’re going to send
you on the supervisor’s course,” or “Oh, you’re going to be a staff
sergeant, so we’re going to send you on the advanced supervisor’s
course.” And almost all of those courses talk about management
more than leadership. I don’t need for them to know about budgets
and finance. I have lots of civilians who can do that.
The Canadian Police College should be providing the training
that police leaders need to develop the skill sets necessary to be
effective. But they don’t do a very good job. There needs to be a shift
in our thinking. I send guys down to the program in Australia.
Charles Sturt University does a much better job in training offi-
cers. For $9,000 dollars an officer, I can get ten times the learn-
ing in four weeks and they get a postgraduate certificate and four
courses toward a ten-course degree. Some other countries have it
down; we don’t have it down. And, even if we did, it’s about man-
agement, not leadership.
As a police leader, it’s about creating an environment in which
people from various groups feel comfortable in applying. It’s about
embracing that fifteen-year-old for when they’re twenty-five. If
you wait for them to come through the door, first of all they may
come but they may not be the right candidate. So we have a Youth
in Policing initiative program that I brought to Ottawa. We just
finished our fourth summer. This year we had forty-five kids, all
coming from high-risk communities. Every one of them from a
high-risk community. Two Caucasian girls, four Caucasian boys;
the rest were Koreans, Chinese, Somalis, Congolese. They could

tell you where they were from. I had no idea. A lot of those kids had
never been to a police building before. And every kid had to come
with one or both parents for a four-hour session before they could
join. They get paid ten bucks an hour. I got grants. I get a grant
every year for it from the province. And the reason I want their
parents there is that I can guarantee you that they haven’t been to
our offices either. And to try to get them to understand that this
is important for us as much as it is for the kids. And at the end of
the year, the wrap-up is spectacular. I bring them all back—they
are 14 to 18 year olds—we bring them all back at Christmas for a
luncheon with me. We keep them engaged for one more time. Get
them through that stage of exposure to gang activity and, hope-
fully, see some of them as a recruit. We have our first recruit from
four years ago now. She was seventeen, now she’s twenty-one, and
she’s just applied and she’ll go into a Spring recruit class.
Our successes won’t be while I’m there. I keep telling everyone.
One of our police board members said, “Well, we haven’t seen a dra-
matic increase in hiring.” I said, “We’ve seen a dramatic increase in
engagement. If you see an increase in hiring while I’m here, that’s
bullshit. You have to wait. You’ll see it in five years. I may never see
the success of the program. But you have to have confidence that
the programs that I put in place are ones that will build success.”
I think there are similar initiatives going on in some other police
services in Canada. But I think most police leaders are too focused
on today. Too many chiefs want that immediate gratification. I do
too. But I have to be strong enough to make sure that the police
board understands, and the community in Ottawa understands,
that the success won’t be today. And if I don’t have the guts to do
that, then I probably shouldn’t be in the position I’m in. It’s like my
meetings with the Black community. They don’t necessarily care
to tell you what you should think, but they do want to know what
you think.
It’s the same with the GLBT community. We charged a guy
with having sex with a number of women with the intent of
giving them HIV. In fact, he did certain things to himself to
make himself more susceptible to passing it on, to make cer-
tain there was blood involved. We charged him with attempted
murder. The charges have been reduced to aggravated assault
times seven or eight. I don’t care whether he was a man or a
woman. He had HIV, and he was making it more likely that
he could pass it on, to infect people, and not to disclose it.
It’s a crime. But even my deputy chiefs said, “Don’t go to the
meeting.” And, I said, “What? Not go to the meeting? Of course

I’m going to the meeting.” That’s the challenge that chiefs have.
That’s the challenge that I have in building leaders in my orga-
nization. That’s in pushing them out the door to do commu-
nity engagement. They are scared to death. I look at the case
of Dziekanski [a Polish immigrant to Canada who died on 14
October 2007 after being tasered five times by the RCMP at
Vancouver International Airport]. Someone in a position of
leadership should have stood up and said, “A man arrived at
Vancouver International Airport, and he’s dead, and it’s a trag-
edy.” If someone would have just said that and then said what
they were going to do about it.
We had an incident in our cell block last year that could totally
undo us. But there wasn’t a day that I wasn’t talking about what’s
next. I implemented a number of policy changes. We went from 40
percent strip searches to 1 percent of the people that we arrest who
are strip searched. Obviously, we had some problems. Don’t pre-
tend you don’t have problems. The lawyers said that we were going
to have to write a check. So we write a check. Realistically, we can’t
keep doing the wrong thing and think that makes us a better police
service. Admission that you are mistaken, that policies are not in
place, the processes are not working, that the video camera in the
jail is not working and that there is no sound. Admitting that you
have to fix those things has to have a value to the community. To
hell with the courts. The courts will decide how much of a check
I write, if I write one at all. My job is to make sure that we fix the
problem. There are a lot of chiefs that sit on their hands and say, “It
will go away.” But it never does.
The challenge is that police leaders in Canada aren’t in the train-
ing programs for senior police administrators. They are already
chiefs and deputy chiefs. If the person at the top lives with the
credo that they will be accountable and transparent, then the orga-
nization will follow. If the person at the top refuses, the organiza-
tion won’t become accountable and transparent.
We had a case last summer involving a young officer. A car goes
by him. Two black youths driving a big Mercedes. There’s slow traf-
fic on the street. He watches them as they go by, and neither boy
looks at him. Not even a peek over at him. He says that’s suspi-
cious. He turns around. He does a registered owner query on the
license plate. He gets the phone number of the fifty-five-year-old
woman the car is registered to. He phones her up: “Ma’am, do you
know that somebody else has your car today?” She says, “They do
not. It’s in my driveway.” “Well, I’m following it downtown right
now.” “Nobody has permission to have my car.” He pulls them over

and walks up to the car. There are drugs and money half-hidden
under a pillow in the backseat. One of the kids ends up being the
son of the owner of the car. The officer ends up calling her again:
“Does your son have permission to have your car?” “No, he does
not.” He charges them for the drugs and cash. Didn’t charge them
with taking owner’s car without consent. That might have been a
mistake there. He probably should have. The case goes to court this
past summer. After the judge hears the story, she says, “If that had
been two fifty-five-year-old white women driving that car, would
you have pulled them over?” The constable says, “The car is regis-
tered to a fifty-five-year-old woman; I wouldn’t know if they were
White or Black.” And the judge says, “This looks a lot like racial
profiling to me” and throws the case out of court. The next day,
the newspaper headlines are about racial profiling and there is a
picture of one of these kids. I must have done six interviews that
day. I said, “This case says many things. Great investigative work
on this officer’s part. It was activity based. It was a good arrest and
a good prosecution. That was tossed by a judge who was wrong. It
was not racial profiling.” Not one person in the Black community
stepped forward and said I was wrong, which to me meant that
I was probably right. It was not racial profiling. So, when you’re
right, you have to speak loud. And when you are wrong, you have
to speak just as loud.
I enjoy the public debate. I do eight or ten newspaper and media
editorial boards a year. I enjoy the ed boards. It gives the public a
chance to hear what I think about issues. The supervised injection
site [SIS] is a great example. When the federal court ruled that the
SIS could remain open, I was asked straight away, “What do you
think?” And I said that when it comes to public safety, I absolutely
cannot condone a supervised injection site. I’m responsible not just
for one neighborhood or one group; I’m responsible for 920,000
people in all of the neighborhoods in my city. So, where are the
other chiefs? I speak up, and I get thousands of e-mails saying,
“Thank God someone is speaking up for our city.” That’s what the
public expects of their chief of police.
The Changing Context of Policing
VW: The Charter of Rights and Freedoms has been around since 1984,
which is about as long as I’ve been in policing. Once they get past
their grumpiness, officers tend to be very flexible in adapting to
court decisions. The legal piece is not that big an issue. But, in my
opinion, the media context is a much bigger factor in policing than
the legal issue. Not the print or visual media, but the fact that we
are being videotaped and photographed 24/7. Everything we do.
There are people videoing an arrest at two o’clock in the morning
in the Market [entertainment district] and it’s on YouTube before
the officer gets back to the office. Even though most officers grew
up with this type of media, sometimes officers view the uniform as
a shield from some of the things that ultimately get us into trouble.
The public often doesn’t see the full seven minutes leading up to an
arrest; only the thirty seconds of the arrest. The public demands
that we treat people in a civil manner, with respect, and with some
level of compassion.
The prevalence of social media has made many officers more
cautious. They are walking away from stuff. I hear officers say that
down in the Market they just want everybody to go home. Even
people who should probably go to jail; it’s easier just to send them
home. My officers in Ottawa would probably choose to wear a
video camera if it were up to them. Five years ago, that wouldn’t
have been the case. All of our tasers have video cameras on them.
I’ve got seventeen lives we saved so far.
Relationships with External Agencies
VW: In Ottawa, we have INTERSECT, which is an initiative of all of the

agencies that have an enforcement role. We meet every month.
Everyone is at the table: CBSA (Canadian Border Services Agency),
CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service), RCMP (Royal
Canadian Mounted Police), SQ (Sûreté du Québec, the provin-
cial police service in Quebec), Federal Immigration, Gatineau
(Quebec) Police, OPP (Ontario Provincial Police), Fire, Emergency
Management, and others. They are all at the table. That’s from an
enforcement/security perspective. Everyone in the room is top-
secret cleared and there has been unprecedented cooperation
among the participants, including the identification and investiga-
tion of terrorist threats.
The other piece is that I have officers sitting on Circles of
Support and Accountability, which are local, community-based
committees that oversee and assist sex offenders released into the
community. The reason that we participate in this is that I want
sex offenders to be successfully rehabilitated, since it will result in
fewer victims. Officers sit on the boards or subcommittees of drug

treatment centers and family services.
Priorities of the Ottawa Police Service
VW: Two of the priorities are new and First Canadians (Aboriginal peoples).
They are overrepresented in our correctional institutions and
underrepresented in our provincial academic institutions. They are
younger. They have more kids per family. We have had five million
new Canadians in the past five years. A lot them come from coun-
tries that are war-torn, which is very challenging. We are seeing a
much more mobile Aboriginal group now. Last year there were ten
homicides in Ottawa; two of them were Inuit. There are only 3,500
Inuit in the city. That is a huge rate. So, we haven’t got our heads
around the impact of those two groups. And, if we do, there is our
recruiting group. If we are going to be representative, that will be a
focus of our recruiting. That is our number one priority right now.
The second piece is leadership. Successional planning, leader-
ship development, making our officers understand what it really
means to be a leader in the community, not just in the police ser-
vice. I don’t need for them to know how to manage a $42 million
dollar budget. I have more than enough finance people. I need for
them to know how to lead seven people in the Market outside of
nightclubs without getting into trouble. Without 10,000 drunks
getting out of hand. That’s leadership. If you can shepherd 10,000
drunks into taxi cabs over an hour and a half period, you’re not a
bouncer, you’re a leader. If everyone of them goes home safe and
we’ve arrested maybe two people out of 10,000, that’s a good night.
That’s the kind of leadership that you need. And the passion for it.
We have to change the way we train leaders. If we trained Ident
members the way we train police leaders, they would be Ident mem-
bers for four years before they got the Ident course. It doesn’t make
sense. Nobody fails these courses, except the undercover course.
Make it real, make it substantial, add a level of rigor to it. Give it to
them when you expect they are going to be leaders. Do as prepara-
tion, rather than waiting until after they have been promoted.
Over the past twenty-four months, I’ve had twenty-nine future
leaders do an undergraduate degree at Charles Sturt University,
four or five do master’s degrees, and two do PhDs. I’ve sent eight to
Australia for leadership development. I’m the only police leader in
Canada who buys two seats a year on the RCMP leadership devel-
opment program at $45,000 a seat. For me, it’s about exposing
my officers to opportunities. Right now, we are in six countries:

Jerusalem, East Timor, Ivory Coast, Haiti, Afghanistan, and
Bosnia. I had several officers spend a period of time policing up in
Nunavut, since we have a community of Inuit in Ottawa. Officers
who went to Nunavut to police as part of a program participate in
Inuit Youth Centre and Inuit Children’s Place. We just hired our
first Inuit police officer. This is the result of that engagement.
For me, I’m looking for opportunities all of the time. I’ve had
a person seconded to Indian and Northern Affairs, one to the
Privy Office. We have a contract with the Northwest Territories,
Prince Edward Island, and Nunavut to do all of their oversight
investigations. Every time my officers are involved in these types
of situations, it’s a learning opportunity—a moment to grow. To do
something somewhere else, it’s uncomfortable. One of my officers
who was sent to Cape Dorset, Nunavut, to investigate a shooting
told me that he’d never been more uncomfortable in his life.
We have continual visits from police services from around the
world; most recently China, Vietnam, and several police services
from Australia. Every time they come in, we learn something, and
hopefully, they learn something as well.
Role of Research in Policing
VW: We work with the University of Ottawa and Carleton University to

have their masters level students do research on us. We’ll throw
a few thousand dollars into their projects. It’s difficult to develop
the research capacity inside the police service. Planners should be
doing it, but they are so busy doing strategic planning. They will
provide the high-level advice to the Masters students. The research
points out areas where we can improve things. If we’re not in a
good place with respect to our practice, we want to know so we can
fix it, because current practice isn’t best practice. That’s the chal-
lenge we have in policing.
Democratic Policing
VW: A key element of this is oversight of police. The most important part
of this is governance that is outside of politics. That is where there
is an opportunity for the public to buy in, that they see that the
people on the police board represent them and their interests. They
may not feel the same way about oversight agencies.
In Ottawa, the mayor of the city may or may not be on the police
board. I don’t report to the mayor. There are three political repre-
sentatives out of seven. That’s different from Vancouver, where the
mayor is the chair of the police board. In Ontario, if provincial
police services feels that the budget that is given to a police service
is not adequate, they can intercede and order the city council to
provide the funding.
Looking Ahead
VW: As an optimist, I would say that the most likely developments will
be in the area of leadership development. From an officer’s per-
spective, I believe we will see a growth in leadership development
going forward. There will also be a growth in police oversight. I
believe the police will become more transparent, if I’m an optimist.
If I’m a pessimist, none of this will happen, because we have lost
the high levels of public confidence in the police. We are losing the
public’s trust. If we don’t do the things that need to be done, we are
going to continue to lose the trust of the public.
As the police, we have to say what we are going to be involved
in, and what we are going to engage in, and, as importantly, what
we are not going to be involved in. Two years ago, I did a TV show.
There was a segment called, “Ask the Chief.” A woman calls in
and says, “Chief, I haven’t seen a cop car on my road for sixteen
months.” I flip open my book and check her postal code. We hadn’t
had a call there for eighteen months or so. So I said, “Do you want
the fire truck to drive up and down your street? You should be
bragging to people that the cops don’t have to be there.” We have
2,800 square kilometers to police. I couldn’t possibility put patrol
cars in all of that area. We can’t put resources where people want
them; instead, we need to refocus on where we need to be. Routine
patrols don’t work. Targeted patrols put resources where they need
to be. You need to be able to say, “Here’s what we’re going to do,
and if you don’t like it, I’m not the chief. Pick someone else.” But
almost no chiefs will say that. They got to be a leader doing what
they always did. Why would they do something else?
Regarding the issue of how police services can balance the need for commu-
nity engagement with the requirements of safety and security, Chief White stated
that the shift has been from community policing to community engagement.
VW: It’s always been a balancing act, and there are always more balls in the
air than you have hands able to catch them. If we run into financial
issues like in the U.S., and I was told I have to cut 100 constable
positions, then certainly I couldn’t do all of the things we’re cur-
rently doing. Where we focus our attention is driven by the com-
munity. When I arrived in Ottawa, the number-one concern was
street crime, so we’ve put resources into that area.
Conclusion
Chief White’s responses to the questions posed during the interview indicate
that he is committed to reform in police work, to questioning long-standing
police practices, and to being forthright with the community. He has a strong
interest in leadership development and attempts to foster leadership in his
officers by providing them with educational and experiential opportunities.
He also places a strong emphasis on community engagement, which he views
as a critical component of community policing and in ensuring the safety
and security of the community.
Chief White is not hesitant to challenge police leaders to be innovative,
to develop their officers to be leaders, and to be transparent and accountable
to the public. His approach is one of continuous organizational improve-
ment, which includes changing current practices into best practices.
Glossary
Contract policing: The provision of policing services by RCMP officers

serving as provincial and municipal police officers under agreements
between the RCMP and the provinces or territories and by officers of
the Ontario Provincial Police in the province of Ontario.
Kimmirut: An Inuit community of approximately 400 residents, situated in
the Canadian High Arctic in the Territory of Nunavut.
Ogbonnaya Onovo,
Inspector General
of Police, Nigeria 7
INTERVIEWED BY
AMOS OYESOJI AREMU1
Contents
Introduction 109
Career 110
Relationships with Other Security Agencies 115
Looking Ahead 120
Conclusion 121
Notes 121
Reference 122
Introduction
In Nigeria, the history of the police dates back to the colonial administration;
hence the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is one of the legacies of British rule. The
Nigeria Police Force had its origin in Lagos (the then federal capital territory
of Nigeria) more than 130 years ago. After independence in 1960, Louis Edet
became the first indigenous inspector general of police (IGP). Presently, the
Nigeria Police Force is headquartered in Abuja, the federal capital territory.
The NPF has thirty-six state police commands headed by a commissioner of
police. Generally, for administrative convenience, there are six zonal police
commands. Each zonal police command is headed by an assistant inspector
general (AIG). The NPF is constitutionally vested with functions and powers
in section 194 of the Constitution of Nigeria, which states, “There shall be a
Police Force for Nigeria, which should be styled the Nigeria Police Force, and
subject to the provisions of this section the Police force shall be established
109
for the federation … the members of the Nigeria Police Force shall have such
powers and duties as may be conferred upon them by law.”
The security apparatus in Nigeria has never been so challenged as it has
been in the last six years, with threats from kidnappers in the South and the
terrorist organization, Boko Haram, in the North East.2
The appointment of the IGP is the prerogative of the president and
commander-in-chief of the armed forces. It is done in consultation with
the Council of State, based on the recommendation of the Police Service
Commission. Ogbonnaya Onovo was, at the time of this interview, the thir-
teenth indigenous IGP in Nigeria. He was appointed in June 2009, after the
retirement of his predecessor, Mike Okiro. Ogbonnaya Onovo hails from
Akpugo in Nkanu West Local Government Area of Enugu State. This makes
him the only IGP to have come from the Eastern part of the country.
After graduating from the University of Nigeria Nsuka in 1976 with a
bachelor’s in political science, he enlisted in the Nigeria Police on 1 August
1978, starting at the rank of assistant superintendent of police (ASP). As a
commissioner of police, he headed the Ogun State Police Command until
December 1998, when he was appointed chairman of the National Drug Law
Enforcement Agency (NDLEA). From the NDLEA, he was deployed to the
police academy in Kano as commandant in May 2000. He served in this posi-
tion until his promotion to the rank of AIG of police in May 2001. As an AIG,
he headed the Research and Planning Department at the force headquarters
and also served as force secretary until February 2002.
Following another upgrade to the rank of deputy inspector general
(DIG) in March 2002, he was initially designated the second-in-command to
the IGP in the force headquarters. However, between 2003 and 2006, another
official reassignment of tasks placed him in charge of the criminal investiga-
tion department, from which he was subsequently moved in November 2006
to his last designation as the DIG in charge of administration.
The interview with Deputy Inspector General Onovo was conducted in
his expansive office at police headquarters at Kam Salem House in Abuja on
29 January 2010 in the presence of Austin Iwar, an assistant commissioner of
police, Community Police Unit. Deputy Inspector General Onovo is an intel-
ligent, creative, pragmatic, dynamic, and disciplined officer, as evidenced by
the manner in which he answered the questions. Subsequent to this inter-
view, he retired in September 2010.
Career
AO: What has been your career path in the Nigeria Police?
OO: I joined the Nigeria Police Force as a young graduate in 1978. After the
staff college, I was posted first of all to Port Harcourt as a division
Ogbonnaya Onovo, Inspector General of Police, Nigeria 111
crime officer. From there, I moved on to the traffic section, the

state’s criminal investigation department, and, after two years, I
ended up at the Mobile Police Squadron.
Mobile police is the armed section of the force, whose specific
duty is to quell riots and other civil disturbances. It can also act
as a special weapons and tactics (SWAT) team when there is need.
Following promotions, I became a staff officer in administration
for many years. From there, I also worked at the operations depart-
ment, which involves patrol and guarding. Later I moved on to
other departments, such as training, where I lectured in the college
and eventually became commandant of the police academy. Then
I became the chief investigation officer of the Nigeria Police, DIG
Benin. I also served as force secretary. So, my career has covered
every aspect of policing.
AO: What have been the surprises and challenges during your police career?
OO: Because of our training, we don’t actually experience surprises, in the
sense that as a police officer you are meant to be always alert to
face challenges as they come. So, I cannot pinpoint any occur-
rence in particular that came as a surprise to me. Police philoso-
phy is to give your very best at any given time according to the
ethics of the profession. So, I was trained to handle any surprise.
But in terms of my most challenging experience, it was my time
in the criminal investigation department, because of the lack of
equipment and lack of information from witnesses and members
of the public. Another very challenging experience right now for
me is the menace of the Boko Haram sect. It is difficult, but not
insurmountable.
AO: Did your career prove to be as interesting and rewarding as you
anticipated?
OO: Yes, from the first day to this moment, there has not been a dull moment
for me. I enjoy every bit of my career development in the police.
You meet different kinds of people, and you meet different kinds
of situations. The police officer is someone who can dine in the
police post today and wake up to face a murderer the following day.
Although it is a very dangerous job, one can derive pleasure doing
it: whether it is seeing a criminal put behind bars or solving a crime
or putting a smile on the face of somebody facing misery or helping
in social services. But when you talk about the financial aspect of
it, it is not rewarding at all. The Nigeria Police personnel are poorly
paid. This affects the morale of the rank and file.
Changes Experienced
AO: What have been some of the most significant changes in the Nigeria
Police Force during your career?
OO: The Nigeria Police prior to the present political dispensation that started
in 1999 more militaristic. This was a result of many years of mili-
tary rule. However, from 1999, the Nigeria Police have become more
democratic, pragmatic, and community-oriented. The new polic-
ing approach has brought transparency, accountability, and com-
munity partnerships in the police. This is one of our philosophies.
We are committed to this and it is interesting and challenging. This
is coupled with the fact that the present democratic transition has
made policing operations the fundamental springboard for foster-
ing safety, security, and development investment in Nigeria. Thus,
officers and staff of the NPF are a critical factor in creating the req-
uisite peaceful, secure, and investment-friendly environment for
the attainment of the government’s Vision 2020 objectives.
This paradigm shift has made the Nigeria Police reengineer
with a view to producing a selfless service police. Among other
things, the reengineering has led to technical transformation and
modification of all structures and rules that govern police activ-
ity. It has required a very large number of changes. There has been
the development of regulations to expand or limit the roles and
responsibilities of police personnel. Then we have had to create new
offices and roles, such as human rights desks, community polic-
ing change agents, vigilante support officers, and inspection teams
to reduce corruption and inappropriate or unlawful activity. We
have restructured to reduce bureaucracy and empower officers and
communities. There has been the development of neighborhood
policing and the development of intelligence-led policing. Police
salaries have been increased, although not enough. The police have
also imbibed technology culture. We are working hard on this with
a view to improving police intelligence to fight crime. In so doing,
we have had to ensure a clarity of roles for all personnel. I appreci-
ate the fact that all this is a developmental process. Therefore, we
are working hand in hand with the Ministry of Police Affairs to
facilitate further police reform based on the democratic ideals of:
ensuring safety and security for our citizens and visitors; protect-
ing civil liberties and human rights; understanding and promoting
the rule of law; and developing and implementing the philosophy
and practice of community policing. It is only through the practi-
cal execution of these ideals that the men and women of the NPF
can support the development of Nigerian society, which will enable

economic and social development.
AO: What is your assessment of the changes in the quality of policing in
Nigeria, judging from the fact that policing is now more intelli-
gence based?
OO: The demand of policing is quite enormous now compared with what it
was in the past. With democracy, the expectation on the police is
high. To meet the challenges, the NPF has to access its competence
through organizational SWOT [strengths, weaknesses, opportu-
nities, and threats] analysis and keep abreast of relevant political,
economic, social/cultural, technological, legal, and environmental
issues at the local, national, and global level. This plethora of infor-
mation must be analyzed and integrated into federal, state, and
local level policing plans.
With the present democratic dispensation, public responses
to the police have been positively rewarding and favorable. Local
communities have being partnering with the police through com-
munity-based policing to making policing more effective and pro-
active in managing crime and crisis situations. Thus, though the
Nigeria Police has its peculiar challenges, it can still be said rightly
that there has been a significant and progressive improvement in
the quality of policing.
AO: How much effort do the Nigeria Police put into intelligence policing?
OO: The Nigeria Police have an intelligence bureau under “D” Department.
The NPF has seven departments: Administration, Operations,
Logistics and Supply, Criminal Investigation, Training and
Human Resources, Research and Planning, and Information,
Communication, and Technology. It is the hub of the police. It is
the most important department when it comes to security issues.
The department collaborates with other security agencies in shar-
ing information. The present leadership not only improving the
department’s capacity, efforts are always made to provide equip-
ment and logistics.
AO: Having put more than thirty years into the service, what is your per-
sonal policing philosophy?
OO: My personal policing philosophy is to be guided by the ethics of the
profession. That is, to ensure the security of life and property for
all without regard to race and origin, and to ensure that the weak
and innocent are protected. My philosophy is also to ensure that
the constitutional rights of everybody are respected, and above all,

to ensure that justice, fair play, and equity are duly applied to all.
The police management is committed to this.
AO: May I ask about roles you think are expected of the police in Nigeria?
OO: Ideally, in a democratic country, the police are expected to ensure the
security and safety of life and property, ensure peace and justice,
uphold the law, and protect the rights and dignity of all the people.
These are not negotiable. My own strategy for the Nigeria Police
is a three-point agenda. First, capacity building of the police per-
sonnel—training and retraining of the members of the police
force. You have to ensure that officers are trained and live up to
the expectations of our people by being able to respond effectively
to criminality. Second, there must be adequate provision for the
welfare of the police. We have to increase their pay and improve
their accommodation and allowances. Finally, I want to instill in
the Nigeria police officers a sense of belonging and to give them an
intelligent leadership. You need to develop human capital to meet
national and global expectations. Thus, the effective use of human
resources and technology in the administration of policing affairs
and intelligence will go a long way to helping the NPF to be proac-
tive and community based. The expectations of the public are very
high. We cannot afford to disappoint them.
AO: Can you please explain what police functions mean in practice?
OO: Section 4 of the Police Act clearly spells out the roles and functions of
the police, which include prevention and detection of crime, appre-
hension of offenders, preservation of law and order, protection of
life and property, due enforcement of all laws and regulations with
which they are directly charged, as well as the performance of such
military duties within or outside Nigeria as may be required of
them. However, the act does not dictate the ways in which these
roles and functions should be achieved. The NPF is, therefore,
transforming from an institution that was largely self-defined and
unresponsive to communities, to one that is responsive to the soci-
ety from which it derives its authority and from which it seeks its
legitimacy. As it does so, it is clear that the ways and methodologies
of achieving these roles and functions will alter. Simply put, as the
NPF transforms into a democratic police service, it must support
the development of a democratic society as part of the government’s
larger strategy to support economic and human development.
AO: In spite of all these changes, why is it that members of the public are still
scornful of the police in Nigeria?
OO: The Nigeria Police has created a virile public relations unit, but as yet
we have not achieved the desired results. I should also let you know
that members of the public also have stereotypes when it comes to

police in the country. This must change.
AO: In your assessment, do you think this negative attitude toward the
police is peculiar to Nigeria?
OO: Not at all. In other countries the police are also derided. Remember that
a good number of people who hate the police are criminals. And so
anywhere you find criminals, police will not be welcomed.
AO: How do you think a paradigm shift in the police can be practically
achieved?
OO: Everything about policing in Nigeria has to be reinvented to achieve the
desired results. Seriously, there are issues begging for attention in
the police. This notwithstanding, the authorities of the NPF will
have to reengineer the expected change for purposeful policing in
Nigeria.
Relationships with Other Security Agencies
AO: Is there any collaborative relationship between the Nigeria Police and
other security agencies?
OO: As observed earlier, policing in Nigeria requires collaborative effort
and effective networking. This implies that the effort of all other
organizations, agencies, and individuals is quite significant in this
cause. It is equally pertinent to appreciate that in a nascent democ-
racy, such as we have in Nigeria, challenges of a diverse nature are
expected. Thus, Nigeria has been confronted with numerous prob-
lems of crime, ranging from armed robbery, advance-fee fraud,
and drug-related offenses and, more recently, a growth in kidnap-
for-ransom and terrorism occasioned by the Boko Haram group.
Given this plethora of security challenges, the Nigeria Police Force
has to strengthen its intelligence unit and collaborations. Clearly,
democracy brings new challenges, including the management of
elections and the associated risk of violence. To tackle these seri-
ous crimes and ensure that the NPF is as efficient and effective as
possible, it is imperative that the Nigeria Police and other secu-
rity agencies and organizations work hand in hand. It is essential
that government and security agencies collaborate to achieve this,
including the development of the legal and strategic frameworks
to facilitate progress. The NPF must work with other security
agencies, such as the Nigerian Immigration Services, National
Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, Nigerian
Customs Services, Nigerian Prison Services, Federal Road Safety
Commission, National Security and Civil Defense Corps, National
Drug Law Enforcement Agency, Economic and Financial Crimes

Commission, and State Security Services. All must share their
resources, intelligence, and expertise. It is clear that no good will
come from safety and security personnel only showing concern
for their own areas of jurisdiction, and refusing to give informa-
tion to enhance the performance of their sister agencies. We need
a collaborative partnership framework supported with clearly
defined protocols. I fully acknowledge that each security agency
has its own jurisdiction, agendas, role, and responsibilities. But it is
also important that all agencies recognize that the police have the
primary constitutional mandate. Moreover, to move forward, all
agencies must adopt a strategically integrated approach, based on
a clear understanding of their differences and their interrelation-
ships. This will enable all agencies to focus joint and multiagency
activities where they are needed the most, without duplication or
waste of effort.
Another key agency is Nigeria’s military. The army is still a vis-
ible feature of policing in Nigeria. Eventually, army support for the
civil power in Nigeria should be no more than it is in any other
democratic states (search and rescue, bomb disposal, and declared
states of emergencies, such as natural disasters). In Nigeria, the
transition from military rule to democracy creates one exception:
the area of public order policing, where the army provides sup-
port to the police, including a substantial engineering and resource
capability, and for large public order events or disturbances. It is not
practical to replicate these capabilities within the Nigeria Police,
because this would be very expensive and wasteful of resources
which might not be used. Therefore, for as long as the prospect
remains of substantial public order policing demands on the scale
seen in the Niger Delta, the Boko Haram crisis, and clashes in Jos
during recent years, the army should retain the capacity to pro-
vide support for the police in meeting those demands. However,
even where the police are not able to contain the public order situ-
ation, and military forces are invited to assist, having neutralized
the offending forces, the military must hand operations back to the
police to exercise control.
AO: What about the challenges confronting the police? Or do you think
there are none?
OO: There are, of course. The greatest challenge confronting the Nigeria
Police is insecurity and the spate of bombings and kidnappings in
the country. The NPF is also confronted with challenges to meet
the demands of the 21st century that require providing person-
nel who are well trained, highly motivated, proficient, competent,
articulated, and disciplined. They should be capable of meeting the
needs of a vast, dynamic, changing democratic society through an
integrated management system. In addition, they should be trained
in counterterrorism and disaster management.
AO: I observed that at the headquarters that there is a separate unit for
community policing. How functional is community policing in
Nigeria?
OO: Community policing seeks to reverse resentment, apathy, and opposi-
tion to the police whilst restraining the impulse for the public to
take the law into their own hands. This new relationship, based
on mutual trust and respect, also suggests that the police can
serve as a catalyst—challenging people to accept their share of
the responsibilities for the overall quality of life in their neighbor-
hood. Both sides of the partnership, therefore, have to know their
responsibilities. From the side of the police, this involves officers
who are assigned to geographical areas to find social resources and
mobilize them—a daunting task, as they will face opposition from
groups who control the streets and illicit markets for drugs, crime,
violence, and corruption at all levels. However, there are clear links
between democratic community-oriented policing and the devel-
opment of social capital and, ultimately, a reduction in crime and
other destructive elements such as road accidents.
From the side of the community, this means that citizens must
not only share in the rights, but also the responsibilities implicit
in identifying and setting priorities and solving problems in a
partnership approach. Community policing requires continuous,
sustained contact with all sections of the local community so that
together they can explore solutions to local problems. Whilst the
community policing philosophy promotes the use of technology, it
also strongly advocates the belief that nothing surpasses what ded-
icated human beings talking and working together can achieve.
Positive initiatives, such as police community consultative com-
mittees, victim support, neighborhood and business watch, school
involvement programs, and indigenous crime prevention/commu-
nity safety structures, all play their part in problem solving and
improving the overall quality of life for all citizens. Within differ-
ent communities there will be different structures (both statutory
and voluntary organizations) that are already well established and
that can be tapped to harness community safety and partnership;

for example, traditional leaders, public and private housing asso-
ciations, residents’ associations, and the business community.
AO: How has the NPF been affected by developments outside the country?
OO: The NPF has been involved in peacekeeping operations since the
early sixties, which have resulted in international acclaim. We
have also been involved at the continental and regional level
under the auspices of the AU [African Union] and ECOWAS
[Economic Community of West African States]. Additionally, at
the international level there has been collaboration with other
police organizations through Interpol and bilateral development
with countries such as the UK and Israel. Given the scope of the
above mandate, our domestic experience is improved when inter-
national experience is imported back into the country to enhance
our efficiency. Such developments, in terms of human rights and
universal codes of ethics, have been instrumental in legislations
which are passed into law and enforced by the police. To this
extent, the NPF has been positively affected by the various devel-
opments outside the country.
AO: Is this transnational cooperation beneficial to NPF?
OO: Yes, to a large extent it is beneficial. There is an association of ECOWAS
Police Chiefs. At this level, police chiefs in the West Africa subre-
gion exchange intelligence on policing. Challenging security issues
are addressed using the spirit of Interpol.
AO: How has the post-9/11 environment affected the Nigeria Police Force?
OO: The sad event of 9/11 has created intense global awareness and neces-
sity for a more efficient security network and the need to maintain
vigilance at all times. It has also brought to the forefront the signif-
icance of local, national, and international security collaboration
and cooperation between the various securities organizations to
combating global threats. In the NPF, it also inspired the establish-
ment of the anti-terrorism squad. Presently, the country now has
her own share of terrorism, brought about by Boko Haram. This
has reawakened the security perception of the police in Nigeria.
The police, more than ever before, are vigilant and are being
trained in counterterrorism.
Democratic Policing
AO: How would you define democratic policing in the Nigerian context?
OO: The term democratic policing emphasizes that policing must support
democratic values including, but not limited to, inalienable human
rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Democratic
institutions enjoy the trust of the citizenry when they are account-
able, legitimate, and subordinate to civil authority and the rule of
law, thereby reducing inducements for misconduct and corruption.
They value freedom and create systems and procedures to protect
that. The goal of democratic policing is therefore to maximize that
freedom by minimizing physical or psychological threats to safety
and controlling crime.
The effective implementation of the community policing initia-
tive gives every member of the community a sense of belonging
and instills in people the fact that the security of life and property
is the civic responsibility of all. Community policing also enables
intelligence-led policing because of the increased level of trust
between partners. However, community policing is not the whole
of what we mean by democratic policing, unless it is embedded
within the aforementioned democratic values. There are obstacles
to its achievement. Some are external to the police, such as under-
development, a lack of established democratic institutions, a weak
civil society, inequality, pressing crime, social/cultural conflict,
and international pressures. However, some are internal to the
police. It saddens me that these include ineffectiveness, corruption,
brutality, and incivility to members of the public from certain indi-
viduals within the NPF as well as organizational problems such as
a lack of capacity, infrastructure, and funding. The Nigeria Police
works and relates with the Ministry of Police Affairs to facilitate
further police reform based on democratic ideals. The Ministry of
Police Affairs performs oversight functions regarding the Nigeria
Police Force. In sum, I believe democratic policing can be achieved
in Nigeria, but it will be a long process. Equally, the complexities of
the situation should not be used as an excuse for slowing down or
giving up on the reform process. It is the only way forward.
AO: You have been serving in the Nigeria Police for over three decades. Is
everything about this police job easy?
OO: Certainly not. Policing as a career is fulfilling if one has the right moti-
vation. Yes, there are challenges as for any other security organiza-
tion, but having reached this peak in the police, I can comfortably
say I enjoy all aspects of policing up to this level.
Looking Ahead
AO: Presently, there are ongoing reforms in the police force. Are you satis-
fied or dissatisfied with the progress?
OO: Holistically, I am satisfied with the progress policing has made in
Nigeria. There is a general awareness of contemporary policing
issues, such as fundamental human rights, protection of vulner-
able groups such as women, children, and refugees by the police,
fundamental police ethics, and legitimate use of firearms, police–
public partnership, and interagency collaboration. Nevertheless,
the reforming and repositioning of the NPF is an ongoing and
long-term process.
AO: One of the current issues on policing in Nigeria is the clamor for the
creation of state police. What is your view on this?
OO: Let me take you down memory lane on this contentious issue. State
police was in existence prior to independence in Nigeria. Then
each regional government in Nigeria had native police. This was
used mainly for political oppression of the opposition parties.
With the intervention of the military in 1966 and suspension of the
constitution, regional police was abrogated. And with the creation
of more states, the Nigeria Police became the exclusive prerogative
of the federal government. Recently, there has been an increasing
clamor for state police. As the IGP, I don’t support the creation of
state police. Nigeria is not ripe for it and the state governors cannot
be trusted with the control of a state police.
AO: The promotion of synergy between researchers and practitioners is
often stressed. What do you think?
OO: There have been efforts to collaborate with the theoreticians and police
researchers. The Nigeria Police is not an island. The force makes
use of the theories from the universities. The force has also ben-
efitted from police-based literature locally and internationally.
As much as possible, there are workshops and seminars through
which policing skills are sharpened. Police officers are also encour-
aged to join international police organizations.
AO: How about the NPF recruitment policies?
OO: Generally, people can enlist into the NPF either through a cadet training
at the Nigeria Police Academy in Kano or through training schools.
AO: On a final note, what is your general assessment of the Nigeria Police?
OO: The Nigeria Police, within the limits of resources available to it
and its personnel, should be commended. The police force has
also participated in many international peacekeeping exercises
where its personnel won laurels and commendations. In sum, the
Nigeria Police deserves commendation for its efforts in ensuring

national security.
Conclusion
Interviewing Ogbonnaya Onovo, the thirteenth IGP in Nigeria, was an

experience I cherish and would want to have again. In Nigeria, it is not
always easy to access such a police chief. IGP Onovo displayed leadership
and professionalism. As has been revealed by the IGP, the NPF is transi-
tioning to positively impact on the citizenry and offer productive policing
services. In the view of Fleming and Wood (2006), police organizations
increasingly operate in an environment that values partnerships and net-
works. The Nigeria Police is no exception.
Notes
1. Acknowledgment is made to Gen. Bello Dambazau, former chief of army staff,
Nigeria, for facilitating the interview with Onovo. Similarly, Commissioner
of Police Yinka Balogun, the principal staff officer to the inspector general of
police, should be commended for his protocol assistance.
2. Boko Haram is a Salafist jihadist terrorist organization based in North East,
Nigeria, in the area predominated by the Kanuri people. It was founded by
a civil servant, Mohammed Yusuf (who is highly educated). Although the
origins of Boko Haram are murky, the group was not founded as a violent
insurgent group. It was actually founded in the mid-1990s as a religious study
group. From 2002 to 2009, Boko Haram, which is in the Hausa language,
meaning western education is sacrilege, engaged in low-level conflict with the
police. It was the crackdown on the group by the police in 2009 that triggered
a series of attacks across four northern states: Bauchi, Yobe, Borno, and Kano.
After the killing of Mohammed Yusuf on 30 July 2009, the group became more
ferocious in violence under the new leadership of Imam Abubakar Shekau.
Their menace has not only confounded the security agencies; its membership
remains elusive. From the postcolonial inception of the Nigeria Police, the
security agency has not been faced with such a huge challenge as it has wit-
nessed in the last three years. From 2009 to date, the Louis Edet House of the
Nigeria Police has seated three inspectors general of police. It is instructive to
note that Ogbonnaya Onovo (2009 to 7 September 2010) and Haphiz Ringim
(8 September 2010 to 2012), the predecessors of the current IG, Mohammed
Dikko Abubakar, were victims of police lack of intelligence in curbing insur-
gence of kidnapping and home-grown terrorism promoted by Boko Haram.
Evidently, IGP Onovo remarked emotionally in his handing over to Ringim
that, “I came into office with Boko Haram, and I am leaving office with Boko
Haram.” Ringim also lost his job because of the same security challenge.
Reference
Fleming, J. and Wood, J. (Eds.). (2006). Fighting Crime Together: The Challenges of
Policing and Security Networks. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.
Todd Wuestewald,
Chief, Broken Arrow
Police Department,
Oklahoma,
8
United States
INTERVIEWED BY
MONIQUE MARKS
Contents
Introduction 123
Career 125
Policing Philosophy 131
Looking Ahead 142
Conclusion 143
References 144
Introduction
I first met Chief Todd Wuestewald in 2006 at a symposium held at the

University of California, Berkeley, entitled, “Police Reform from the Bottom
Up.” The symposium focused on the role of unions in police reform as well
as innovative ways of managing police organizations to include the rank and
file in decision-making processes and programs. At this symposium, which
brought together a select group of police officers and prominent academ-
ics who had been writing about these topics, Chief Wuestewald stood out
as a leader who runs an effective police department with highly motivated
members. He struck me as a forward-thinking officer who could easily strad-
dle both academia and police leadership. His personal disposition was as
a thoughtful, progressive, and likeable individual who articulated a set of
ideas that were fresh and embedded in both practice and theory. Prior to the
123
symposium, I had not heard of Chief Wuestewald, nor had I heard of this
place called Broken Arrow. I made it my business to discover that Broken
Arrow is a city located in the northeastern part of the United States in the
state of Oklahoma. It is the largest suburb of Tulsa and has a population of
about 100,000 residents. I also learned that Broken Arrow is one of the saf-
est cities in the state of Oklahoma. The Broken Arrow Police Department
employs about 187 people and has shifted toward more participatory forms
of management through the creation of an employee steering committee that
is cross-functional.
There’s no national police force in the United States. Policing in the
United States is organized on a state and local basis. The country has around
500,000 police officers and a total of 18,000 separate police forces, over half
of which are simply one- or two-person sheriffs’ offices in small towns. There
are approximately 18,760 separate police agencies in the United States with
approximately 940,275 employees. The 10th Amendment of the Constitution
reserves police powers to the states, and both federalism and tradition have
resulted in a fragmented police structure at lower levels of government.
Police chiefs are primarily accountable to local authorities such as mayors of
towns or cities. States also have special agencies or task forces separate from
their state police or highway patrol. Counties may have railroad or tribal
police, and metropolitan cities may have special port, transit, causeway,
housing, and school police. In essence, then, policing in the United States
is fragmented, diverse, and decentralized. This, it could be argued, allows
for greater autonomy and innovation at the local level than is the case in
countries with more centralized police organizations, such as South Africa,
where all police officers and their managers are subject to the same set of
laws, plans, and policies.
The innovative manner in which Chief Wuestewald manages his police
department has led to numerous studies aimed at identifying the benefits of
his approach. The results of these studies uniformly conclude that the Broken
Arrow Police Department has a management style that optimizes employee
organizational commitment, pride, morale, motivation, productivity, lead-
ership development, and acceptance of community policing initiatives. In
addition, this police department demonstrates that shared leadership assists
in bridging the gap that generally exists between union and management and
between line officer and senior executives.
Since meeting Chief Wuestewald in 2006, I have made extensive use of
his published work and have consulted with him about my own thinking
and ideas development on a variety of topics pertaining to contemporary
(global) policing. Time and again I have been astonished by his impressive
knowledge of the police “craft” and the impact of socioeconomic and polit-
ical shifts (at local, national, and global levels) on the policing landscape.
Given this, it was an honor to have the opportunity to conduct an interview
Todd Wuestewald, Chief, Broken Arrow Police Department 125
with Chief Wuestewald for this book. Chief Wuestewald is an author in his
own right and as a result this process took the form of a relatively infor-
mal e-mail conversation, with much of the work being done by him. Chief
Wuestewald and I spent many hours defining appropriate questions. He then
e-mailed his answers to me and I responded by asking for further informa-
tion or clarification.
Career
MM: What is your official professional biography?

TW: I am a thirty-year veteran of the Tulsa and Broken Arrow Police
Departments. I was promoted up through the ranks to my cur-
rent position, having held positions in patrol, K-9, special opera-
tions, training, detectives, and administration. I received a BA in
English and criminal justice from Michigan State University, an
MA in public administration from the University of Oklahoma,
an MSc in criminal justice from Northeastern State University,
and am currently a PhD candidate at Oklahoma State University,
where I am researching police organizational and workforce devel-
opment. I’ve published on the subjects of leadership and manage-
ment, police training and education, community policing, SWAT
operations, and police research collaborations. I’m a graduate of
the FBI National Academy, the Senior Management Institute for
Police, and the Rocky Mountain Leadership Program. I currently
serve on the adjunct faculties of several universities and police
training foundations, as well as on the boards of numerous state
and national organizations.
MM: Tell me a bit about your career as a police officer
TW: I started my career with the Tulsa, Oklahoma Police Department in
1981. Eventually, I moved to Broken Arrow Police Department, a
suburban agency serving a community of approximately 100,000
residents. I’ve had the opportunity to work in most of the specialty
assignments found in the profession, but probably enjoyed my time
in K-9 as a dog handler and in special operations (SWAT) the most.
I’ve served as chief of my present agency for eight years.
Like many, I think I became interested in law enforcement by
happenstance. I was attending college and needed a job, so I took
a security guard position at an urban hospital in Michigan. We
got it all: accident victims, stabbings, shootings, suicides, drunks,
bar fights, domestics, you name it; and I was immediately bitten
by the excitement. I got to know and respect the local police that
came in with their prisoners and escorted the victims. I thought
they were the epitome of cool—they found all kinds of mayhem out
there on the street and set about making things right. I volunteered
for every weekend shift I could get and did some ride-alongs with
the officers. I started taking criminal justice classes, figuring if I
couldn’t be the next great investigative reporter for the New York
Times, perhaps I could make a difference one person at a time as a
cop on the beat. At that point, there was probably no turning back.
Police work is an adrenaline rush and addictive. Other aspects of
life pale in comparison.
In some ways, I think mine is a fairly typical story. The motiva-
tion to become a police officer often comes from a combination of
an action orientation, a desire to do good, and then sheer coinci-
dence. If I hadn’t needed a job, I wouldn’t have ended up working
in an emergency room and wouldn’t have met those police who
somehow managed to extract order from chaos. I guess knowing
I’ve helped a few people is good enough for me.
Changes Experienced
MM: What would you say are the main organizational changes you have
experienced during the time you have spent as a police officer?
TW: Probably the biggest changes I’ve seen in my career involve women in
law enforcement, technology, and the final acceptance of commu-
nity policing as a routine part of the job.
MM: Let’s begin with the first change you mention—women in the police
world.
TW: When I entered law enforcement thirty years ago, my primary training
officer was a woman, which at the time was extremely unusual.
She was one of only a handful of women on a force of 800. At the
time, I can remember being sensitive to that fact that I was being
trained for the street by a female and endured considerable ribbing
from my peers; everything from comments about her not know-
ing her business to innuendoes about males and females working
together in a squad car. Eventually, I learned what an asset she was
to my early police education. I think she was more sensitive to good
tactics than your typical male officer and she definitely taught me
the value of talking someone into handcuffs rather than wrestling
them on.
Today, of course, attitudes are much more sophisticated about
women in law enforcement. Male and female officers regularly
work side by side and think nothing of it. This is a real sea change
in attitude from the early days. We have also seen women rise up
the ranks in policing and demonstrate they can handle all aspects
of the profession on a par with their male counterparts. Perhaps
some of this has been helped along by similar trends in the mili-
tary. At any rate, I think it’s been a good thing and has probably
reduced the overall use of force and level of citizen complaints.
That said, I think we still have a long way to go. In the U.S., women
comprise only about 12 to 15 percent of the police workforce.
In some European countries this percentage is far higher. For
instance, I’ve seen new recruit classes in Germany in which women
comprised nearly 40 percent of the cadets. As the larger American
society becomes more accustomed to the idea of women in uni-
form, we will see the representation of females in law enforcement
rise. Some social stigmas about women in law enforcement per-
sist. It is still unusual for a young girl to grow up thinking about
police work as a legitimate career. But, this is slowly giving way as
traditional gender roles relax and the law enforcement profession
becomes more welcoming.
MM: Can you say something about where women are located within police
organizations? Are there any units in which women remain mar-
ginal actors?
TW: In the “old days” women were relegated to certain “nonenforcement”
jobs, such as meter maids, matrons in the female holding facili-
ties, counseling services, administrative duties, or possibly juvenile
crimes assignments. But, today, I think there is very little differ-
ence in terms of job assignment. Female officers undergo the same
academy training, field training, and subsequent duty assignments
as male officers. And we see no difference in performance, or per-
haps only positive differences. For instance, I get less use-of-force
reports involving female officers, possibly because they are more
likely to rely on verbal rather than physical skills. Women also
make excellent hostage negotiators, investigators for crimes against
women and children, victim services, and in regard to community
policing initiatives. There is still some bias against females in tacti-
cal operations, such as SWAT, though. Certainly, the physical dif-
ferences between the genders plays a role in this. But, having spent
thirteen years in SWAT, I rarely found my size and strength the
deciding factor in a scenario. It was usually a matter of endurance,
technique, and judgment—and in these areas women are every bit
the equal of men. Perhaps the tactical bias against women will fall
by the wayside as well.
Interestingly, all those women that started entering law enforce-
ment not long after I did are now reaching some maturity in their
careers. We see this in the increasing number of female senior
commanders and chiefs in the U.S. Although the overall percent-

age of female senior executives is low in comparison to the general
population, I don’t think gender has handicapped career advance-
ment in the long run. It may be that the proportion of female law
enforcement executives is at least equal to that found in the private
sector. I don’t know; I’ve not seen numbers on that, but it would be
my sense that they are fairly well represented at the top of police
organizations.
MM: Let’s now move to the second major change factor that you
mentioned—technology.
TW: Obviously, technology has changed policing in the same way it has
revolutionized our society. When I began my law enforcement
career, technology consisted of a baton, a .357 magnum revolver,
and a Dodge Charger police car with a single revolving light on top
and a 440 engine under the hood. Today, these officers drive cars
that have more sophisticated circuitry than the first Apollo space
capsules! They talk on encrypted broadband radios, utilize in-car
mobile data computers connected to the Internet and nationwide
databases, issue citations with the swipe of a driver’s license, use
infrared night vision devices, wear space-age body armor, carry
high-capacity semiautomatic pistols, record arrests with digital
video, and subdue violent suspects with advanced less-lethal tech-
nologies and electronic impulse devices.
Technology has changed the game for both criminal and police
officer. Computers, let alone computer crime, barely existed when
I entered law enforcement not so many years ago. Now we need
whole special units dedicated to Internet fraud and online intel-
ligence gathering. Even as our society struggles to comprehend all
these technological changes, the police administrator struggles to
stay abreast of the latest technological advantages and threats. No
doubt, some of the generational problems we see in police organiza-
tions are related to the technology gap between the Baby Boomers
and Generation Yers; different communication styles and medi-
ums, different levels of technological expectations and comfort
levels, etc. The danger is in the technology getting away from us,
exceeding our capacity to understand and harness it. Not unlike
some science fiction story, technology can be either boon or burden.
I question whether we have already become too dependent upon
technology for our problem solving. There are questions about civil
rights versus security tied up in many of the new and rapidly evolv-
ing technologies; questions that are yet to be answered. With each
technical innovation it seems that the human element becomes less
important. Will police substitute surveillance cameras for getting
out and talking to the people they serve? Will detectives rely too
heavily on technology to gather information and build cases, while
losing the capability and context that human sources provide?
Will automated traffic enforcement take the valuable and neces-
sary aspect of officer discretion out of the equation? Will police
administrators come to supervise their personnel through GPS,
telecommunications, video, and e-mail? In the end, what we’ve
gained through our technological advances may not be worth what
we’ve lost.
If technology opens the police to scrutiny and access, that is
probably a good thing. However, if it removes them from contact
with the public, if it creates barriers, if it outstrips our ability to
balance security and essential freedoms, then technology is no
boon. It is only another threat to the legitimacy of the police.
MM: How have those technology changes impacted recruitment strategies
and training programs?
TW: We can’t expect to be successful in our recruiting, if we are looking to
bring tech-savvy young people into organizations, with outmoded
technology. I have heard comments from new officers about the
archaic technology we were using. Unfortunately, government is
rarely on the cutting edge of anything, especially technology. We
get things only after they’ve been out in the public for a time and
have become well established. On the other hand, our recruiting
pool consists of those same early adopters of technology. This is one
of the reasons I see technology as both a boon and a burden. Older
police execs, like me, can’t possibly understand or apply technol-
ogy in the same way that the younger generation does. We need
to bring the young people of our organizations into the decision-
making process much earlier in their careers, particularly with
regard to the selection and implementation of new technologies.
MM: Can you tell us now of the third major innovation—the shift to com-
munity policing?
TW: I probably belong to that generation of police officers who first transi-
tioned from the professional model of policing to the community
model. And it was painful! My generation grew up watching epi-
sodes of American cop TV shows. I can still hear one of the TV
detective sergeants echoing, “The facts, ma’am. Just the facts.” Just
tell us what happened and we’ll figure out the rest. No help from
you required other than that. For us, being a police officer meant
you were privy to secretive information and techniques, as well as
the culture of the “blue curtain.” We were attracted to police work
by the excitement, by the mystique and exclusivity of the profes-
sion. Community-oriented policing asked us to raise the curtain,
invite in the outsiders, and expose our soft underbelly. We hated it

and we rebelled.
Law enforcement administration in the 1980s and 1990s reacted
by trying to force community policing down our throats. We
coughed it back up. But in the end, somehow it took hold. Today,
the vast majority of police agencies and police officers accept com-
munity engagement as a legitimate part of the job. For the most
part we’ve come to realize that Sir Robert Peel had it right after all:
The police are the public, and the public are the police. I don’t think
these officers on the street today give it a second thought anymore.
Going to a neighborhood meeting is as natural as “running hot”
to an armed robbery. This makes them better police than those of
my generation. It means they are more in tune and connected with
their constituents, more versatile, more conversant, and I think less
likely to step out of line. Of course, we still have challenges with
ethics, citizen complaints, and even corruption—human nature is
timeless—but we are much less like an occupying force and more
like the neighbor next door who puts on a uniform for a living.
MM: If you were asked for a definition of community policing, what would
it be?
TW: Community policing is policing “with” and not “over” or “in spite of”
the community. It means we are honest with ourselves and real-
ize that we, the police, cannot go it alone. Everything we do, from
detecting and investigating crime to having the manpower and
equipment to do the job, is dependent upon the understanding and
assistance of the community. Community policing is about edu-
cating the public to take a hand in their own safety and how to
better work with us to ensure it.
MM: Is community policing about just being “nice” to be able to extract
information more effectively?
TW: Community policing is about building trust. We are nothing without
it. We are only as good as the confidence our constituents have in
us. Certainly, being nice is a requirement, but it is the trust factor
that will determine your success in those moments when you can’t
be nice. And policing sometimes, often, requires that. Policing
in a democracy is a tenuous profession under the best of circum-
stances. As I think Alderson (1979) noted, the police are an anom-
aly in a free society. They must enforce conformity in a culture
that cherishes personal freedom and individuality. Cognitively, it
seems completely incongruous that we are able to do this at all.
Where we run into problems is when the public no longer views us
as part of the community. This is why the military doesn’t make a
good police force. Whether you’re talking about the British Army
in Northern Ireland or the U.S. Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan,

soldiers make poor police officers. The point at which they become
police officers, they cease being soldiers.
Policing Philosophy
MM: Tell me about your personal policing philosophy.

TW: Over the course of thirty years, I’ve witnessed a gradual expansion
of the police mission. Where once police were concerned almost
solely with crime detection and response, they are now respond-
ing to a wide array of expectations never dreamed of in a bygone
era. Today, in addition to the traditional roles, police must be
concerned about quality-of-life issues, community engagement,
proactive crime prevention, victim and counseling services, and
counterterrorism strategies. This mission creep has complicated
the job, making it more challenging but also making police more
valuable to society. I think the police generally have internalized
the social aspects of this new role. Where I think it is more chal-
lenging in the United States is in the blurring of the traditional
lines between local and federal government.
The recent trend in the U.S. has been toward expansion of the
role of local law enforcement to include duties that heretofore had
been the purview of the federal government. Terrorism and immi-
gration are two examples. First, the American system is not set up
well to deal with problems that bleed over local, state, and national
boundaries. Law enforcement in the United States is a local prop-
osition. When issues transcend local boundaries, such as terror-
ism and immigration, our system breaks down in innumerable
ways: jurisdictional problems, legal conflicts, information-sharing
problems, resource allocation, communication breakdowns, inter-
agency competition. In fact, you probably couldn’t dream up a
more convoluted system than that found in the United States. I
mean, 18,000 law enforcement entities, all operating with different
missions and jurisdictions under slightly different legal systems. It
doesn’t seem like a “system” at all; controlled chaos is a more apt
description. Either the system must change or mission creep must
be rolled back.
MM: Do you think either of these are likely to occur?
TW: No. The U.S. system of law enforcement is rooted in our Constitution
and political tradition. While some consolidation may occur on
a fairly local level, driven by economics as much as anything, the
American psyche is firmly founded on individuality and localism.
At the same time, the federal government has demonstrated little

political resolve when it comes to issues such as immigration. This
has left a law enforcement vacuum that someone will have to fill.
State and local law enforcement will probably end up with the job.
State politicians want to be perceived by their constituents as doing
something. So, the local police will be delegated to take care of it.
That is the way it’s always been. When you don’t know who else to
call, you call the police—in this case, the local cops.
MM: What problems do you think have emerged as a result of what you
describe as mission creep?
TW: I am not in favor of local police taking on immigration, for instance.
Under the U.S. Constitution, the federal government is charged
with national security and protecting the borders. However, some
border states have felt compelled to address immigration in the
absence of the federal will to act. Consequently, the states are
directing the only real resources at their disposal, local police, to
take on the federal responsibility. Yet, as noted in regard to com-
munity policing, local police are now charged with community and
relationship building, duties that run counter to this new immigra-
tion-control mandate. We’ve come to understand that our ability
to solve crime is dependent upon community cooperation. This
means building relationships with all our constituents, including
those subcommunities that harbor a degree of distrust and disen-
franchisement toward the authorities. How can we build trust and
open lines of communication, for instance with the Hispanic or
Islamic communities, at the same time that we perform the job of
Immigration or Homeland Security officials?
In my home state of Oklahoma, immigration is a hot issue and
legislation is already pending before the state legislature to empower
and mandate local police officials to enforce federal immigration
laws. Law enforcement already has cultural and language barri-
ers with regard to the Hispanic segment of the community. Right
or wrong, many Hispanic residents themselves do not distinguish
between those who are here legally or illegally. Fear of deportation,
suspicions of racial profiling, and historical mistrust of the police
translates into unreported crime and witnesses that will not step
forward. Consequently, the criminal element is allowed to flourish,
which diminishes safety and the quality of life for both the Hispanic
population and the larger community as well. Of course, this is the
philosophical side of the debate. There are also practical obstacles that
involve funding, staffing, and legal questions. As the police become
burdened with expanded federal responsibilities, they will have less
time for community building, crime prevention, and engagement.
This, in turn, will weaken their ties to the community and subcom-
munities, thereby reducing their efficiency and effectiveness.
Either the mission of the police must retract so that they can
return to doing what they do best—crime detection and investi-
gation, maintenance of public order, and serving their local com-
munities—or the entire American system of law enforcement must
undergo radical change. This opens the discussion on another
trend that is, in part, driven by the expansion of the police mis-
sion—consolidation. In some parts of the country, we’ve seen
significant consolidation of law enforcement services. This has
occurred primarily in major metropolitan areas, but it is an accel-
erating movement driven by economic forces and mission creep.
The inefficiency of the American system of law enforcement has
come up against sheer economic and mission necessity. Federal,
state, and local law enforcement must cooperate as never before in
order to maximize economies of scale both for routine law enforce-
ment duties and new mandates related to homeland security,
emergency management, immigration, etc. With current political
winds demanding greater efficiency in government, this trend is
likely to continue. I’m not sure how I feel about this. Consolidation
certainly makes sense, and the current system of overlapping and
convoluted jurisdictions does not. Yet, local control of government
and the symbols of state power, such as police, are a hallmark of the
American psyche, not to mention our Constitution. Democracy
was never intended to be efficient. It is messy, slow, and imperfect.
I suppose it is understandable that its law enforcement arm reflects
this.
MM: What would you say is the greatest success of the police in recent
decades?
TW: As noted, and to my amazement, community policing has taken root
and become a success. Surprisingly, it is not even debatable any-
more. Community partnerships, constituent participation, and
civic involvement have been key factors in falling crime rates and
successful problem solving. This has been a worldwide phenom-
enon. It is a powerful concept. Community policing is essentially
a democratic principle. The fact that it has been adopted by law
enforcement across the globe is indicative of a global movement
toward democracy. Even now we see this as it plays out in the
Middle East. The old authoritarian police regimes are falling to
demands for basic human rights, freedom, openness, and partici-

pation. The police can either be instruments of state oppression or
guarantors of civil rights. I think the degree to which community
policing has taken root is a harbinger of a more egalitarian era that
is dawning worldwide.
For many developing countries, and their police forces, the chal-
lenge is to provide professional baseline law enforcement services.
They are further stressed when having to also try to implement
proactive community-policing concepts. I think this is where the
established democracies in the EU, Australasia, North America,
and under the auspices of the United Nations have a responsibility
to provide both resources and police expertise. Investments now
can pay tremendous dividends later. For instance, we now have,
potentially, fledgling democracies in the Middle East. Without
immediate and significant support from the free world, these new-
found rights will be lost as old habits, corruption, and disorder
push strongmen back into power and the police are once again co-
opted. Community-oriented policing, both concepts and practice,
can promote a happy outcome for these countries, but it won’t hap-
pen on its own.
Here in the U.S., community policing can take some of the
credit for the falling crime rates we’ve seen over the last decade.
In the early to mid-1990s, we saw rapidly rising crime rates in
America, particularly with regard to violent crime. This trend has
been reversed. I think some of the community initiatives the police
undertook in this timeframe helped stem and reverse this trend.
Much has been made of intelligence-led policing and the NYPD
Compstat concept that combines crime analysis with accountabil-
ity management. But I think the impact of these strategies has been
overblown. Certainly, the more information we have and the bet-
ter we transfer and analyze this data, the better. Yet, our best and
most relevant information comes directly from the community
and not our crime analysis computers. Human intelligence “on the
ground” is our most reliable and actionable source of information.
This is true of everyday crime as well as high-profile terrorism. We
only get this if the community trusts us and knows us.
MM: What would you say are the major challenges facing the police in con-
temporary America?
TW: Contemporary law enforcement is facing many challenges. Not the least
of these is the dismal economic situation. Police agencies at all levels
are being pressed to the limit. I saw a report recently indicating that
80 percent of local and state law enforcement agencies had experi-
enced layoffs or furloughs in the last years. Police are being pressed
to do more with less as never before because, while the mission

has expanded, resources have dwindled. If there is a silver lining,
perhaps it can be found in a degree of operational efficiency that
has been forced from this situation. Certainly my own agency has
learned how to function on a significantly reduced budget (down
25 percent) without significantly sacrificing services. This has prob-
ably made us better. But at some point, you reach a breaking point
where service falls off and the crime cycle heats up again.
I don’t consider budget concerns to be the greatest challenge fac-
ing law enforcement these days. Economic cycles will come and go
and police organizations will flex and adapt. The litigious nature of
our society combined with the power of misguided police union-
ism is a real concern. This is a cause-and-effect problem. The cause
for militant police unionism has been abusive, authoritarian, and
arbitrary police administration. The effect has been a closing of the
ranks among officers as they shield themselves behind their unions
and legal counsel. The overall impact of this has been a serious deg-
radation of police service. Officers increasingly “lawyer up,” and
police unions increasingly engage in negative rhetoric, crippling
grievances, and expensive lawsuits. Consequently, accountability,
work ethic, and morale suffer. Ultimately, this issue threatens the
reputation and ethics of the law enforcement profession. Police
administrators must be enabled to enforce discipline among the
ranks, but at the same time they must build trust and confidence
among the troops. This won’t happen until they are perceived by
their officers as fair, supportive, and just. The answer, in my opin-
ion, is rooted in how we choose to run our police organizations and
the sort of culture that this engenders [see section on democratic
policing].
MM: As a police chief, what kind of innovations have you introduced to
make the department work effectively with less?
TW: Like just about every other agency, we’ve had to examine all our func-
tions, procedures, and positions with a critical eye. It got pretty
ugly for a while as we prioritized activities, functions, and peo-
ple. Fortunately, we have been able to get through with relatively
few cuts in services or employees. As in most things, I credit our
human resources. I think people have simply worked harder, in
some cases doing two and three jobs. I think we’ve built a pretty
durable organization and pretty adaptable people—but this has to
happen before you are in a crisis. I watched a larger neighboring
agency nearly disintegrate in the economic crisis. They broke apart
with infighting and recriminations, and law enforcement all but
broke down. At one point, we and the local sheriffs’ office were
asked to assist with law enforcement responsibilities in that city.

It is still in the rebuilding phase. We fared better because of better
economic foresight, but we were also a much more cohesive orga-
nization at the outset, with higher morale and greater flexibility
that had been cultivated over a number of years. Once again, what
I’m talking about here is not technology or systems or structures—
it’s about people and how you treat them, train them, and bring
them up believing in themselves, each other, and their organiza-
tion. It’s a powerful concept.
Theory and Practice
MM: How do you view the relationship between theory and practice?
TW: This is where I think American, and probably international, law
enforcement is really missing the boat. By and large, American
police officials are not big consumers of academic research. They
tend to pay attention to what researchers have to say only when
forced to by legislative or judicial bodies. This is because police
tend to dismiss academicians and their research as impractical,
artificial, and dismissive of the situated knowledge of practitioners.
Even the term “theoretical” in itself has a negative connotation for
police, as if theory and practice are somehow mutually exclusive.
Maybe this issues from the blue collar roots of policing or the fact
that the educational standards for law enforcement have not kept
pace with many other sectors of society. No doubt a good deal of
this is grounded in the pragmatic nature of police work.
As Bitner (1967), Wilson (1968), and others demonstrated over
forty years ago (ironically, through empirical research), police
are essentially ad hoc problem solvers. They are action-oriented,
bottom-line people who are faced with a dizzying array of social,
legal, and interpersonal issues. They are searching for expedient
resolutions within temporal circumstances. They move from call
to call looking mainly to keep the peace, not solve societal prob-
lems. In their fast-paced world, they consider that they haven’t the
time for research or theoretical propositions. This is true of the
officer on the street and the administrator in the office. For their
part, administrators see themselves in much the same light; like
firemen rushing about dousing brushfires. They haven’t the time
for methodical, empirical analysis or theoretical propositions.
There is also somewhat of a history of “bad blood” between
police and researchers. Bradley and Nixon (2009) recently penned
an article in which they refer to the “critical tradition” of much
criminal justice research. Academicians have been relied upon by

legislative bodies and governmental commissions to gather data
and make recommendations on social problems involving the
police and on the police themselves. Much of this research has
exposed the seamy side of policing: corruption, brutality, discrimi-
nation. Certainly, there has been much to be critical of. But, by the
same token, some of these researchers have found only what their
own critical bias primed them for. Like everything else, there is
good and bad research. Unfortunately, police have sometimes been
the victim of statistical bias, methodological bias, or just plain
political assassination. When this happens, they find themselves
on the defensive, ill-equipped and unprepared to defend them-
selves. Consequently, police often view academic research with a
suspicious eye. They don’t see much in it for them except liability
or additional work. The innately exclusive and secretive subculture
of policing tends to reinforce this aversion to the prying eyes of
inquisitive outsiders.
While there are a number of contributing factors to the current
state of police theory and practice, it is important that this situa-
tion be turned around. There is so much good research out there
that simply flies under the radar of police administrators. Careful
research by competent experts on social issues, crime problems,
criminal psychology, human resource development, management,
organizational behavior, etc., can greatly improve the police ser-
vice, if only police will pay attention.
In order to make inroads with police decision-makers, I think
researchers should adopt a more participatory approach to their
craft. In some respects, I think academicians are a lot like the old-
school professional era police: “The facts, ma’am. Just the facts.”
The police are subjects rather than research partners. This needs
to change. Some, myself included, have called for participatory
action research (PAR) as a methodology of engagement between
researchers and police practitioners (Marks et al., 2010). I hope
this call is heard by both sides of the practitioner–researcher dyad.
I believe police would be much more receptive to researchers,
data, and theory building if they better understood and trusted
the motives and methodology of empirical research. Participatory
action research views stakeholders and researchers as equal part-
ners in the research process. In the case of research involving the
police, they as stakeholders are directly involved in identifying the
problems, goals, methods, and data interpretation criteria of the
study. This makes police full research partners and invests them in
it at the outset. It serves their needs as well as the interests of the

researchers.
There is so much that practitioners already have in common
with researchers and so much they can learn from them. After
all, the principles and methodology of criminal investigation and
empirical research are much the same. Both are interested in find-
ing answers to problems and discovering the truth. Further, no
police investigator worth their salt would knowingly ignore wit-
nesses with relevant information to offer. Why would we ignore
the evidence researchers can offer? The more closely we can tie
police practice to rigorous research and applied theory, the better.
This will help us move away from the fire brigade mentality toward
a more proactive stance in all facets of our profession.
MM: What has been your own experience, as a police officer, of participa-
tory action research?
TW: During my own graduate studies I was exposed to both theory and
research methodologies that, for me at least, were transforma-
tional. My academic background is in public administration
and organizational psychology. Humanist psychology came to
form the basis for my administrative philosophy in policing. I
took classroom theory concerning employee empowerment and
participation and began applying it in my police organization.
This was a bit of a departure from standard police adminis-
trative practice. As you know, policing is a rather traditional,
paramilitary culture with pretty strict lines of command and
control. Employee involvement in decision-making is not gen-
erally a high priority within the police bureaucracy. Yet, when
I started democratizing some of our organizational decision-
making, almost immediately I sensed that good things were
beginning to happen. People were very receptive to the idea of
exercising some authority over their work lives. I sensed greater
engagement in them and a feeling of energy in the organiza-
tion generally. I started getting more input, suggestions, and
constructive criticism from employees on just about everything.
I heard laughter in the hallways again, hallways that had been
pretty silent for many years. But, for all this, I still couldn’t be
sure of what I was seeing. It could just have been my own rosy
imagination. I needed empirical evidence based on some kind
of methodological rigor to know whether I was doing the right
things, whether sharing leadership really could create a more
effective police agency.
When the administrative reforms were implemented, I sought
out the help of one of my former instructors [at the University of
Oklahoma, Dr. Brigitte Steinheider, as well as several of her gradu-

ate assistants]. As an organizational psychologist, she was able to
provide feedback on my administrative program and then training
for my colleagues who would help implement it. At the same time
that we designed a shared leadership implementation program, we
talked about what outcomes we were hoping to achieve and then
how we might benchmark those. Our mutually-agreed-to objec-
tives, implementation, and subsequent empirical measures are
all classic hallmarks of participatory action research, although I
don’t think we were necessarily cognizant of that at the time. The
key was that I felt like I had a partner in what turned out to be
a fairly ambitious program of employee empowerment. As things
developed, we did assessments and made adjustments. This pro-
vided the flexibility that I think was critical to the success of these
reforms over the long term. It’s been a successful PAR partnership.
Our employee involvement program has garnered quite a bit of
attention, including numerous international conference presenta-
tions, publication in professional and academic journals, and rec-
ognition with several awards. But, most importantly, it has been a
good thing for our employees and the citizens they serve.
MM: What relationships, if any, does your department have with academic
researchers?
TW: From that initial relationship [with the University of Oklahoma], we’ve
developed a pretty ambitious research-to-practice agenda at the
Broken Arrow Police Department. Currently, we have research
relationships with half a dozen universities, including Johns
Hopkins, Oklahoma State University, Arizona State University,
and the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Much of this is related
to our organizational democracy program, but we have other
research initiatives as well, including ongoing studies on domestic
violence lethality assessment, virtual reality training technology,
forensic crime scene processing, and victim service models. In fact,
we’ve been so research-oriented that our agency was recognized
recently with an Excellence in Law Enforcement Research award
from the IACP [International Association of Chiefs of Police]. I
think this is the way it should be. The more law enforcement part-
ners with university resources to engage in rigorous research, the
more solid will be the foundation of our practice. It’s a form of
self-evaluation really, and the more we are willing to do it the less
necessary it will be for others, such as government investigative
bodies or the courts, to come in and do it for us.
However, there is still that trust factor that we need to address
before police administrators will routinely open their doors to
researchers. They have to be convinced that academics will deal

with them fairly and in some cases confidentially before access will
be granted. Police chiefs are political creatures. They have constitu-
encies that all hold a measure of power over them: political bosses,
unions, the media, special interest groups. If an investigator col-
lects data which may not be flattering to the agency or to the chief,
it becomes a liability depending on who has access to it and how
that information is used. That is where PAR and the opportunity
for police executives to help mold the research agenda comes in.
The key is that police must feel less like study subjects and more
like research co-investigators.
Democratic Policing
MM: What do you understand by the phrase “democratic policing”?

TW: As noted, I see community policing as an expression of democratic
policing. To the degree that policing worldwide embraces commu-
nity engagement and transparency, democratic values will be pro-
moted. Great progress has been made in this area. Ironically, where
there is still work to be done is within our own organizations. There
are many that will agree with me in this. Democracy and inclu-
sion are conspicuously absent from police organizations and police
administrative thinking. Police management philosophy appears
to be stuck in outmoded organizational structures and human
resource practices. We still speak about span of control, chain of
command, hierarchy, rules and procedures, etc. Due in part to the
litigiousness of our society and the risk-averse preoccupations of
both police leaders and their governmental overseers, we have not
moved beyond our early 20th century management paradigms.
In the meantime, the world has passed us by. It seems clear that
21st century police leaders need to adopt many of the manage-
rial philosophies of private industry (i.e., more collaborative and
less authoritarian, greater labor–management cooperation, flatter
organizational structure and less bureaucracy, multiple lines of
reciprocal communication, greater focus on service delivery, team
orientation, adaptive and learning rather than rigid and reactive).
Employee empowerment plays a big part in all this, and police
chiefs have to develop a level of comfort with it. They have to be
willing to trust their employees to make decisions in the interests
of the organization and community. The world and the police mis-
sion is evolving too rapidly and is already too complex for auto-
cratic leadership to survive. Heroic individual leaders may soon
be extinct, replaced by collaborative leaders who can build teams

and maximize collective knowledge. This is not to say we don’t still
need heroes; only that there are likely to be many more of them
operating simultaneously in the future. I think the environment
already demands this kind of dispersed leadership.
Unfortunately, where we have failed is in not treating our offi-
cers like leaders. We’ve expected them to express “leaderful” quali-
ties but have not been willing to trust them with the authority that
leadership requires. In fact, to a large degree, we have succeeded
in training leadership out of people. By clinging to the manage-
ment principles of a bygone era, we have driven officers away
from responsibility and toward the shelter of their unions and
legal protections. It has long been my contention that there is a
recursive connection between workplace empowerment and the
development of employee responsibility, commitment, and mutual
accountability. There is a large body of research dating back many
decades that shows that involvement in decision-making confers a
degree of ownership, which in turn translates into stronger work
ethic and work product (Wilms, 1996). Rather than looking for
new means of formal oversight, police administrators should be
looking to create a climate of self-regulation. It has always seemed
incongruous to me that we expect our police to be mindful of the
civil liberties conferred by democratic society but are not willing
to grant them a measure of autonomy over their own work lives.
Unfortunately, I am not overly hopeful in this regard. From
what I have seen, police chiefs will give lip service to the idea of
officer empowerment, but the reality is that they are still reluctant
to let go of the reins. So, too, their political bosses. The majority of
city managers and mayors are not genuinely interested in cutting-
edge human resource policies. They entirely miss the value-added
potential of engaged employees, particularly police employees.
They are mainly interested in flashy city planning and economic
development schemes. They tend to view the police as a neces-
sary evil and want relative quiet and obscurity from their police
forces. They, like their police chiefs, are fearful of empowerment.
They see only liability in it. For their part, police chiefs generally
reflect this risk-averse mentality. They don’t want to raise the ire of
their political bosses. They want to fly under the radar and mainly
just survive. They are stuck in this brushfire mentality of address-
ing crime and organizational problems only when they flare up.
Consequently, chiefs and their agencies tend not to be innovative
at all. Nor do they take the long and broad view of building the
capacity of their human resources and their organizations, which,
ultimately, is the only way the police service can make significant
progress. This is unfortunate, because the power of people is the
greatest asset that city managers and chiefs have at their disposal.
A dedicated, committed police force working in collaboration with
the community can make all the difference for the quality of life of
our cities. I have seen firsthand (and tested it empirically) that we
needn’t fear believing in our people. They will rise to the level of
our expectations. If we treat them like children, they will act like
them. If we entrust them with autonomy and responsibility, and
give them the support they need, they will not disappoint.
Looking Ahead
MM: What are your concluding thoughts about the future of policing in the
USA?
TW: As we look to the future, I think police officers and their law enforce-
ment agencies will have to learn to be more adaptive and flexible.
Information is now a public commodity, easily accessible to every-
one. Our world is digital, connected, transparent, and global. This
affects both access to and public perceptions of the police. Every
misstep can be instantly known to an entire world. The times are
both less forgiving and more demanding. Consequently, police
now and in the future must maintain a higher degree of integrity
and be much more versatile. They must have more refined com-
munication and human relations skills, be able to relate to diverse
constituents, and apply critical analysis to complex problems.
For their part, police leaders of the future will have to be collab-
orative, communicative, open, and facilitative. Today, leadership
is all about team and consensus building. Of course, a chief still
has to make some lonely decisions, but the world is too complex to
go it alone. Like the officers, a chief has to have good communica-
tion and human relations skills. They must also provide vision, get
others to support that vision, and then get out of the way and let
them run with it. Importantly, police leaders today must be able to
develop and count on the leaders around them. I always come back
to the advice of Harvard’s Mark Moore: “The thing about leader-
ship is … never do it alone” (Moore 2000).
MM: Where do you see yourself headed in the next five years?
TW: Actually, I will be retiring in the next few months. I think thirty
years is enough. It’s been a great ride, and I’ve had the chance to
do everything in this profession that I wanted to. I don’t think I
would do it much differently. There are two great things about
this job. The first is that you learn about yourself in ways that
few people can. You learn your capabilities and limitations very
quickly and continue to test yourself throughout your career.
The second thing is you do this in the company of others, good
strong people you admire and feel lucky to count yourself among.
Policing is both a personal journey and a team sport. I find both
these things immensely satisfying. Now I’d like to move on to my
academic interests; a continuation really—teaching and research-
ing this thing called policing.
Conclusion
In August 2011, Chief Wuestewald resigned from the police after thirty
years of service. As he alluded to in our interview, he has since entered the
world of academia, thus joining many other exceptional policing scholars
whose professional life began in the police, such as Tank Waddington and
Simon Holdaway.
Why is it that Chief Wuestewald is a police leader who needs to be taken
note of and profiled? What can we learn from his interview? Wuestewald
is resolute in his belief that working according to tradition and bureau-
cratic dictums is only going to limit police effectiveness and efficiency. For
him, police organizations need to be adaptive, especially as their working
world becomes increasingly complex and competitive. He is a leader who
recognizes the value in each and every member of his organization and
recognizes that “local knowledge” from the top down and from the bot-
tom up is crucial in building theory and in creating appropriate practice.
Creating a dynamic team within police organizations is key to respond-
ing to everyday and exceptional policing problems with innovative and
efficient approaches. He is acutely aware of the changing expectations of
the police from communities, politicians, and financial organizations who
demand proper community engagement while at the same time effective
high-policing techniques. Modern police forces, he asserts, have to account
for cultural diversity, technological innovation, new workplace arrange-
ments, and challenging economic dynamics. He has demonstrated that
good problem solving and planning is best achieved through a shared lead-
ership approach, which creates a more empowered and erudite set of play-
ers ready to meet the challenges they face. He is a leader in providing a
vision for managing police organizations where members are motivated,
valued, and directly experience the benefits of lifelong learning. Gone are
the days when police superiors are lone, gallant heroes. Police leaders of the
future need to become flexible “conductors,” prepared to experiment and
take calculated risks.
References
Alderson, A. (1979). Policing Freedom. Plymouth, UK: McDonald & Evans.
Bittner, E. (1967). The Police on Skid-Row: A Study in Peace Keeping. American
Sociological Review, 32, 5, 699–715.
Bradley, D. and Nixon, C. (2009). Ending the “Dialog of the Deal”: Evidence and
Policing Policies and Practices. An Australian Case Study. Police Practice &
Research, 10, 5–6, 423–435.
Marks, M., Wood, J., Ally, F., Walsh, T., and Witbooi, A. (2010). Worlds Apart? On the
Possibilities of Police/Academic Collaborations. Policing, 1–7.
Moore, M. (2000). Lecture to the 24th Senior Management Institute for Police,
Boston, MA.
Wilms, W. (1996). Restoring Prosperity: How Workers and Manages Are Forging a New
Culture of Cooperation. Toronto: Random Press.
Wilson, J. (1968). Varieties of Police Behavior: The Management of Law and Order in
Eight Communities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
John Rizzo, Malta
Police Commissioner
INTERVIEWED BY
MARY MUSCAT
9
Contents
Introduction 145
Career 146
Conclusion 157
Glossary 158
Notes 158
References 159
Introduction
John Rizzo is the 31st Malta police commissioner to date, heading a force of
1,800 in a country with a population of 400,000 people. He was at the helm
during Malta’s transition into the European Union as a member state in 2004
and during further changes when Malta became part of the Eurozone in
2008. This has meant that the small island of 346 square kilometers has had
in the space of a few years to reorientate itself from a Mediterranean context
to a European and continental outlook, to filter this new mentality into the
civil service, and to realign the country’s police culture.
In 2014, the Malta Police will be celebrating its 200th anniversary, having
been established by the first British Governor, Lieutenant General Sir Thomas
Maitland, on 12 July 1814. The model of policing on which it was built was
largely influenced by the Scottish police forces that were established a few
years before in cities such as Glasgow and Edinburgh. In fact, Sir Thomas was
of Scottish origin, and his father was Lord of Police and sheriff for Edinburgh
145
in the years preceding the turn of the century. This influence certainly rubbed
off on the governor. It was only in the late 1850s, under the governorship of
Major General Sir William Reid, that the Malta Police was remodeled along
the lines of London’s Metropolitan Police, a model which remained much in
force even after Malta’s independence from the UK in 1964.
The interview was carried out toward the end of September 2011 at the
police headquarters in Floriana. Having taken over the helm in November
2001, Rizzo was nearing the ten-year mark as commissioner.
Career
MM: Tell us a little bit about your career: length, organizations worked in,
movements, specializations.
JR: I joined the police in 1976 as a constable and was promoted to sergeant
in 1980. I became an inspector in 1984, and in 1991 I was posted to
the criminal investigation department. I was promoted to superin-
tendent in 1996 and stationed at CID. A year later, I was appointed
assistant commissioner and was also put in charge of CID. I became
commissioner four years later, on 2 November 2001. During my
career I have had the opportunity to train in the UK (in particular,
at Bramshill Police College and through several attachments with
London’s Metropolitan Police, largely on criminal investigation) as
well as in Japan, at the National Police Agency. In 1986, I obtained
a diploma in law and administration from the University of Malta.
MM: What motivated you to enter police work?
JR: I was already inclined toward police work, having had members of my
family serving in the corps. My height, which towered over six feet,
seemed to point in the direction of policing; nature helped erase
any doubts which existed on the current career choices.
MM: What about how your career developed surprised you?
JR: There were surprises, of different kinds, in practically all aspects of my
career. One of the cases that took me completely by surprise was
when I investigated and prosecuted the chief justice and a judge
for bribery allegations in the summer of 2002. Otherwise, one has
certain expectations of how things will turn out; but these are con-
stantly challenged. The most significant surprise was the fast track
my career took from the moment I was promoted to superinten-
dent. Less than a year passed and I was appointed assistant com-
missioner, and after that it took only a few months for my eventual
promotion to police commissioner at the age of forty-five in 2001.
On a personal note, the fact that one of my sons, Keith, joined the
John Rizzo, Malta Police Commissioner 147
police in June 2010 has been a very significant moment in my life as

a commissioner and parent.
MM: Did your work prove as interesting or rewarding as you thought it
would?
JR: Extremely interesting and rewarding. There are no regrets, and I would
choose joining the police all over again.
Changes Experienced
MM: What do you see as the most important changes that have happened in
policing over the course of your career?
JR: Regarding police philosophies, policies, and programs: there has been a
definite shift toward community policing from traditional polic-
ing. Although traditional policing is still sometimes applied in
very particular situations, the overall paradigm shift is toward
the community nowadays, a stance that was already in operation
when I was assistant commissioner. As commissioner, I reinforced
the notion even more through a number of initiatives. I have also
increased the police complement, which in the past used to be con-
tained around the 1,800 mark.
Then there have been organizational changes. While keeping
the existing arrangements of my predecessor as to the divisions’
setup as well as the police districts, I have introduced completely
new units, such as the homicide squad. I have reintroduced the
rank of sergeant major and given it a completely new approach,
where now the majors can manage court sittings on their own, a
role that was hitherto reserved for the rank of inspector. Apart
from that, the police had to adjust to the new changes brought
about by Malta’s membership in the EU in 2004. Foremost
amongst these is the need to have a Malta Police representative
in residence and working, respectively, at the Malta House in
Brussels and at Europol in The Hague. There were also a number
of offices that were set up due to the police’s EU commitments.
These specializations include the Europol office, Eurodac, Anti-
Terrorism Unit, SIRENE office, and the EU office, to name just
a few.
I have also rearranged the officer cadet training course pro-
gram so that the new police inspectors would be able to work while
studying at university. And of course, there were a number of
changes triggered by amendments to criminal procedure that have
affected police work directly and indirectly, which has prompted
the weekly training on Saturdays for police inspectors in order to
keep them updated on important matters. Examples include police

bail and the suspect’s access to his or her lawyer before an inter-
rogation (introduced in 2010).
Over my career, there have been important changes in equip-
ment. There were improvements to the system with the introduc-
tion of compulsory equipment that has to be worn with the belt,
such as the police torch, handcuffs, and police radio (on the left
shoulder) in the case of district police officers. There was also a
parallel improvement in the use of a cardigan as part of the win-
ter uniform instead of the jacket, which is now reserved for court
and official appearances. In general, because of the EU, the local
computer reporting system has been upgraded to reflect SIRENE
and other EU requirements emanating from the Schengen agree-
ment, including the incorporation of SIS as a tool and the upgrad-
ing of PIRS. The traffic officers have had several upgrades in terms
of their specialized equipment, from helmets to sunglasses and the
motorcycles themselves, and the mobile squad as well as district
policing has had upgrades in the type of cars used for patrol and
daily routine activities.
There has been a considerable improvement over time regard-
ing the educational level of personnel. Officers now take the initia-
tive of following courses at the University of Malta as well as other
universities abroad through distance learning. The forensic section
has also done really well with the related certification of its scene-
of-crime officers (SOCOs) through European-level training and
the setting up of a CEPOL representative within the Malta Police,
which has meant that the CEPOL syllabus is now referred to in
drawing up internal police training courses.
Finally I have seen changes concerning our attitude to diversity.
The police academy has started to include lectures on xenophobia
and, with the new legal amendments introducing a wider defini-
tion of hate crimes to include homophobia in the Criminal Code,
the police are now becoming sensitized toward this kind of polic-
ing, through the proper access of legal instruments.
MM: What changes in external conditions have had a significant impact on
policing?
JR: There were two major influences. First, the vast legal changes that
occurred in Malta’s preparation to join the EU. These saw exten-
sive amendments to the Criminal Code and criminal legislation
in general. Second, the influx of illegal immigrants. This was also
related to Malta’s EU membership, for they sought our shores on
their way to larger countries of affluence, both economic migrants
and those seeking political refuge.
Apart from that, the Libyan situation during much of 2011 has
significantly altered the Malta Police’s priorities in terms of secu-
rity arrangements for the whole country. Remember that Malta was
the first port of call for ships leaving Tripoli and other ports and
seeking refuge in Malta, often transporting non-Libyan nationals
who used Malta as a hub from where they continued their jour-
neys back home. This international event also prompted internal
security issues due to the number of Libyan residents in Malta who
were protesting against the Gaddafi regime openly, often target-
ing the Libyan embassy, the Libyan state school in Ta’ Ġiorni, and
other landmarks associated with the Gaddafi regime in the pro-
cess. The possibility of having foreign military powers or vehicles
of any sort on Maltese soil was a very tangible reality, as was the
presence of foreign statesmen en route to Libya who used Malta as
a transit point.
MM: Overall, has the quality of policing improved or declined?
JR: I can definitely vouch for improvement. One must also consider and
evaluate the corresponding development in the media, especially
the interactive sources that have propelled the public’s prompt and
open criticism of the police more than ever before. This, in itself,
has also prompted both a public evaluation and a self-evaluation of
the police force. As for interagency cooperation, this has definitely
improved. Agencies themselves have moved toward this kind of
cooperation and also, as a result of legislation or EU commitments
arising from directives, legal and cooperative instruments. Even
the entry requirements are now more academically inclined, pro-
ducing a more instructed brand of new recruits, with the serving
officers taking every opportunity for self-improvement through
law and criminology courses available at the University of Malta.
This, in turn, has produced a brand of managers, especially from
the rank of inspector upward, who are academically trained both
locally and abroad, especially through distance learning courses
in the UK. New equipment—such as the police radio now being
issued by every district officer, as well as tasers, pepper spray, and
equipment such as torches and handcuffs that are now worn on the
belt of all ranks—has certainly improved the level of street work.
MM: In general, is it more or less difficult to be a police officer now than in
the past?
JR: Every time frame has its own challenges. I have experienced policing in
the ’70s, ’80s, and so on for every decade till today. There are plus
points and minuses. And what was deemed positive in a particular
decade could actually change its nature by becoming less positive
in another decade. For example, in the 1970s, one would not dream
of using certain sections like the mounted or dog sections for patrol
and for community policing, as we have done during the summer
months at seaside locations. Today we have police officers on bikes
near beaches or using the Sedgeway while patrolling Valletta, the
capital city. Twenty years ago it was unheard of. Perhaps twenty to
thirty years ago the police had more control over informants due
to the police presence having a stronger deterrent effect, but nowa-
days there is technology that can be used even at an officer’s desk
to get the necessary background before or during an investigation
that no informant can give.
MM: What do you think should be the role of the police in society?
JR: Like Sir Robert Peel said in 1829, “the police is the public and the pub-
lic is the police.” I concur with this statement, as it is still valid
183 years later. One has to understand the needs of society for self-
protection and preservation, democracy, and ultimately the rule of
law. The police can never abdicate its role in society, as there would
be chaos.
MM: What should be their job, functions, and roles? What should be left to
other people or organizations?
JR: Law enforcement and keeping the public peace are definitely the police’s
prerogative. The function and role of the police are actually out-
lined in our law, both in the Maltese Criminal Code (Article 346),1
whereas the objectives of the police force are highlighted in the
Police Act (Chapter 164 of the Laws of Malta, Article 4).2 There
has been an emphasis, in the objectives, of new elements such as
environmental protection, which in itself is a sign of our times,
just to pinpoint one example of how the traditional role has devel-
oped. The fact that the objectives are actually part of the law helps
make things clearer for everyone involved, so it’s not just an annual
report exercise whose aims and objectives could easily change from
year to year. Obviously, the role of policing nowadays includes liai-
son with other enforcement agencies, such as local wardens and
enforcement officers from Transport Malta (TM), Malta Tourism
Authority (MTA), the Occupational Health and Safety Authority
(OHSA), Public Health, and the Malta Environment and Planning
Authority (MEPA), to name just a few agencies. There has been a
transfer of police duties to other agencies, such as issuing licenses
for entertainment in public places, now taken over by the local
councils; there has also been a decentralization of enforcement
of contraventions, which are now enforceable by local wardens as

well. In fact, the relevant sitting is held at the local council regional
tribunal rather than the Court of Magistrates. I am happy with this
enforcement landscape.
As for the public and NGOs, I think that certain crime preven-
tion and victimization prevention measures can be left within the
capable hands of the public and NGOs. At some point there has
to be some form of contact with the police, obviously, especially
where neighborhood watches (NHWs) are concerned. And since
we’re on the subject, I would like to see more NHWs take root.
MM: What organizational arrangements work and which do not?
JR: Basically, I think that an organization functions best when there is trust,
goodwill, meaningful participation, and effective teamwork of its
members. This should arise not out of pure police discipline, which
is governed by the appropriate internal infrastructure to handle
such breaches of discipline, but out of a sense of pride in doing
one’s duty.
MM: What policies on relations with the community, with political groups,
with other criminal justice organizations work well? What ham-
pers cooperation with other agencies and groups?
JR: I believe that community policing is the best form of community rela-
tions that is applicable irrespective of whether you are dealing with
the community itself, politically based organizations, or criminal
justice organizations. “The police is the public and the public is
the police” here means that the police is understanding the other
sides’ concerns, because ultimately the police comes from the same
community. As for obstacles in cooperation, with all due respect, I
think that there are sections of the media that misuse their power
and attack the police, rather than criticize it, making it look like
the most undemocratic police force on the planet. When the truth
eventually surfaces, showing how wrong they were, they just shrug
their shoulders and move on to the next attack. If only they could
stand in our shoes when trying to understand community groups,
things would definitely improve.
MM: How should policing be performed? What should be the preferred pri-
orities and strategies?
JR: There is a different strategy to apply for different situations; one can-
not apply a democratic approach when traditional policing is more
adept in a situation. You cannot give complete preference to just
one strategy and apply it to every situation like a one-size-fits-all
solution, even though Malta may be a small country. It’s like taking
aspirin to cure all forms of illnesses. “Hard-edged crime control” is
best used for crimes such as drug trafficking, for instance; whereas
you need to instill a sense of prevention in the public to take care

of basic personal security and protection. Some crimes are better
approached through deterrence, such as traffic offenses. You have
to be reactive when it comes to illegal immigration, because no
amount of prevention can help stop the influx. I believe that every
officer should do his or her bit; it’s not a question of reaching a high
rank and being immune to certain crimes or aspects of policing.
MM: In your experience, what policies or programs have worked well and
which have not? And can you speculate for what reasons?
JR: To mention a few examples, the fact that the local police inspector has
the obligation to meet local council representatives of his or her
district at least once a month has proved very fruitful. Then there
are the school-based police visits that promote safety through var-
ious forms, from activities involving how to cross the road or read
traffic signs to Dog Section displays and looking closer at police
vehicles.
As for programs that have not worked well, I’d say that it has
been harder for the public to adapt to innovation, like any example
of improvements to traffic enforcement—speed cameras, to name
just one example. It’s the resistance to change, more than anything
else, that hampers well-thought-out programs or policies. There is
a high level of public trust in the police, about 80 percent, so that
should be indicative of the public believing that police initiatives
are for the best. But when it comes to the law and its enforcement,
it can take a longer time for the public to accept a new procedure.
MM: What would you consider to be the greatest problem facing the police
at this time?
JR: Externally, it’s definitely illegal immigration from African countries
to the EU, using Malta as a geographical stepping stone. This is
a fairly great problem that the Malta Police, on its own, cannot
exactly prevent. Other than that, one can mention crimes related to
the new technology, and drug abuse remains at the forefront. There
are certain crimes that tend to emerge or rear their ugly head dur-
ing times of recession, such as gambling and economic crimes that
can put a vulnerable person into an even greater downward spiral.
Internally, the greatest problem facing the police would always
be the possibility of having a member fall prey to corruption. That
is always a possibility even within the most efficient and effective
organizations. With policing, you have to deal with the ugly side of
human nature all the time, and I don’t doubt that sometimes it can
rub off on a person who is fighting it.
MM: What problems in policing do you find are the most difficult to deal
with? What would be easy to change?
JR: Once again, corruption, coming from any authority that exercises a gov-
ernment function, policing included, is my worst nightmare. To
charge a chief justice and a judge of bribery and corruption was
painful, because it meant that the whole criminal justice system
was being undermined. It affects your psyche in such a profound
manner that one does not forget it easily. Corruption is something
that can still transpire even when one does one’s utmost to prevent
it; it’s human nature. In that case, the only thing that would be easy
to change is the law: inflicting harsher punishments.
As for internal police culture, it is known that it often has a
conservative inclination and can be difficult to change; but it is
not impossible either. Managerial deficiencies and gender-related
problems are easier to address through training and human
resource management. On the other hand, externally generated
problems would translate into not having enough resources and
tools to work with. The police’s financial resources are something
that are governed at a ministerial level; but any such issues are dealt
with through the proper channels. Another example of an external
challenge is community support; one cannot take it for granted or
expect that an 80 percent [approval rating] obtained in a survey
in a certain time frame necessarily will be obtained the following
year. It needs to be earned constantly, as one cannot rest on one’s
laurels in policing.
MM: Is anything about policing easy?
JR: When one is dealing with human nature’s ugly side, it is difficult to asso-
ciate the word “easy” with policing. One might have certain apti-
tudes that make his or her work easier, like the gift of gab or having
a specialization, but nothing about policing is easy.
Theory and Practice
MM: What should be the relationship between theory and practice? What
can practitioners learn from theory, and what can theory builders
learn from practitioners?
JR: The relationship between practitioners and researchers is both synergistic
and symbiotic. One feeds the other constantly, and this reciprocity
enhances both parts. It’s a healthy relationship. On my part, I take
stock of new information available whenever I can. For example, I
like to attend the International Association of the Chiefs of Police

meetings. There I get to interact not just with other police chiefs,
but also with persons with academic backgrounds who give highly
specialized presentations. I’m also keen on reading police journals
and on using the Internet to find about new and better methods of
policing. I can say that since Malta has joined the EU in 2004, I’ve
learnt so much more and was given a new dimension to policing
that I did not have in my days when I joined the police ranks. You
can learn from a simple exchange of information through e-mail.
MM: What is the relationship between theory and practice right now? Does
it exist? Does it work?
JR: We get several requests each year from university undergraduates and
postgraduates to research several aspects of policing. Queries
passed on to the police by researchers are evaluated and treated each
on its own merits. There is a good relationship between research-
ers and police practitioners. I welcome innovations and new ideas
as long as they are in line with our laws and seek to enhance the
rule of law. Of course, we have our own internal statistics office,
and each section takes care of its own progress to a certain extent.
So far, there have been instances when government agencies have
assisted the police with reforming itself. There is also CEPOL’s
research and science correspondent, who has been appointed to
facilitate the police’s access to research through CEPOL’s database
of publications.
MM: What kind of research do you find most useful for practice?
JR: The most useful research is that which improves policing—any aspect of
enforcement and of crime prevention.
MM: Does the organization do research on its own?
JR: There is no specific unit that is exclusively devoted to research. Of course,
police managers are expected to be up to date in their respective
fields and to disseminate the information to their subordinates
where applicable.
MM: How has the Malta Police been affected by events outside the country?
JR: Malta is a small country, and international events, such as the recent
Libya crisis that saw the removal of Gaddafi from power, have cer-
tainly influenced the whole country; not just the police. In 2004,
one must remember that Malta joined the EU as a member state
and that had its own substantial influence on the police’s commit-
ments, which now include actual police representation in the EU.
For instance, the Special Assignment Group is now participating in

EU security programs and some of the SAG members have recently
been actively engaged in Kosovo. Over and above that, the situa-
tion in Africa has continued to provide more illegal migrants, both
economic and political refugees, and this has impacted drastically
the Maltese border security through the influx of boat people.
MM: Have those interactions been beneficial or harmful?
JR: You get the best out of every situation, which is a learning experience
in its own right. You can never say, “this will not happen here”
or “this happens only in large countries,” or something like that.
When you get the opportunity to watch other specialized agencies
work, you definitely increase your knowledge and challenge what
you already know. To a certain extent, an international event is
harmful if it takes up too much of your energy to the detriment
of other important tasks that you have to perform at a local level.
MM: How have developments post-9/11 affected your work?
JR: There has been an increased emphasis on security measures in most
areas of our work, not just at the Malta International Airport, but
also in the main government offices, for example, including police
headquarters. September 11 has also led to an increase in contacts
with foreign police forces and in Interpol requests. We have set up
an Anti-Terrorism Unit that actively participates in the relative
EU programs and in turn sends feedback as appropriate.
Democratic Policing
MM: How would you define democratic policing? What practices would
bring democratic policing to life? Should democratic policing be
the goal of reforms?
JR: Policing democratically involves listening to the stakeholders, respecting
their say, and finding a win–win situation within the context of the
rule of law in the country. It can be practiced in specific settings
and situations. Obviously, one cannot apply it all the time, as cer-
tain precarious situations, such as emergencies, require other strat-
egies, such as command and control or direct intervention. When
there is a situation that requires public participation, I believe that
democratic policing should be resorted to and, likewise, if a certain
reform would benefit from such a model of policing, I would adopt
it. As for democratic policing being the goal of reforms, it depends
on the type of reforms. One has to discern the type of reform first
in order to apply the best approach or policing strategy to it.
MM: Can democratic policing be achieved in Malta or not? And what obsta-
cles stand in the way?
JR: Malta is already a democratic country. No doubt about that. So when it
comes to applying the strategy, it’s not something alien that needs
to be explained to the public, both internal (the police) and exter-
nal (the citizens). Once again, the obstacles to democratic policing
can be the crime problem itself; maybe it is of such a nature that
something else is better suited, such as command and control.
General Assessments
MM: Are you basically satisfied or dissatisfied with developments in

policing?
JR: I am very satisfied with how the police have developed under my com-
mand and make it my goal to keep upgrading and being up to date
with the latest developments in policing: anything from improv-
ing the uniform and the basic tools to crime-fighting strategies.
As to policing in general, on an international scale, I become wor-
ried when I watch events like the street riots in the UK in August
2011. A few years back there was a similar event in France, with
street riots that started in Paris and traveled south to Marseilles.
Such events affect me as a police officer, even though I’m living
and policing in a different country. Anything threatening the
good work of a police force influences you wherever you are, and
you try to understand the situation, see what is malfunctioning,
and learn from it. Even if there is an event like the bombing in
Norway, which also occurred in the summer of 2011, one tends to
ask oneself certain basic questions about police–community rela-
tions, internal security, the prevention of such crimes, and how to
deal with the aftermath of such a heinous crime. There is constant
reassessment of what you think you already know or have tried
and tested, and you learn not only from local events, but also from
international ones.
MM: What are the most likely future developments and which would you
like to see happening?
JR: I envisage more EU-related commitments in home affairs, police, and
judicial cooperation, to name a few, as well as more legal devel-
opments locally that are influenced by what is going on within
the EU. Likewise, I see a definite improvement in the level of
education of the police force that will certainly keep improving
with time and which I would like to see happening as well.
MM: What is most needed now to improve policing?
JR: Internally, I believe that policing can be improved with releasing offi-
cers from desk jobs or from jobs that may not necessarily be a 100
percent police business. I think that having more hands on the job
is an asset without necessarily the need to recruit more persons
within the force. I think that the officer cadet system is working
very well in that respect, because it is not taking a number of offi-
cers away from the job completely and then falling back into the
same trap of having to recruit more personnel to fill the gaps.
Externally, I believe, and say this with sadness, that coopera-
tion from certain sectors of the media is seriously lacking. Some
journalists simply fail to see the police in a good light, largely due
to personal or organizational agendas. There is a negative attitude
emanating from such sources that, no matter what good you do as
a police force, it’s either underreported or not covered at all, and
instead you’re fired at constantly with unjustified criticism. Such
negative attitudes hamper any effort done in good faith on the part
of the police.
Conclusion
John Rizzo, commissioner of the Malta Police, has been faced with two main
challenges in his thirty-six-year career: rising through the ranks to head the
police force and then spearheading the style of policing into the new European
membership scenario, with all the new rights and obligations created. The
Arab Spring, including the Libyan crisis, have further indicated that the tiny
islands of 400,000 people and 1,800 police officers have a much larger dimen-
sion to handle than the visible coastline and the maritime boundaries. The
islands’ small size may indeed be deceiving, and the Malta Police may be old
by celebrating its 200th year anniversary in 2014; yet the challenges faced by
the commissioner and the police are as modern and international as never
before in the history of local policing.
The changes that the police had to undertake under Rizzo’s leadership
have been wide and far-reaching, with existing structures being molded
according to the new exigencies and totally new structures established from
scratch. This has been no mean feat. It is no longer a question of waging a bat-
tle against criminality within the islands themselves, but rather a war against
criminality on three fronts: (1) internally, (2) crossing EU borders/Schengen
area, and (3) emanating from the southern border of the Mediterranean,
which represents the rest of the world.
Perhaps all the energy that was and is being used to cater to the new
changes has left research into the science of policing lagging behind. For
this reason, the Malta Police has to rely on outside resources, such as the
University of Malta, and specialized training offered by CEPOL, apart from

twinning agreements with other police forces in European member states.
But the fact that the tradition started by Rizzo’s predecessor of having more
police officers sent to follow academic study at university has been kept, much
to the commissioner’s credit, augurs well for the future of the Malta Police.
Glossary
British governor: Malta was a British colony from 1800 to 1964.

CEPOL: European Police College.
EU: European Union.
EURODAC: EU computerized central database of fingerprint data used in
vetting asylum applications.
Europol: European Police Office.
NGO: Nongovernmental organization.
NHW: Neighborhood watch scheme.
PIRS: Police incidence reporting system.
SAG: Special Assignment Group.
SOCO: Scene-of-crime officer.
SIRENE: Supplementary Information Request at the National Entries.
SIS: Schengen information system.
Notes
1. Criminal codes, article 346: “It is the duty of the Police to preserve public order
and peace, to prevent and to detect and investigate offences, to collect evi-
dence, whether against or in favour of the person suspected of having commit-
ted that offence, and to bring the offenders, whether principals or accomplices,
before the judicial authorities.”
2. The Police Act, Article 4: “The main objectives of the Force are
(a) to preserve public order and peace, to prevent the commission of offences,
to promote and enforce the observance of the laws, as a first guarantee of
the rights of all persons in Malta, even before action is needed through the
judicial system to repress, sanction or remedy any breach;
(b) to respond immediately to any request for the protection and intervention
of the law;
(c) to apply the law without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race,
colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social
origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status;
(d) to promote the orderly and peaceful coexistence of all persons in Malta,
paying due attention not only to private property rights but also to public
property;
(e) to seek to protect the environment as part of the common good;
(f) to assist, within reasonable limits, any person seeking the help of a police
or other public officer even though the ultimate responsibility to provide
such help may not lie with the Force;
(g) to perform honestly and effectively all those duties assigned to it by this
Act or by any other law.”
References
Laws of Malta, Chapter 9, The Criminal Code. Retrieved from http://www.justiceser-
vices.gov.mt/DownloadDocument.aspx?app=lom&itemid=8574&l=1
Laws of Malta, Chapter 164, The Police Act. Retrieved from http://www.justiceser-
vices.gov.mt/DownloadDocument.aspx?app=lom&itemid=8686&l=1
Tapio Huttunen,
Chief of the Varsinais-
Suomi Police
Department, Finland
10
INTERVIEWED BY
TERHI KANKAANRANTA
MATTI VUORENSYRJÄ
Contents
Introduction 161
Career 162
Crime Prevention and Other Preventive Activities 165
Organizational Changes and Reforms 166
Specialization, Tools, and Equipment 166
Personnel Changes and Staff Diversity 167
Minorities 168
Resources and Funding Sources 169
Democratic Policing and Personal Policing Philosophy 171
Prospects for Policing 178
Conclusion 180
Glossary 180
References 180
Introduction
Finland is a stable Nordic democracy with established means of inter-

nal conflict resolution. The parliamentary political system functions in a
reliable manner. Equality is a widely accepted policy object, whether we
speak of equality in gender, age, educational, or ethnic rights and respon-
sibilities. In the years of rapid economic expansion from the 1960s to
the 1980s, Finland invested heavily in education, health care, and social
161
welfare services and is nowadays classified within the “Scandinavian wel-

fare state regimes” (Esping-Andersen 1990), along with Sweden, Denmark,
and Norway.
Finland is characterized by democratic policing. Both the police orga-
nization and society strongly support its key principles: respecting the indi-
vidual’s fundamental rights and freedoms, upholding the rule of law, and
keeping to police ethics and human rights (see OSCE 2008). In comparative
studies, trust in the police has been found to be very strong among the citi-
zenry (Kääriäinen 2008; Kääriäinen and Siren 2011).
There is one national police force in Finland. The supreme police body
of the Finnish police is the National Police Board. The National Police Board
directs and guides operational police activities. The organization at large
consists of twenty-four local police departments and five national police
units (the National Bureau of Investigation, the Finnish Security Intelligence
Service, the National Traffic Police, the Police Technical Centre, and the
Police College of Finland) (National Police Board 2011). At the end of 2011,
there were slightly less than 11,000 employees in the Finnish police adminis-
tration, about 8,000 of whom were police officers. The resources are scarce in
comparative perspective, even when compared with the other Nordic coun-
tries. On average, there are about 660 citizens per police officer and 41 square
kilometers per police officer. Irrespective of this, the Finnish police force has
continued to be successful in crime investigation, in patrol and alarm func-
tions, and in maintaining public order and security in general.
The Finnish police force has recently gone through a major organiza-
tional reform (first phase in 2009, second phase in 2010; a widely used acro-
nym of the reform is “Pora”). The number of police departments was reduced
from ninety to twenty-four. However, the police force continues to search for
opportunities to improve productivity and reduce both total and unit costs.
This is because currently the public economy in Finland faces the same strin-
gent economic conditions and budgetary pressures as the public economies
of other EU countries.
The interview with Police Chief Tapio Huttunen took place in the
Varsinais-Suomi Police Department in the city of Turku, Finland. The atmo-
sphere was relaxed throughout the interview and the discussion was open
and lively. The interview was tape-recorded with the help of digital equip-
ment. Police Chief Huttunen had the opportunity to check and revise the
text once it had been transcribed.
Career
TK & MV: Would you please tell us a little about your career?
Tapio Huttunen, Chief of the Varsinais-Suomi Police Department 163
TH: My career started in 1978, when I started studying at the police acad-
emy in Tampere. At that time, the cadet course lasted five months.
My first job with the police was in the traffic police of the Helsinki–
Vantaa Airport. My tasks included immigration control and pass-
port checks, as well as traffic control in the airport area and its
immediate surroundings.
The next summer, I applied for the faculty of law at the University
of Helsinki and enrolled there in 1979. I was able to combine these
studies with my three-shift work. On my days off from work, I
attended lectures and prepared for exams. At that time, I didn’t
have children, which made it easier to work and study at the same
time. Studying was hard, but I managed to complete my degree
rather quickly, in four and a half years: I graduated from the fac-
ulty of law in 1984. The police training provided a good foundation
for my law studies. Both programs addressed similar topics, and
the law studies deepened my knowledge of them. Thanks to my
previous work experience in the field of immigration control, I got
a one-year position in the Office of Immigrant Services under the
Ministry of the Interior.
In 1985, I returned to my hometown of Ostrobothnia and com-
pleted a one-year training in the district court. After this, I depu-
tized for my former schoolmate, the former Finnish Prime Minister
Anneli Jäätteenmäki, as the city counsel for approximately one
year. That was a fruitful time for me, because these tasks widened
my perspective beyond the scope of policing. However, at the same
time, I increasingly felt that police work offered the elements I
wanted to experience in my future career. Therefore, I transferred
to the police office of the Vaasa Provincial Administrative Board.
My position as the deputy police inspector was the second highest
in the provincial hierarchy.
In 1989, I wanted to advance my career, so I ran for the chief of
police of Vaasa and, even to my own surprise, got the position. At
age thirty-three, I was the youngest chief of police in Finland and
heading an old and esteemed police department. Over the next few
years, I was involved, for example, in a neighborhood police proj-
ect that led to creating a nationwide neighborhood policing strat-
egy with an emphasis on preventive thinking.
However, I was still longing for new professional challenges, so
I took on the position of deputy chief of police of Helsinki in 1989.
Heading the operative police work there entailed completely dif-
ferent tasks from my work in Vaasa. My responsibilities covered a
large field of tasks, and I really couldn’t control my own use of time.
Helsinki was a hectic place to work, but it was really interesting. I
was quite often involved in operations management. Maybe that

is what gave me the skills and tendencies to focus so strongly on
operational activities as police chief. I worked in Helsinki for a
total of six years.
In December 2004, the position of chief of police in Turku became
vacant, as the previous chief retired; and the chief of police is higher
in the hierarchy than the deputy chief. It felt nice to take over the
lead of Finland’s oldest police department, and it was also a big unit;
at that time, Turku had 175,000 residents.
It was easy to join my new workplace, because the staff valued
my experience as head of operations of a large unit in Helsinki. At
the beginning of my term of office, we made some organizational
changes. Later, the Pora reform led to bigger changes, including the
merger of smaller police departments into larger entities. Since the
beginning of 2009, our department has been called the Varsinais-
Suomi Police Department. In some respects, it is the second-biggest
police department in Finland; in terms of the number of crimes, it
is bigger than the Pirkanmaa Police Department, but in terms of
population, Pirkanmaa is a bigger region than Varsinais-Suomi.
TK & MV: How would you describe the most significant, focal turning
points in your career?
TH: I have actively sought new tasks in my career. I have never thought I’d
stay in my current position until retirement. Some may think that
I got very challenging positions at too early an age. Becoming chief
of police for the first time was a significant point in my career.
People have asked me why I haven’t applied for high positions in
the National Police Board, for example. My current position is
where I feel the most at home: close to the action, close to the staff,
close to hands-on management. I’m not that fond of administra-
tive tasks.
TK & MV: How would you describe your own area of specialty, if we think
of police competencies and your career from the point of view of
specialization?
TH: As I said earlier, operational activities are one of my specialties. In addi-
tion, I place a great deal of focus on preventive activities, which
I have also emphasized in my current position. Our organization
contains elements that endorse preventive measures; for example,
field surveillance activities have a higher priority in our depart-
ment than elsewhere. In addition, the preventive aspect is also
taken into account in case investigation.
TK & MV: What has proved to be the most rewarding experience in police
work?
TH: I am happy that I have had opportunities to work both in operational

and administrative tasks. However, I am a little sad about never
practicing professionally as a lawyer. But you could say that I have
experienced the part of a lawyer’s work that is most natural for
me. In a big department, such as this one, the employees respect a
chief that has done the same tasks they are currently doing. Even
though I might not be able to handle those tasks as they are now, it
is important for the staff to know that I have started at the bottom
and know what their work is like.
My career path has been rather typical in the sense that I started
out as a policeman and studied for another degree at the same
time. There have also been unsuccessful examples of police chiefs
assuming the role of a senior constable and letting a certain kind
of bitterness label their career. I have been able to advance in my
career, and I haven’t had any reason to be bitter.
Changes Experienced
TK & MV: What do you see as the most important changes that have hap-
pened in policing over the course of your career?
Crime Prevention and Other Preventive Activities

TH: Taking a stroll down memory lane here with you, I have to say that a
lot has happened over the past thirty years. At first, it was hand-
to-mouth work: statistics were collected and maintained manually.
Once a year, we put the data together and tried to conclude whether
we needed to make changes, or what else we should do.
In the long run, the significance of preventive activities has
increased the most. It is the only way to respond to future chal-
lenges. We cannot control crime by merely investigating cases. It
all comes down to preventing crimes; this is the new philosophy
that has penetrated our activities. At first (for example, when I first
started in Helsinki at a young age), it was so easy to think that
we’ll just go ahead and sort out the traffic in Helsinki; we’ll just
oversee the traffic and it will all work out. We thought the police
could work on its own. However, this did not work out, and the
mindset changed with the neighborhood police system. No one
institution can oversee safety alone. Safety is a shared responsibil-
ity. This means seeking close partnerships with various stakehold-
ers, such as municipal authorities, social services, school services,
youth services, correctional facilities, prosecution, courts, and the
third sector. The third sector has been challenged to participate in

these activities over the past 10 to 15 years. Now, instead of just
doing and performing, banging our head on the wall, we take a
longer perspective and work strategically. We consider how we can
achieve our goal and whose help we need to get there.
Organizational Changes and Reforms

TH: I have been through many organizational reforms. When I started as
the chief of police in Vaasa, there were 254 police departments in
Finland. At that time, Vaasa had 54,000 inhabitants and rather
large districts. As the result of the reform of jurisdictional dis-
tricts, the number of police departments went down to ninety. This
reform did not affect Vaasa, which was an old town that could hold
its own, but many neighboring departments were merged.
Then the first Pora reform was implemented in 2009, cutting
the number of police departments from 90 to 24. I have three dep-
uty chiefs who are former chiefs of police departments that were
merged in Pora 1. They are all settled in their current tasks and
roles, and none of them would prefer returning to the old organiza-
tion. When the police departments were smaller, the chiefs felt that
the organization slowed down operations and that the system was
stuck in its old ways without offering opportunities for renewal.
Now, one of these former department chiefs runs policing activi-
ties here, one is my chief of staff, and one heads the license admin-
istration. They are all part of this one entity, which feels sensible.
Specialization, Tools, and Equipment

TH: We will probably return to the topic of tactical changes later when we
address the 9/11 issue. Nowadays, we must be prepared for quite
difficult tasks, which means that specialization is a necessity. We
have a special task force for demanding situations: the Vati team.
In addition, we have also recently set up our own IT crime team,
which became necessary to support our investigation activities.
We are also present in the social media; we have three specialized
Internet police officers.
These new elements of police work reflect today’s challenges. It
would be foolish for us not to respond to the situation. Of course,
we have to lead a constant discussion and continuously emphasize
that basic police work is still our topmost priority. We must not
take specialization too far; that is, train and prepare our people for
situations that may never happen.
Our equipment has improved a lot. I think it was a good decision

for Finland to have a central depot, the Police Technical Centre
in Pori, which develops equipment and supplies our needs. I am
under the impression that the development work is down to earth
and the activities are clearly managed. For a small country such as
Finland, fumbling in gear purchases may end up costing a lot, and
it can also arouse legal issues when training is not developed in line
with weapon and gear procurement.
Personnel Changes and Staff Diversity

TH: Last week, I arranged a party for employees who had retired. People
who were in training at the same time as me are now beginning
to retire. In comparison with today’s young generation, a lot has
changed. We received our mandate and weapon after five months
of training, whereas the current classes study for two and a half
years before reaching that state. The good reputation of the Finnish
police is partly thanks to our well-functioning training system. In
addition, it can also be attributed to the fact that we have done our
work well and avoided major excesses.
In light of perception surveys, I think the Netherlands police
have an image that is as good as ours, but such countries as Sweden
or Germany—or any other EU state, for that matter—are no match
for Finland. I think this proves that we have been able to tackle
today’s challenges. Our people have top-notch basic training, and
the staff base is of top quality. We don’t require higher education
from everyone; we want to have a diverse personnel, and I think
that our recruitment system serves this purpose.
TK & MV: Which changes in external conditions have had a significant
impact on policing?
TH: Cooperation between different authorities, such as the police and pros-
ecution, has improved. In the past, in Vaasa, it was really difficult to
get the prosecutor to visit the police station. Now, we use the term
“crime prevention chain.” The Swedish invented the “skedjan,” a
chain or corridor comprised of the police, prosecutor, and court.
The idea is to operate at a lower cost, more efficiently, and better.
The only way to compress the process is to increase collaboration.
Our district prosecutor visits the police station once or twice every
week to steer or limit our investigations and to discuss other such
issues. We are also capable of further intensifying this procedure.
TK & MV: Are your meetings with prosecutors formal or informal?
TH: Actually, both. We sometimes need to have unofficial discussions
with the prosecutors about their opinion on various matters. For
example, we can inform the prosecutors about an upcoming major

case so that they are prepared, reserve sufficient resources, etc. In
conjunction with these discussions, we can make judicial deci-
sions, for example, about limiting an investigation, deeming some-
thing not worthy of investigation, or dropping an investigation. It
is a two-way street.
Minorities
TH: At the moment, people originating from outside Finland represent 7
percent of the population in Turku. (I would like to emphasize that
this is the figure for the city of Turku, not for the entire Varsinais-
Suomi region.) There are more than 10,000 people with a foreign
background in Turku, and this does entail some problems. While
the proportion of foreigners in the total population is 7 percent,
their proportion among offenders is 17 percent. We have had to be
the active party in this respect and get to know this segment of the
population.
I have some very vivid memories related to this topic: crimes
conducted by Somalis had started to increase, and the press labeled
all foreigners by the color of their skin. Representatives of the
Somali community suggested a meeting with the police, and we
met here on our premises. They contacted us because they wanted
to discuss whether their youth were really as bad as described in
the press. I saw this as an opportunity, so I invited them over to
talk. I thought I would get the relevant analyses and statistics,
describe the situation to them, and then we’d jointly think about
the measures to take.
On the agreed day, I had ordered coffee and snacks—which was
a mistake, because it was their Lent time. So, the only ones who had
coffee and a pastry were myself and the analysis presenter. Moreover,
we had been expecting three members of the Somali community,
but there were seventeen of them, and they all wanted to join the
discussion. Women sat in the back and men by the table. Only men
were allowed to talk; the women only listened and nodded.
We agreed on arranging parent patrols. The Somalis did not
want to make this public, because they felt it would have put them
in the spotlight. The idea was that Somali parents would take turns
in patrolling the center of Turku and send their children home if
need be. The parents had our field director’s phone number so that
they could always contact a police sergeant if they had any trouble
or just wanted to talk about something.
This turned out to be a very good experience. We noticed that

the local Somalis were able to send their children home when nec-
essary. However, when other young Somalis came from Helsinki to
visit Turku, they were beyond our control, and this was a problem.
I already had encounters with the Somali community in Vaasa.
The larger scale immigration of Somalis in Finland began during
my office as chief of the Vaasa Police in 1991. Once, I received a
sudden phone call from the Anttila department store manager:
They could sell all of their hiking axes at once—would that be OK?
There had been a stabbing incident. The Somali immigrants rep-
resented different tribes that were at war with each other. Fights
broke out between them in the reception center, and they started to
buy hiking axes. I addressed the situation with a memorable speech
relayed by two interpreters. My speech was first interpreted into
English and then by another interpreter from English into Somali.
I told them how the Finnish police works and what is allowed in
Finland. It was quite a basic presentation, but it left a good impres-
sion. That war ended unresolved.
Of course, there are several nationalities represented among
immigrants, and we do have interaction with them, based on both
our needs and theirs. In the Varissuo district, people of foreign
origin represent nearly 40 percent of the population. We have
set up a neighborhood police officer for that district. One desig-
nated police officer circulates the district and meets young people.
Everyone knows this police officer there, and it is a great way to
prevent crime.
Resources and Funding Sources

TH: In Turku, for example, in the peak year of 1990, we had over 400 police
officers, and all the advantages of an old town. After Pora 1 in 2009,
the strength was reduced to 270; in other words, there was a 30
percent cut in resources. And I think that the resource cuts will
continue. Now the figures are no longer for the city of Turku alone,
but for the entire Varsinais-Suomi region.
In Sweden, on the other hand, the number of police officers was
increased by thousands because the police force was in trouble. In
Finland, apparently, the crime levels or threat scenarios are not
alarming enough to shake decision-makers. This also seems to
be a topical issue for the National Police commissioner, as he has
been trying to introduce the topic of internal security to political
debate. However, this message does not seem to get through; the
main focus is on military forces.
This is an interesting period of time. I’m afraid the message will

not get through until the threats start to materialize. However,
it should be noted that then the police will have to double their
efforts in order to reach the same level.
TK & MV: Surely, it will be impossible to make another organizational
reform as large as Pora immediately after the previous one. So
other means must be sought?
TH: The Pora 1 reform aimed at reducing administration and increasing
field personnel. We did manage to get some more field operatives,
and the administrative staff is shrinking all the time. The resources
saved there will be invested in field activities. However, the total
resources are continuously being reduced, given Finland’s adjust-
ment measures. New organizational reforms would only be equally
beneficial if the budget remained as large as before.
TK & MV: Overall, has the quality of policing improved or declined across
time?
TH: The field management system that was created some ten years ago has
had a major impact on an individual patrol officer’s work. The sys-
tem supports actual management, reinforces local management,
and supports policing in general. This, combined with the high
professional competence and improved occupational safety, with
labor protection as a key matter, means that we are capable of han-
dling even the most demanding situations with the support of our
field management system. Hence, I would say that police work is
easier now than before.
However, I think that the nature of the work has also changed
a little. As I mentioned earlier, the number of police officers in
Turku, for example, has dropped from 400 to 270. In practice, this
means that we must get more work done by less people. Looking at
last year, I can say that the number of crimes has clearly gone up as
the number of police officers has come down; you can certainly say
that idling has been removed. The night shift can get really busy.
As for the quality of investigation, I can give you an example:
you go to an international police conference and ask the Swedish
participants about their case solving rates, but no one will show
you any numbers. Then we put our figures on the table and they are
top-notch. In a city the size of Turku, solving one-half of all crimes
is a huge number! This is nevertheless a city community.
TK & MV: Why is the quality of investigation so high in Finland, even on an
international scale?
TH: We must give the police some credit for this, even though I just empha-
sized that this work cannot be done by the police alone. But we
have seen some magnificent performances in the field of crime
investigation. In investigation, we always need the “hunch” to send

someone somewhere, and some of us just have that ability. Plus, we
have persistent interrogators.
In addition, we must acknowledge our analysis activities as
part of the chain, say, with regard to shoplifting or pickpocketing.
Chaining methods and analyses of methods of operation are a big
help in these investigations. Naturally, technical advances also play
a role. For example, vehicles’ stopper device systems have had quite
a big influence on auto theft.
The main issue is probably even more visible in crime investi-
gation than in other activities: the number of cases is increasing,
while the number of investigators is decreasing. There is no time to
investigate; everyone is really busy.
There are several investigation reform projects ongoing across
Finland. New models are being sought for the organization of
crime investigation. Helsinki has completed its reform, and we also
have our own project underway. We are seeking ideas on how to
add efficiency to the investigation of everyday crimes, the bulk of
our cases, and how to find time to focus on more demanding cases,
such as economic crime and gross narcotics cases.
In the past, it was all just one big bulk. For example, this police
department’s violent crime team investigated an assault incident
where someone had just pushed another person while queuing in a
fast food kiosk at night. The same team also investigated murders.
There really was a wide range of cases. Moreover, the investigation
took seven to eight months, whereas nowadays the average investi-
gation period is less than 100 days, approximately seventy to eighty
days. Management has also played a role in the development of
crime investigation quality.
Democratic Policing and Personal Policing Philosophy
Conceptually, democratic policing refers to the rule of law, respecting the

individual’s fundamental rights and freedoms, especially the universal
human rights, and keeping to police ethics. Finland is particularly strong
in this respect. Civil society is characterized by profound respect for the
law. What is more, trust in the police by citizens has been found to be
very strong. In comparative research, corruption in the Finnish police
force and in the Finnish legal system shows up as very nearly nonexistent.
But, of course, constant vigilance continues to be important in the fight
against corruption.
The idea of democratic policing penetrates all of the topics of this inter-
view. For this reason, we decided not to enter the discussion of the topic any
more thoroughly here.
TK & MV: What do you think should be the role of the police in society?
Which tasks should be assigned to the police organization and
which should be left to other people or organizations?
TH: In general, I think we should discuss the issue of which tasks belong
to the police and which don’t. As for removing tasks from the
police’s responsibility, one option could be cases where the vic-
tim of a complainant offense could contribute to preventing the
crime. Fuel theft is an example of such cases. There are hundreds
of fuel theft cases in Turku, and we investigate all of them. Why
couldn’t Finnish service stations adopt the practice used in many
other countries: keeping the fuel pumps locked so that fuel is only
released after payment?
Another example is traffic accident cases in which a police inves-
tigation of some extent is still required by insurance companies.
Considering that there are hundreds of such traffic accidents, their
investigation takes up a surprisingly big proportion of our time.
The National Police commissioner has brought up the idea of
releasing the police from investigating shoplifting cases. However,
the pretrial investigation and summary penal proceedings con-
cerning all cases are deemed to be the task of the police and cor-
responding authorities by law, and hence it is difficult to imagine
transferring these to the responsibility of security guards.
Another task to consider is the transportation of drunks. Our
department “accommodates” 4,500 “customers” per year (i.e.,
twelve or thirteen overnight stays per day). Most of the drunks
taken into custody cause disturbance on the street, but other than
that, they are harmless. Hence, it could be considered whether
some source other than the police could bring them in. We also
waste too many resources in prisoner transportation. If we have
captured a person here and this person needs to be transported
to, say, Tampere for court proceedings, the police must handle
the transportation, even though the matter fully belongs to the
Ministry of Justice. Naturally, it is easy for me to lay down priori-
ties here, as I am not working with the Ministry of Justice.
These matters are not simple, and we should start with stating
the tasks that definitely belong to the police. It would be short-
sighted to hand over several tasks to others just like that.
TK & MV: Returning to the administrative reforms of the police, how are
things looking now that the new police departments have been in
action for a while? Did you get more field operatives, and can you
secure the availability of services in the relatively large districts
that require great mobility?
TH: In order to answer this question, thorough analyses are needed. We
must look at the net results. Fortunately, we have invested strongly
in analysis functions.
Looking at the consequences of the reform, from today’s per-
spective, we can see that the trend curves describing operations
turned up almost immediately after the reform. Solving rates in
crime investigation improved and emergency response times short-
ened. In practice, the run-in phase was successful in the sense that
the region was seen as one district with shared resources. Initially,
there were quite different investigation practices within the new
police department, dating back to the seven former ones. Unifying
these practices will not bring changes very quickly.
By now, we have reached a more stable phase and can assess the
situation. It can be said that the reform was successful. At first,
there was a lot of criticism and talk about poor personnel barom-
eter results. Moreover, people feared that their stations would be
merged with others and that everyone in the region would soon
have to transfer to the city. However, people soon noticed that the
people here are not that bad and that we are all working for the
same goal.
It was also a good time in light of employing young people.
With the support of the National Police commissioner, signifi-
cant employment packages were implemented as of the begin-
ning of 2009. This increased the number of police officers in our
department, for example, by ten people. Earlier, the department
did not have sufficient resources to play with, but in a larger police
department, it is easier to determine focus areas and consider
which matters to address. Then, the operations are followed up
and reviewed in light of statistics to see whether the actions have
been effective.
A larger unit entails new operative possibilities with regard to
major, more severe cases, such as the attempted robberies of valu-
able transportations in Loimaa and Lieto. These kinds of cases
demonstrate the power of a big unit. Our department possesses
professional competence, and we market ourselves as a full-service
police station. We offer all police services to the entire region. One
example of centralized activities is narcotics control. We had a
good narcotics team here in Turku. When the district expanded,
we found out that there was a major drug problem in the munic-
ipality of Salo, but it had not been fully recognized. We quickly
noticed that in Salo, the drug problems were on the street, whereas
in Turku, drugs were more commonly used “indoors,” in private
parties.
TK & MV: What would you consider to be the greatest problem facing the
police at this time?
TH: The most important issue is the social exclusion of young people—and
by this I mean both Finnish and immigrant youngsters. There is
a rather large group of young people excluded from society at the
moment.
Another major issue is globalization. The open borders and
internal border systems enable people to travel quite freely. For
example, the above-mentioned valuable transportation cases in
Lieto and Loimaa were both fully international, with perpetrators
from Estonia and Sweden.
Looking at the routes used by criminals, organized international
crime seems to pose quite a challenge. A typical feature, currently
visible here in Finland, is “hit-and-run”-type crime in which the
masterminds and perpetrators are separate. First, the mastermind
comes and plans the job, and then another team comes and imple-
ments it. This is a very difficult setting in terms of crime prevention.
TK & MV: How could you address this hit-and-run crime by means of
investigation?
TH: With regard to investigation, recognition is a problem. Maybe we should
intensify the use of various surveillance camera systems in crime
investigation. There are several individual camera surveillance sys-
tems; for example, department stores have their own systems. In
Helsinki, there are hundreds of surveillance cameras. We should
combine the data from all these systems and try to catch the perpe-
trators before they leave the country. We need to actively exchange
information.
In addition, we should study the structures behind hit-and-run
crime: what lies behind it? Over the years, we have got used to the
traditional Finnish crooks and learned how they think. They typically
commit crimes under the influence of alcohol and based on rather
simple plans. However, the people who attempted the valuable trans-
portation robbery had planned the job for weeks in advance; they were
sober and left no trace of anything. They have cleaners who remove
their tracks. Everything is changing. The field of such crime is becom-

ing much more complicated than the typical Finnish crime scene.
So, summing up, the main challenges are the social exclusion of
youngsters, globalization and international crime, and yet another
one is gang activity. With this I refer, above all, to traditional out-
law gangs such as motorcycle clubs that have also found their way
to Turku. Their operations include serious elements. For example,
they are trying to penetrate the restaurants’ doorman staffing mar-
kets, and they use extortion and market takeovers.
This entails a threat that is known in Sweden and Denmark as
the “black cobra” phenomenon: criminal clubs and gangs recruit
socially excluded young immigrants to do their crimes. These
people have nothing to rely on in their personal lives—they have
nothing to lose. Instead of actually committing any crimes them-
selves, the gangs use these people to do the dirty work for them.
Gang membership is made to seem admirable and attractive. This
phenomenon is a topic of serious public discussion in Sweden and
Denmark today, and we have already learned about the first such
recruitment efforts in Finland, even in Turku.
Theory and Practice
TK & MV: What should be the relationship between theory and practice?
What can practitioners learn from theory, and what can theory
builders learn from practitioners?
TH: I do believe that practical police operatives can learn from theory and
vice versa. Modern police work, responding to the current chal-
lenges, requires knowledge of theoretical frameworks. We must
know what is going on in society, what kinds of phenomena there
are, in order to address them. This is an aspect where I would like
to see more research from the police perspective.
The National Research Institute of Legal Policy produces reports
of the state of crime, but it is difficult to find answers to the ques-
tion of how to influence the crime situation.
TK & MV: What kind of research, based on which questions, would you find
most useful for practice?
TH: One example of research with practical significance is social media
study. It is a universal focus area at the moment. Social media
is a great way to reach large groups of young people. But who
could conduct an effectiveness study to help us determine how
much we should invest in social media and find out whether we
are focusing on the right things; in other words, show us the
golden medium? Members of the Helsinki Police Department

are actively answering questions on Facebook and have a lot of
publicity. Then there is another approach, the one we are using:
handling social media relations alongside your other duties.
This is an area where theory and practice should definitely meet.
Local safety studies have been conducted for nearly twenty
years. Personally, I feel that the minister and chief secretary are
talking about them, but they have not yet led to any actual influ-
ence. Are they genuinely effective? Should we put our expecta-
tions of the safety plan as high as they currently are? This is also a
topic worth studying. In addition, we could use more international
research. International studies could produce comparison data to
support our focus area discussions, strategy discussions, and other
such considerations.
A third area of research I could suggest is the impact of immi-
gration control on crime: can we actually influence crime among
foreigners by means of control? Our agreement on results with the
National Police Board outlines that the volume of immigration
control should be doubled. We have done this, but, despite this, the
number of suspected crimes (cases) reported to the police keeps
increasing.
TK & MV: You are saying that analyzing the effectiveness of different kinds
of actions is also needed, and not only analyzing the state of vari-
ous aspects of criminality?
TH: Yes, maybe that’s the way to put it. I live with these phenomena and
meet stakeholders, so I know how things are, for example, in
Varissuo. Based on discussions, we take certain measures. But are
these the right measures to take? Research needs to be directed
toward effectiveness and to be comparative in nature. For example,
camera surveillance is a typical monitoring method and an active
discussion topic: Is it effective? We know of a study conducted in
Japan that indicated that camera surveillance is effective for two
weeks, and then its impact reduces. However, new research find-
ings appear all the time, and we cannot keep up with all the stud-
ies. Our research function should report these new studies to us,
instead of us sending representatives to a seminar in London to
hear about the findings—even though the occasional seminar trips
are, of course, nice. But yes, effectiveness is the key word here.
TK & MV: Does your organization do research on its own?
TH: We have had students conduct research. One student wrote a master’s
thesis about the influence of our increased visibility in Varissuo,
the district with a large immigrant population I mentioned earlier.
It asked, “What happens if we significantly increase our visibility?”
This is a good example of research benefiting us. First of all, by

agreeing to participate in this study we committed ourselves to
increasing our visibility in the district. Secondly, the person writ-
ing the master’s thesis was one of our own employees, so it was
written in a language we understood well. We noticed that the
increased visibility did have an impact, and this steered our activi-
ties. We have made quite significant investments in knowledge-
based policing. My office staff includes one person focusing on
analysis. In three-week periods, I receive reports about phenom-
ena that should be addressed. This is how research into our own
field of activity is significant. We can also utilize studies and ideas
produced in the research unit. I am interested in such knowledge-
based policing that contains elements enabling us to respond to
existing phenomena as rapidly as possible.
A common problem related to graduate theses is that many
thesis writers want to interview the chief of police about phenom-
ena of which the chief has no in-depth knowledge. The practical
knowledge is always found on the field.
The thesis instruction process could be reviewed. There are good
research topics, but are the thesis writers instructed correctly? For
example, do they get the kind of material they need? My personal
schedule is really busy, and unfortunately I am not always able to
focus on the study as intensely as I should. In such cases, the thesis
writer does not benefit from the instruction as much as he or she
should be entitled to. Some graduates are shy about their theses and
try to hide them, whereas others want to utilize as much material
as possible, and we, as a full-service police station, can provide it. I
think it would be an interesting challenge for research: to respond
to the police departments’ desire to have a dialogue. Researchers
could plan the research settings they would like to explore, and we
could test these settings in practice.
TK & MV: What kind of an impact have globalization and different interna-
tional currents had on work in your organization?
TH: From the local police’s perspective, it was easy to see how genuine
international collaboration began once Finland joined the EU.
At that time, I completed an international police chiefs’ course
that spanned four countries. It enabled me to see, in practice,
what international collaboration means and how the informa-
tion exchange methods and other such channels function. In my
opinion, the developments of the past few years have been very
positive for Finland. EU membership increased our bilateral rela-
tionships. Nowadays, police chiefs meet each other in interna-
tional seminars.
In light of the facts that borders have opened up and interna-
tional organized crime is clearly one of the biggest future threats,
the significance of proactivity and exchanging information is even
further emphasized. We have contacts with Sweden, Estonia, and
other nearby regions nearly on a daily basis. In some cases, we
have made contacts with Spain or the Netherlands. Globalization
and Europol have driven international collaboration in a good
direction.
TK & MV: How would you describe the effects of 9/11 on the Finnish police
force and policing?
TH: 9/11 had an impact in Finland as well. I was working in Helsinki when
it happened. You may have forgotten that it started with an ava-
lanche of letters containing powder; some people sent these letters
all over just for fun. Increased terrorism and the threat of terror-
ism are visible even at the local level. Whenever a major event
is arranged in Turku—or any other city of the same size—this
aspect is always considered, and a threat analysis is prepared for
every event.
Prospects for Policing
TK & MV: What is most needed now to improve policing?

TH: The easiest answer to this would be to state that given the continuously
reduced resources, it is difficult to invest in anything. But we can’t
just complain about the scarce resources. Safety is a shared respon-
sibility. Earlier, I told you about criminal gangs penetrating the
restaurant business. Last week, we invited people responsible for
doorman staffing for a discussion here at the police station. For
some companies, this is their main business, and they may serve
several restaurants. We told them about this phenomenon and said
that they are to be prepared for a situation in which, one day, a
bald-headed bodybuilder on steroids appears on their doorstep
and starts picking a fight. He may demand a cut of the night’s
profits, force them to hire him, or have other such demands. We
told these companies about this very openly, wanting to assure
them that they should not be afraid. These gangs are often associ-
ated with features that make people fear them and avoid talking
about them. However, the problem is public. We pointed out that
the police cannot tackle these issues alone if we don’t even know
what is happening, so we asked the restaurant people to report any
problems. In just a couple of days, we started receiving phone calls:
in deeper thought, they realized there had been such cases. Crime
becomes very difficult to prevent once it penetrates structures and
gains power.
TK & MV: You mentioned earlier that young, socially excluded immigrants
have nothing to rely on in their lives. Are we talking about people
that have come to the country legally or illegally?
TH: Mainly these people are “on the books.” They have originally had a
genuine intent to integrate into the Finnish society. Social exclu-
sion can be caused by insufficient language skills, which prevents
employment. Then, they meet friends who lure them into the world
of crime. Turku has also received so-called “quota refugees.” They
have undergone an integration program that, in light of assess-
ments, is quite effective. It teaches them about the rules applied
in Finland and helps them find an apartment, job, and other such
things. However, the reunification of families poses a problem
here: we don’t always have enough information about people enter-
ing the country on these grounds, and they fall outside the scope of
integration programs. They have caused us some trouble.
The criminal cycle is fierce. Once you get on that road, there
is no easy way out. We follow and analyze crime among young
people with a foreign background. For example, we detected that
one age group of the youngsters monitored through the ages from
fifteen to seventeen clearly influenced the immigrant crime rates.
This was the oldest age group. We noticed this once they turned
eighteen. The youngest age group is not that bad at all. If a certain
age group takes the criminal path, it is a tough downward spiral. In
terms of prevention, hope will soon be lost for such an age group.
On the other hand, based on my contacts with various immi-
grants, I must also say that many of them are good people; you
shouldn’t label all foreigners. Some immigrants have learned to
master the Finnish language and become successful members of
our society. You shouldn’t undermine these people. The rotten
apple metaphor also applies here: a small number of people can
ruin a large group’s reputation.
TK & MV: Do these youngsters have difficult backgrounds?
TH: Yes, and we sometimes have trouble communicating with their parents
as well. Sometimes the parents are also in the outskirts of society
and don’t speak Finnish. When the police visit them, they use a
child as an interpreter. A child interpreting adult issues!
Conclusion
International organized crime forms one of the severest future threats fac-
ing Finland. Fortunately, cooperation between European law enforcement
agencies has increased alongside the threat. The importance of informa-
tion exchange and proactivity has clearly increased. The public economy in
Finland faces the same stringent economic conditions and budgetary pres-
sures as the public economies of other EU countries. The police force contin-
ues to search for opportunities to improve productivity and reduce both total
and unit costs. Along with economy and efficiency, evidence-based effective-
ness is one of the keys here.
In the long run, the significance of preventive activities has increased the
most. This is the only way to respond to future challenges. Criminal activ-
ity cannot be controlled by merely investigating cases. It all comes down to
preventing crimes.
Glossary
National Police commissioner: Head of the National Police Board.

Pora: A major organizational reform of the police.
Pora 1: The first phase of the organizational reform of the police, concerning
local police departments, implemented in 2009.
Pora 2: The second phase of the organizational reform of the police, con-
cerning central administration, implemented in 2010.
The National Police Board: The body that directs and guides operational
police activities in Finland.
The Police Technical Centre: A support services unit that acquires, main-
tains, and develops equipment and supplies for the Finnish police.
Varissuo: A suburban district of Turku with a large immigrant population.
Vati teams: Finnish police’s special task forces for demanding situations.
References
Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge:
Polity Press.
Kääriäinen, J. (2008). Why Do the Finns Trust the Police? Journal of Scandinavian
Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention, 9, 2, 141–159.
Kääriäinen, J. and Siren, R. (2011). Trust in the Police, Generalized Trust and
Reporting Crime. European Journal of Criminology, 8, 1, 65–81.
OSCE. (2008). Guidebook on Democratic Policing by the Senior Police Adviser to the
OSCE Secretary General. Second edition. Vienna: Organization for Security and
Co-Operation in Europe.
National Police Board. (2011). Police in Finland. Helsinki: National Police Board.
Lieutenant General
Mzwandile
Petros, Provincial
Commissioner of the
11
South African Police
Service, Gauteng
Province, South Africa
INTERVIEWED BY
GUSHA X. NGANTWENI
Contents
Introduction 183
Career 185
Transnational Policing 201
Looking Ahead 202
Conclusion 202
Glossary 203
Note 204
References 204
Introduction
South Africa emerged from apartheid in 1994. Until then, the police had been
in the forefront of the violent apartheid law enforcement, had lost legitimacy,
and lacked professional skills in the fundamental areas of crime prevention
and community policing. Police reform has been a preoccupation for the
democratic government, to ensure that communities have confidence in the
police and that the police are effective in their task. The White Paper on Safety
and Security and the National Crime Prevention Strategy, both released in the
183
1990s during the administration of Nelson Mandela, informed most policy

directions. However, the journey has been complex. The legacy of apartheid
dictated that social spending increase in the areas of education, health, and
housing (which, admittedly, created long-term benefits for crime prevention).
The crime wave that is associated with countries in transition did not escape
South Africa. Police brutality, managerial laxity, a crisis in leadership within
the South African Police Service (SAPS), and an array of other challenges
have been a feature of postapartheid policing. For a population of 50 million
in 2011, South Africa recorded 15,600 murders a year, a 2.4 percent reduction
from the previous year; contact crime accounted for 31 percent over an eight-
year period (SAPS 2012).
The SAPS is headed by a national commissioner, who is assisted by six
deputy national commissioners, thirteen divisional commissioners, and nine
provincial commissioners, all of whom are at the same rank level. The big-
gest expansion of the management structure happened after the 2009 gen-
eral election, emphasizing the law-and-order approach to crime by the South
African government. It was also at this time that the rank structure of the
SAPS was remilitarized. Since the announcement that South Africa would
host the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup, the SAPS has been expanding at an
accelerated rate, leading to the opening of many police academies that had
become dormant. Major cities such as Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria,
and Durban have their own metropolitan police departments that concen-
trate on bylaw enforcement and traffic policing, although the SAPS remains
the largest entity.
South Africa has nine provinces, each with its own legislature and high
court. Each province is led by a premier and a small executive council. A
member of the executive council heads a civilian department responsible
for community safety, which focuses on social crime prevention and the
monitoring and evaluation of police performance. A close working rela-
tionship between the member of the executive council and the provincial
commissioner is important for policy cohesion and strategic leadership. The
Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID), Act 1 of 2011 was recently
passed in parliament to expand the powers of the old Independent Complaints
Directorate to include investigation of metropolitan police departments, for
example, and to allow it to have more capacity.
Mzwandile Petros, a lieutenant general in the SAPS, is the provincial
commissioner of the Gauteng province, where about 50 percent of the coun-
try’s crime happens. Gauteng, the most populous province, is home to about
11.3 million people (Statistics South Africa 2011), and Lt. Gen. Petros man-
ages about 43,000 employees (SAPS 2012a). He also served as the provincial
commissioner of the Western Cape after having been a deputy provincial
commissioner for crime detection in the same province. Formerly, he held
positions as a trade unionist, an administrator of civic organizations, a
Lieutenant General Mzwandile Petros, Provincial Commissioner 185
mathematics and science teacher, and principal of an adult education center.

He started his police career as an intelligence gathering officer. He has also
held positions as the national trainer of the handler’s course at the SAPS’s
Crime Intelligence and Detective Academy and as a section head of national
rapid deployment intelligence. He holds a secondary teaching diploma from
the Cape College of Education and an advanced diploma in public manage-
ment from the University of Stellenbosch, where he is completing a master
of public administration in which he has researched the implementation of
sector policing. He was awarded the Star of Merit by the minister of Safety
and Security for his work in combating urban terrorism.
The interview was not the first time I had met Lt. Gen. Petros. I held the
rank of captain in the SAPS when Lt. Gen. Petros was appointed deputy pro-
vincial commissioner for crime detection in the Western Cape in 2002. At the
time, he held the most senior rank a black African officer had ever held in that
province. Observing his purposeful and bold decisions over the years, I saw
the paradigm of executive police leadership change. He revolutionized the
work of the police; especially how seriously managers must take their respon-
sibilities. To fully appreciate his dedication, innovation, and mentoring,
one needs to study the breadth of changes he has pioneered, the number of
employees who have grown intellectually and professionally while serving
under him, and, most importantly, the impact that he has had on crime—all
this under daunting political, social, and organizational circumstances.
The interview was conducted in Lt. Gen. Petros’s office for two hours over
two days, and a final interview of about thirty minutes took place at the OR
Tambo International Airport. The assistance of the respondent, Maj. Gen.
Phumzo Gela, Brigadier S.J. Pheto, and Captain Nomathemba Mgwebile
in helping to secure the interview and reviewing the edited transcript is
acknowledged. I was granted access to two meetings—one with the manage-
ment of reservists and a breakaway strategic session with the management of
detectives—as background to the interview.
Career
GXN: Tell me about your youth, your upbringing, your education, and your
training before you joined the police.
MP: I am fifty-two years old. Born in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape
province. I was brought up in a Christian school of the Seventh
Day Adventists. Fortunately, I had a good family grounding, but
I was affected by South Africa’s politics from the late 1960s to
the 1980s, which is the time of my youth. We were reaching the
climax as a country in the struggle for freedom. The politics of
trying to transform the country, from the apartheid system to
democracy, were heightened and I participated fully in the stu-

dent movement. I had a passion for mathematics and science, and
that took me to a teacher’s college, later becoming a teacher in
those subjects in the 1980s.
My participation in the fight for democracy transitioned into
the youth and teacher movements. I was initially based in Paarl
in the Western Cape province, where so much was happening and
yet the notorious security branch of the police was very strong,
hunting down antiapartheid activists. The various teacher forma-
tions across the color lines merged, culminating in the formation
of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU). The
Western Cape Civic Organization, to which I belonged, was very
much involved with the Coloured Civic Organization and the hos-
tel dwellers organization, which led to the formation of the South
African National Civic Organization (SANCO). I am proud that
those organizations are still in existence and contributing to the
vibrancy of our democracy. I am happy to have been part of those
processes, which was challenging at the time.
Having been a teacher from 1986 till 1992, I realized that I could
make a better contribution after the unbanning of the liberation
movements. The first democratic elections were very important and
historic for our country. I became the provincial coordinator for
voter education for Matla-Trust, a nongovernmental organization.
GXN: We know the strategy of the government of the day then. Did you have
any personal or group encounters with the police? And how did
your involvement in that antiapartheid struggle frame your sense
of social justice?
MP: There was a lot of consultation with the leadership outside the country
with whom I had close contact as we formed the organizations I
outlined. One interesting moment of my life was that after coming
back from Zimbabwe, where I was for a month, the security forces
never picked it up as to who I was until about three months later.
That would have been crucial information for the intelligence of the
security branch, who would park outside the gate, camping, wait-
ing for the schools to be out. Once I had some drama, when I was
chased through the school yard, jumping fences and disappearing
from school for about three weeks. Doors were kicked down, like
with any South African, because they were desperately looking for
me. Fortunately, I was never captured.
The African National Congress came up with constitutional
guidelines in the late 1980s that were debated throughout the
country. And interactions with other comrades and organiza-
tions enriched understanding about the values of a free society. I
was speaking to religious leaders this morning and I realized that

we are blessed because back then we talked about freedom in our
lifetime, when it seemed impossible. Being part of the large con-
tingent of youth who were at the grand parade in Cape Town the
day Nelson Mandela was released and liberation movements hav-
ing been unbanned was a profound moment. As the youth, we had
lived for that moment, and yet there were a lot of uncertainties
about the transition. Ultimately, as South Africans, we have been
subjected to so much and it’s been a long journey. Thus, crime in
any form goes against the peace and freedoms that many sacrificed
for.
GXN: With all of that background, how did you end up in the SAPS? Was
it an organizational decision or did you make a personal choice?
MP: My teacher colleagues used to remind me about the joke I liked to make,
“One day when we are free, I will join the security branch and be a
policeman.” I was fascinated by the power they had and how they
abused it. We voted in 1994, and in 1995 I found myself in the police.
Coincidentally, I was integrated with the security branch.
GXN: The integration of former members of the liberation movement with
the apartheid police to form an effective crime prevention team
must have created tension. Tell me about that.
MP: We came from being direct enemies, because the structure that kept
apartheid alive was the security branch. When I joined the police,
the commander that I worked with was the commander that used
to operate in the township where I used to stay. He was a very effec-
tive commander and operator. He is now based at the national head
office, and we work together.
The challenge was not only for those of us entering the service.
The challenge was also for those who received us. In the Western
Cape we were a group of only twenty-two; you can imagine twenty-
two joining 1,000. Colleagues on the other side were hell bound to
speak in their mother tongue, Afrikaans, and there were new peo-
ple that struggled to understand Afrikaans. Small things like those
are cornerstones of transformation, where you say, “I am willing to
change. I want to understand you. Let us find common ground.”
The tensions were not just between management but also within
the organization. Whilst we waited for decisions about the ranks,
we remained at entry level. A respondent in an earlier edition of
this book, Maj. Gen. Jeremy Veary, and I were in charge of the two
groups who had come from the liberation movement. Although we
understood the police structures, we could not tolerate their rigid
attitude when we were supposed to work together. The tension
became so much that because of our exclusion from management
meetings of commissioned officers, we insisted on having our own

and comparing notes later. Immediately that became a problem.
Ultimately we met each other halfway, despite the challenges.
Changes Experienced
GXN: After almost two decades of policing a constitutional democracy,

what do you feel are some of the most important changes that
have occurred?
MP: Policing during apartheid meant different things to different citizens.
For white people, it meant security, safety, stability, and order.
For all other South Africans, it meant instability, broken families,
and people being locked up arbitrarily. Properly managing the
policing of a transforming society depends on how you were pre-
pared and on the experience you have in dealing with the issues.
Amalgamating eleven different policing agencies, with their own
cultures, to form one organization that is supposed to have one
culture was a challenge at a macro level.
Because of the crime problem, we had to fix the plane whilst fly-
ing; otherwise, the plane could end up crashing. That is the transi-
tion we’ve been going through as a country, the SAPS, and other
policing agencies. Crime patterns throughout the world suggest
that in countries that are in transition, crime increases dramati-
cally. Whilst we deal with problematic issues about police culture,
work on the crime prevention front has to continue.
GXN: Given all the various interventions that have been introduced in the
organization in this period, are you happy with the level of compe-
tence amongst police officials at all levels?
MP: Any discussion about that must be contextualized by the different
backgrounds from which our members come, the quality of their
school education and exposure to tertiary studies, and the level of
training we expose them to. Our historical context, in which the
attendance of a specific college for basic police training was based
on race, is problematic to this day, even as those people move into
middle and senior management positions. We even detect different
forms of saluting.
The SAPS is a microcosm of the bigger social problems that exist
in South Africa. So, if there was apartheid outside, there was apart-
heid inside the SAPS. When you listen to the stories of black cops
who served during apartheid, you get to know that it was very bad.
They had a different curriculum and other issues; so when man-
aging at the executive level, you need to take people through the
paces. I was sitting with my senior management team and amongst

them is a group I brought with me from the Western Cape. Our
conceptualization of management issues is a little different. The
social dynamics too are different. People also experience us dif-
ferently. Police competence is a function of all these factors. It can
improve to differing degrees just by the way you manage perfor-
mance and mentor, especially at executive and senior management
levels.
GXN: The SAPS has consistently put up plans as part of its strategic manage-
ment. Would you like to talk about changes with regard to police
priorities?
MP: We can talk about that in terms of time and space, and leadership
changes at the top. Between 1994 and 1995 there was one general
leading the police; from 1995 to 1999 there was another national
commissioner; between 1999 and 2008 there was another; and
from 2009 to 2011 there has been another national commissioner.
Between 2008 and now there have been two acting national com-
missioners, and a permanent one only from 2012. From the early
moments of our transition, each leader had unique challenges
to deal with in terms of crime threats, resources, and leadership
approach. At that level, you’re not policing in a vacuum. For exam-
ple, in 1994 and before the elections, we had high levels of political
violence in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. That shaped the prob-
lems that the national commissioner wanted to tackle as a prior-
ity. So the emphasis was more on public order policing to stabilize
that situation. In the period following that, we were looking at the
National Crime Prevention Strategy, which emphasized the geo-
graphical approach and the organized crime approach.
Fundamentally, we had a problem of legitimizing the police
and ensuring their acceptability by communities. Legislation and
support at the political level helped us create community polic-
ing forums. But improved relations with the community does
not necessarily talk to the strategy of fighting crime. Hence at the
next level we introduced the concept of sector policing, which is a
manifestation of community policing. It empowered communities
and station commanders by removing high-level decision-making
about precinct policing. People will say this model comes from
other countries, but we have a rich history of street communities in
this country. The difference is that sector policing brings the state
on board, to resolve and preempt crime problems.
As part of the NCPS implementation, we studied various mod-
els that looked at crime hot spots. We identified sixty-nine stations
nationally that were contributing about 50 percent of the crime in
the country. To stabilize the situation, we focused on those sta-

tions, looking at resources and management. It was a bit daunting
trying to stabilize the situation so that we could move to the level
of sustaining the improvements. Communities are also not homo-
geneous. Some policing concepts, such as “zero tolerance” and the
“broken windows” approaches, need substantial modification in
our case. At one of our precincts, most of the school’s windows
were broken; when windows are broken by people who are driven
by service delivery anger, you must attend to their problems. Crime
threats and conditions within a particular community will dictate
how you prioritize and police a community. The richest precinct
on the continent, Sandton, will be policed slightly differently from
Hillbrow, with its densely populated blocks in the inner city.
GXN: You redefined employment equity in the Western Cape. Tell me about
the changes with regard to gender and racial diversity.
MP: For some time there have been challenges with our employment equity
profiles. From the perspectives of both gender and race, there was
deep labor discrimination in the past. Some race- and gender-based
promotion criteria were downright laughable and cruel. There was
also a huge gap in capacity for middle and senior levels. Our equity
policy alludes to the different environments and issues. Whether it
was shadow posting, training, or identifying people with potential,
there was severe resistance and improper application of the policy.
My approach in the Western Cape was empowerment at all lev-
els; first, in terms of management and leadership skills and under-
standing the relevant policies governing policing. We partnered
with the University of Stellenbosch, amongst others.
Women and black people in general were a major part of those
interventions. Many of them hold positions of responsibility now
and are doing well. Secondly, we raised the level of accountabil-
ity at all levels. Even the lowest ranking employee, whether in an
operational or support function, knew what was expected of him
or her every day. When you wake up in the morning, go to work
with a clear purpose, and know that when you bring results they
will be appreciated, it changes your attitude. I think the majority of
employees each saw a leader emerge in them.
GXN: In terms of physical resources, what changes have happened and what
is your view of these changes?
MP: When I took over as the provincial commissioner in the Western
Cape, for example, there were many complaints about the lack of
resources. Communities and employees were complaining about
the lack of cars and a shortage of personnel. The management and
utilization of resources is a business principle. If you have a specific
budget and a set number of people, the key question first should
be, “What can I do to make an impact in my area of responsibil-
ity with what I have?” That has been my approach, and it has been
working. When we took over Gauteng, it was in August and there
was no way that I could get an additional budget. But if you look
at the results produced between August 2010 and April 2011, we
surpassed three-year achievements with largely the same resources
that were there. The same applies to the next financial year. I expect
huge differences. In order to ensure the optimal utilization of
resources, leadership is critical at all levels. The Soccer World Cup
and a political will to make a dent on crime saw us receive more
resources. The level of prudence in managing those resources has
to rise too.
GXN: I would like to know your personal policing philosophy: what do you
think is or should be the role of the police?
MP: I am happy that you talk about the elementary level in policing. The
setting of priorities for policing at the higher level should be
managed so that it values local understanding and innovation.
Sector policing should be the mechanism used to identify polic-
ing priorities. Twenty years from now, the police service and
the police station, as institutions of state, should be defending
the community from people who are invading that community.
Disorder should be dealt with by the community even before it
becomes disruptive. Communities that are actively involved in
policing know the policing priorities of their areas.
GXN: At the national level, there are strategic plans and annual plans.
However, the results are primarily achieved at the provincial
level. What were the particular successes of the People-Oriented
Sustainable Strategy (POSS) that you initiated in the Western Cape?
MP: The starting point was co-creating the strategy, which is what we have
done here in Gauteng. The results we achieved were not only wel-
comed by the police but by the community as well, because many
of the representatives had participated in its formulation. Outcome
three of the government’s plan promises that people will feel safe.
Crime reduction as reflected by statistics is controversial when
people do not feel safe. In the Western Cape, the common under-
standing between the partners was a catalyst for our successes.
Although crime came down in leaps and bounds statistically, it
was the quality partnerships that endured. I realized this during
my farewell. At the expense of sounding self-promoting, the hall

was packed with all the partners. When I watch the video of the
function, I get moved listening to the testimony of our work over a
period of seven years, and I am proud that the strategy worked. At
the level of the organization, I alluded earlier to the close manage-
ment of performance and making all levels of employees account-
able for their roles.
GXN: Gauteng is a particularly strategic province for South Africa. What are
its unique challenges? And what new innovations in policing and
partnership development does the Gauteng Co-Created Policing
Strategy (G-COPS) champion?
MP: First, the serious and violent crimes that happened in the Western Cape
are also a feature in Gauteng too. About 50 percent of the crime in
the country happens here, whilst the Western Cape contributes no
more than 15 percent. Gauteng’s population is 12 million whilst it
is 5 million in the Western Cape, and communities here are vastly
heterogeneous. So the responsibility has become huge and more
complex.
Gauteng is a leader in exporting crime to other provinces. I
always thought the Western Cape was the capital for drugs, but
I have since concluded that that province is perhaps the capital
for the consumption of drugs and not necessarily the production
of drugs. Besides the illegal mining and hijacking of buildings,
which are unique to Gauteng, the trends, patterns, and nature of
crime are generally the same. Some crimes are multiplied mani-
fold compared to the Western Cape. So I have to think on my feet
more than I used to and move faster in terms of dealing with prob-
lems. Thankfully, I cannot complain about the resources I have
been allocated. Visibility is a top priority of our strategy because
it allows us to address the other key concerns for the community
which we integrated into our strategy; namely, access, response,
increased safety, and proper detection.
The secret of success in the Western Cape was teamwork: the
management and leadership machinery we put in place over seven
years, which was producing marvelous results. Putting together
and developing a team takes time. Our sport coaches may chop
and change the composition of the team, but for events such as a
World Cup, they need teams that will deliver. In this environment,
every day is a matter of saving lives and securing property.
So, G-COPS is about collaboration between the police, resi-
dents, and business. It is about efficient resource management, a
determined focus on crime challenges every day in every corner
of Gauteng, and accompanied by ethical and innovative leadership
at every level. Removing what I would call dead wood has been a
priority. You cannot enjoy the confidence of the citizens if there is a
systematic involvement of police officials in crime. We’re ashamed
of the arrest of about 500 cops in just over a year since I took over,
but we’re equally proud because we made those arrests.
GXN: What do you think of specialization in policing?
MP: Specialization in the SAPS has been evolving. We have had many spe-
cialized units, like the South African Narcotics Bureau, the dia-
mond and gold unit, and others. Specialization requires a delicate
balance, because often criminals that are involved in diamond and
gold crimes, for example, will be the ones that deal in drugs and
form syndicates in vehicle thefts and hijackings. Our specialized
units worked in silos and this created problems; hence they were
closed and we created what was called the organized crime unit.
Teams within the organized crime unit were created to look at
specific problems, in the form of a project, the belief being that if
we take down a syndicate, it will neutralize everything regarding
that specific crime. I don’t subscribe to that, based on my investiga-
tive and intelligence background. Generally, when you’re involved
in investigating organized crime, the people likely to be arrested
are runners, who are not the key people in planning and funding
the activities of the syndicate. What we developed in the Western
Cape, for example, was the high flyer approach. In that way, you
use advanced intelligence gathering and investigative techniques
to focus on the key person; you don’t rest until you put him away. In
that way, instead of concentrating on the foot soldiers sometimes
to get to the top guy, you concentrate on the top to get everything
done. That is how we silenced the gangs in the Western Cape. I can
make reference to somebody like Rashied Staggie of Manenberg,
whom we arrested not on drugs, but for rape, because you’ll look
at any misdemeanor and take the person down. You set targets for
stations and units to consistently identify the leaders of organized
crime in their areas.
GXN: You’ve championed crime intelligence. How is that progressing?

MP: Gathering of crime intelligence is guided by the policing priorities of
the day. You will know that crime intelligence faced the same chal-
lenges of managing the reorientation toward policing in a democ-
racy. At some stage we had a serious problem of xenophobic attacks.
We must preempt such problems long before they happen. The role
of provincial commissioners in developing that capacity is critical.
GXN: Earlier you touched on sector policing, or what is often called neigh-
borhood policing. What are the critical issues for its success?
MP: With the evolution of policing globally and with scholars such as David
Bayley having written on this matter, the first step is to define
the community. When you divide an area into manageable areas,
the community does not become homogeneous. South Africa is
a world of contrasts, a developing country with many features of
a developed country. We need a variation of policing approaches.
Sector policing can make or break policing. During the riots
in Britain in 2011, the prime minister announced the deployment
of 16,000 police officials in London. I asked myself what would
become of neighborhood policing when they remove so many
police officials from neighborhoods into the city center.
What people want to achieve in their communities is very
important. This will be driven by the values of each community.
For example, we have a problem of unlicensed liquor premises;
what we call shebeens. In a specific sector, if a shebeen has to close
at eight in the evening, as the police we do not have to go there to
close it; the community should assert its values.
GXN: South Africa has the challenge of violent crime. What policing inno-
vations, at operational and policy levels, should be introduced to
curb this problem?
MP: There are people who are calling for more police officials, despite our
improved police-to-population ratio. I know that there are scholars
that are challenging the idea that bigger is better. I am in agree-
ment with that. Investing in and developing leadership and man-
aging resources better are key.
The other impact on our crime is the movement of people. If
we do well here in Gauteng, we can inadvertently displace cer-
tain categories of crime to neighboring provinces such as North
West, Limpopo, the Free State, and Mpumalanga. Our coordi-
nating mechanisms must be able to deal with such eventualities.
Technology is the other aspect that we must explore to comple-
ment our human resource limitations, because we can’t police as
if we’re in the eighteenth century. Our creation of the war room in
the Western Cape helped us integrate systems. Managing patrols,
analyzing information, enhancing investigations, and adequately
profiling arrested persons is a total approach of making linkages.
As a former intelligence operative, I know the value of informa-
tion. Our starting point should always be that every police official
is a potential gatherer of information.
GXN: To follow up on the question of violent crime, has the legislation and
strategy been effective regarding firearm ownership and alcohol
abuse?
MP: We have enough legislation in order to deal with those problems. In our
analysis of violent crime in our POSS approach in the Western Cape,
for example, we looked at murder, since it gives a good picture. And
we have done the same here in Gauteng. In the Western Cape, there
were five nodes that were contributing around 45 percent of mur-
ders in the province; namely, Khayelitsha, Nyanga, Mitchells Plein,
Kuilsriver, and Gugulethu. In certain communities, you could have
attributed this to the gangs, but that was not the case. In the town-
ship of Khayelitsha, the biggest in Cape Town, there were generally
no murders midweek, but suddenly we would have twenty murders
each weekend. We had to deal with the crime generators in those
nodes. We discovered it was the accessibility of illegal firearms,
alcohol abuse, and substance abuse, as you allude to.
With all the interventions that were put in place, five years down
the line, most murders were no longer committed with firearms
but through stabbing. That is more or less what you get in Britain
with gangs using knives. In our case, an arrest for possession of an
illegal firearm would, through ballistic tests, lead to a connection
with other murders. Our murder rate came down, leading to other
crimes like assaults and robberies coming down. Indeed, our strat-
egies have worked, but we cannot rest.
GXN: Do you think South Africa should remove firearms from civilian
hands and drastically limit access to alcohol?
MP: There are countries in the developed world where there is excessive
drinking, but of course they don’t have our social problems. Not
producing any liquor is not going to help the country, so we need
to balance competing interests. Experience has taught us that if
you stop the liquor trade, it gets smuggled. The apartheid experi-
ence was that black Africans were never allowed to go to the pubs,
but that did not make them stop drinking. We can’t come up with
systems that we can’t police. Draconian approaches lead to revolt.
We must strengthen our awareness campaigns so that individuals
can understand the consequences of their choices.
On firearm ownership, there are countries with better regula-
tion. The firearms control law that we promulgated is a step in the
right direction. I know there are people who would love to eradi-
cate firearms, but there will be firearms in the streets irrespective.
GXN: Can you describe your hands-on management and leadership
approach for a large organization?
MP: Mahatma Ghandi said, “you must be the change that you want to see”.
When you lead by example, from the front, you can change things
around. Any strategy on paper for which there are no mechanisms
to monitor implementation is a futile exercise. So we put a system
of weekly monitoring, because a month might be too late. Levels
below me must do so even more frequently, so that employees
know what is expected.
GXN: Was the disbandment of the area (district) offices a result of what you
had seen in your hands-on approach?
MP: That created a lot of problems at some stage. What people ignore is that
you must first look at the complexity and the dynamics of the task
before you even talk about the structure. Effectively, they operated
like a post office between the provincial office and the station. We
said, since those structures were only monitoring what was hap-
pening at the lower level, let us send everybody to that level to
enhance the service delivery. It paid dividends. More paperwork
creates problems for operational managers.
GXN: South Africa’s hosting of a secure FIFA Soccer World Cup in 2010 was
a feather in the cap of the SAPS. You played a prominent role in
that. Tell me about that experience.
MP: It came at the right time for us. We were developing an institution to
face whatever policing eventuality occurred. It was not an event
defined by where the stadiums were, particularly in the Western
Cape, which is a tourist attraction. There we hosted Denmark,
France, and Japan for their base camps. Our approach was to rein-
force around the towns where the teams were based, because of the
interest and fans coming from their countries. We did not bring in
people to lead the security project. The specific station commander
and his or her team remained responsible.
We got people to understand what was happening. You can
speak to any station commander, cluster commander, and others;
they will tell you what was expected and what was delivered. The
event gave us momentum for our leadership development.
GXN: Creating a capacity within the detective team has been a national
organizational focus. What are your thoughts?
MP: When detectives do not see themselves as part of the crime prevention
capacity, which they are, that’s a challenge. When detectives put
repeat offenders for serious crime behind bars, crime will come
down. In the Western Cape we ensured that a lot of hijackers were
convicted and sentenced. Training is a very critical issue that we’re
focusing on. You listened to the deliberations at our detective strat-
egy session; we have a lot of issues to manage at the lower level,
primarily being sound human resource management and utilizing
resources optimally. We have notched up major successes as we

turn the situation around.
GXN: In addition to all that you’ve shared, is there a success and a problem
you would like to highlight?
MP: I think what worked well has been the mobilization of the community.
The integration of disbanded units and multiagency cooperation
have also enhanced our capabilities. Regarding problems, chang-
ing the culture in the organization remains a work in progress. It
comes with the history. It can be frustrating at this level when you
have to say the same thing for a year. Soon after I came to Gauteng,
I instructed that patrol vehicles must have their blue lights on. You
heard the reservists last night commenting about how that imme-
diately conveyed a message of crime coming down, which hap-
pened. And as one moves, you wish you could retain the team that
you developed.
Theory and Practice
GXN: Putting your postgraduate studies aside, would you say that policy
theory in general and police management theory in particular is
good for practice?
MP: Scholars write on the experiences of crime and policing in other coun-
tries. From our perspective, it is always good to benchmark. I have
led delegations to study concepts elsewhere. Most of the time,
what we may want to do as an organization has already been done
somewhere else. With regard to POSS, we looked at the practical
experience of people based on the crime situation and our policing
methods, and we listened to what they wanted. We did the same
for G-COPS.
In a developing country, an unchecked reliance on theory can
be a problem because of manipulation by certain interests. From
time to time, and with the benefit of hindsight, one discovers that
with the knowledge of theory something could have been done dif-
ferently because of a failure somewhere.
GXN: Has the South African research and academic community been use-
ful for your purposes in helping the country understand the crime
problem and how to manage it?
MP: There have been highly critical institutions regarding our policing
approaches. The research community must advise us about what
needs to be done. It is frustrating that some scholars complain
about the crime situation and yet they offer us no research findings
to inform our strategies, nor do they participate in policing in their

communities using their expertise.
Where we make major improvements, we would like research
to study our interventions, so that in ten years’ time our successors
can be in a position to see what worked. People should know, for
example, how we brought down the Western Cape organization,
People Against Gangs and Drugs, when they became a mass-based
vigilante group. This will also tell us what our crime situation will
look like for us to say it is tolerable.
GXN: Are you happy with the depth of research capacity in the SAPS?
MP: At the provincial level we don’t have enough capacity for this. But at
national level, research has always been important, especially in
the area of curriculum development. We are trying to build more
capacity, so that our research can also look externally to find ways
for us to do our job better.
Democratic Policing
GXN: What do you see as the major elements of democratic policing?

MP: At a fundamental level, democracy talks about involving people. As
the police, we are not elected but appointed to deliver a service,
there should be no issues about partnership development and
promoting a human rights ethos in our policing. Full community
participation is in the interest of all of us and must be encour-
aged at all costs. Where you have an effective community policing
forum, there will be a good relationship with the police. Better
interaction, cooperation, and mutual respect translates into less
crime.
GXN: South Africa has metropolitan policing agencies managed by local
government. How is the interagency cooperation, given that in cit-
ies crime is more problematic?
MP: The coordination mechanism is enabled by legislation, and in Gauteng
at the moment we have three metropolitan police departments. If
the mandate is not clearly spelled out in terms of what the metro-
politan police must do, it blurs the lines. Local governments pro-
mulgate bylaws, and enforcing these can be a handful when you’re
burdened by more serious crime. Enforcing bylaws before they
become a bigger problem is a sound preventative approach. But as
the SAPS commissioner, you have no overall command over the
entities, although we negotiate the annual operational plan so that
it complements our crime prevention plan. That they concentrate
on traffic control and traffic violations is also helpful.
It needs to be unity in action. The strategy we have in the prov-

ince speaks to that. For special operations, like Duty Calls over the
festive season, we take control. With the projects we’ve been run-
ning, cooperation has been good. Their police chiefs are part of our
planning as well.
GXN: Let’s talk about the disbandment of the elite investigation unit, the
Scorpions,1 and the establishment of the Hawks in its place. What were
the fundamental reasons for this decision? At the provincial level, they
have been placed under your jurisdiction as provincial commissioners.
MP: The Scorpions were established to deal with corruption and organized
crime, and they came at a difficult time when we had urban terror in
the Western Cape, for example. We had a problem of coordination,
so putting the intelligence, investigators, and prosecutors together
helped in the initial stages. But over time, placing those who col-
lect the evidence, those who make sense of the evidence, and those
who must present the evidence all under one roof became a com-
plex matter where they tried to put people behind bars irrespective.
Where there is no objectivity in evaluating the evidence because
of the closeness of the parties, the chain of evidence is interrupted
and the methodology created tensions. The basic principle that was
compromised is that you had a prosecutor being the investigator
who also takes the evidence that he collected himself to court. He
would never be in a position to say this evidence in hindsight is
not credible. I am optimistic because of a lot of developments that
shape the new structure, and we’re contributing to that project as
management.
GXN: Let’s link that with corruption, both in the private but more impor-
tantly in the public sector. It creates possibilities for instability in
the country and it needs political leadership. What is your assess-
ment on how the SAPS is approaching corruption?
MP: We need to start accepting the fact that corruption is a societal problem.
It has always been said that the public sector is corrupt, but it is the
private sector that wants public sector money and which initiates,
tolerates, and hides corruption. When we accept that it is a societal
problem, then we will be in a position to deal with it frankly. We
also need to increase the level of awareness to public-sector manag-
ers, because they have been given a responsibility to manage mon-
ies so that government can deliver goods and services.
From the policing perspective, although the Hawks will inves-
tigate, all levels of government should be intolerant of corruption.
There should be mechanisms to detect problems within depart-
ments and to mitigate risks involved in procurement transactions.
When controls have been weak at those levels, then we come in as
a reactive force. I am comforted to see some cases going to court

with a positive outcome.
GXN: What is the level of cooperation between the SAPS and other arms of
the South African criminal justice?
MP: Realizing that crime prevention can never be a responsibility of the
police alone, the state came up with a policy in 1996: the NCPS.
We have a joint operations and intelligence structure to coordi-
nate activities in the province and nationally. It is at the level of the
heads of departments. When a major problem emerges, we want to
know who is rendering what services there and collectively we hold
one another accountable. Using this example, it helps when you
have decision-makers understanding and appreciating what the
problems are in one sitting. We are trying the model at the cluster
and station levels. An integrated justice system forces departments
to work with one another and share information. The information
technology being developed will be useful so that when you arrest
the person, you will have access to other important personal infor-
mation. That will simplify our investigations in the future.
Regarding the relationship with the National Prosecutions
Authority and the courts, a lot of work has been done to prioritize
cases and make sure that we do not clog the system as arrests and
cases come in. We do talk from time to time and implement what-
ever resolutions we take. So, there is closer cooperation between
the police and other state departments.
GXN: Expanding on the issue of cooperation, do you feel that there is an
institutional or systematic letdown of the police in managing early
intervention and reoffending?
MP: That will always be a work in progress. Crime prevention is but one
aspect; although for a large number of South Africans, when
you talk crime prevention they will say, “We have the police.”
Respectfully, even other heads of departments in the socioeco-
nomic sphere struggle with the concept. People at all levels ask, “If
I do this thing, is it crime prevention?” Mostly it is.
We contracted the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research
in the Western Cape for a study to help us understand serious
violent crime. They made at least forty-eight observations, yet
the police had about seven of those responsibilities; the rest were
things that other people were supposed to have done. It looked at
the preventative side of the problem and sketched its escalation to
serious proportions. For example, they found that the problem of
dysfunctional families led to teenage pregnancies, which, in some
instances, led young men to leave school to fend for their families.
They found that with all the problems examined, there are various
departments other than the police that are involved, with us com-
ing in at a very late stage. That motivates us as the police to engage
with other departments outside the criminal justice system.
GXN: The dynamics of policing require sound political leadership. Are you
happy with the quality of political leadership?
MP: There is good political direction, not just for policing, but for the
broader safety and security portfolio. As I noted earlier, outcome
three of the government action plan requires that people must not
only be safe, but they must feel safe. And you can have that only
when communities tell you that they feel safe.
The White Paper on Safety and Security was rather broad to
properly guide policing. Assessments suggest that it was not as suc-
cessful as it was envisaged. There are discussions about a “White
Paper on Policing,” which should focus on the most critical factors
to help us fulfill the policing mandate.
GXN: What do you see as the relationship between poverty and crime in
South Africa today?
MP: Poverty will have an impact on some crimes being committed.
Unemployment is a problem in this country, and our wish as the
police is that we must find creative ways to deal with it. The research
I referred to earlier cast a serious indictment on the state, that we
spend more money on the police and not on social workers, for
example. When you find eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds com-
mitting crime, that means we will have a problem in the future.
Transnational Policing
GXN: Globalization means that nation states must fight crime together.
What is your level of cooperation with other African countries and
those outside Africa?
MP: The quality of crime intelligence to deal with transnational crime can-
not be overemphasized. In the Western Cape, we had two entry
points: the airport and the harbour. Here, I have the country’s big-
gest, the OR Tambo International Airport, and more neighboring
countries whose borders are with other provinces. So the quality
of cooperation with the provinces of North West, Mpumalanga
and Limpopo, and the Free State first is very important. We have
a high number of economic migrants, and generally we host more
foreign nationals than any other province. That means our trans-
national cooperation system has to deal swiftly with threats and
investigative processes. We get the main support from our national
head office in this regard. All countries realize the importance of

criminal justice cooperation.
Looking Ahead
GXN: What would you like to see happening with South Africa’s crime
problem?
MP: One day I would love for us as South Africans to wake up and find
ourselves on the same page regarding the problem of crime, where
the state and the communities understand the same things. The
problem is immense, and it will never be eradicated by those of us
who are wearing a uniform. As a country, we have dealt with bigger
problems before and triumphed.
Conclusion
South Africa continues to battle against the crime problem, among many of
its social problems. At all levels of government, sound and innovative leader-
ship and management are key determinants of successful policy implemen-
tation. Among senior police leadership, Lt. Gen. Petros has been one of the
shining lights, through his innovative crime prevention efforts and a hands-
on management style. He is widely used by research and academic institu-
tions for his insights. As he shared his thoughts, his understanding of both
the historical and future significance of his work, and those of the people
he leads, came through. After the general elections of 2009, he was widely
recommended for the position of national commissioner, but was instead
appointed to the Gauteng province: the most challenging, the most popu-
lous, South Africa’s administrative capital, and Africa’s business hub. Since
taking on the position in Gauteng in September 2010, some of his major suc-
cesses include moving the province from number nine to number one in its
crime prevention performance (SAPS 2012b), arresting more than 600 offi-
cers for various crimes, and dismissing more than 270 officers in that period,
with some cases pending (Visser, 2012).
The lamentable state of police leadership and management in South
Africa has been examined by both scholars and commentators (Burger 2007;
Masiloane 2008; The Times 2012). One indicator of this state has been the
quality of appointments of the national commissioner, to the point that when
yet another opportunity arose, a plea was made for a career officer “with
unimpeachable integrity, an impressive track record in policing and good
leadership skills” (The Times, ibid.). In June 2012, a new national commis-
sioner, Riah Phiyega, has been appointed, after the dismissal of the 2009
appointee, who himself succeeded one who was serving a jail term for a
criminal conviction. All three were not career officers. Speculation is rife
that the current South African President Jacob Zuma is managing his own
unsettled problems with the law. Amidst South Africa’s social problems, the
management of crime and policing remains a key function for the country’s
socioeconomic progress.
Glossary
Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID): IPID has a statu-

tory mandate to investigate cases of misconduct and crime against
police officials. It investigates all deaths that occur in police custody
or as a result of police action. Its capacity and mandate was recently
expanded through an Act of Parliament.
National Crime Prevention Strategy (NCPS): The first safety and security
policy document by the first postapartheid government, released in
1996. Its key aim was to shift the government and society’s approach
from a reactive crime control to a proactive crime prevention ethos.
People-Oriented Sustainable Strategy (POSS): The strategy that Petros
developed and implemented as the provincial commissioner of the
Western Cape province from late August 2003 to August 2010. The
strategy was credited with 27 and 32 percent decreases in property-
related crime and contact crime, respectively, in its first five years
(SAPS 2008), better resources to police stations, and employment
equity.
South African Police Service (SAPS): Founded by the SAPS Act [68 of
1995], the SAPS is the primary national police agency in South
Africa, with about 158,000 sworn officers and 42,000 support staff. It
is responsible for 1,135 police stations throughout the country’s nine
provinces (SAPS 2012c).
Gauteng Co-Created Policing Strategy (G-COPS): On being appointed
as the provincial commissioner of the Gauteng province in
September 2010, Petros developed this strategy with other gov-
ernment agencies, communities, and civil society. It helped him
move the province from the bottom of the nine provinces to the
top spot in terms of crime prevention performance. The Gauteng
community also saw high visibility and a focus on disciplining
and dismissing rogue officers from the Gauteng SAPS.
Note
1. The Scorpions were the directorate of special operations, reporting to the
National Prosecutions Authority, and the Hawks are the directorate of priority
crime investigation, a division of the SAPS.
References
Burger, J. (2007). Strategic Perspectives on Crime and Policing in South Africa. Pretoria:
Van Schaik.
Masiloane, D. (2008). Managerial Laxity Brewing Incompetence in the South African
Police Service. South African Journal of Criminal Justice, 21, 2, 186–199.
South African Police Service. (2008). Western Cape: Comm Petros Achieves a Rare
Feat as Top Cop. Retrieved from http://www.sapsjournalonline.gov.za/dynamic/
journal_dynamic.aspx?pageid=414&jid=10236 (Accessed 15 February 2012.)
South African Police Service. (2012). Crime Report 2011/2012. Retrieved from http://
www.saps.gov.za/statistics/reports/crimestats/2012/murder.pdf (Accessed 25
February 2013.)
South African Police Service. (2012a). Profile: SAPS Gauteng. Retrieved from http://
www.saps.gov.za/_dynamicModules/internetsite/buildingBlocks/basePage4/
BP434.asp (Accessed 15 February 2012.)
South African Police Service. (2012b). Provincial Commissioner: Gauteng. Retrieved
from http://www.saps.gov.za/_dynamicModules/internetsite/OPbuildBP3.asp?
myURL = 74 (Accessed 15 February 2012.)
South African Police Service. (2012c). Profile: SAPS National. Retrieved from http://
www.saps.gov.za/_dynamicModules/internetsite/buildingBlocks/basePage4/
natMP.asp (Accessed 15 February 2012.)
Statistics South Africa. (2011). Mid-Year Population Estimates 2011. Retrieved from
http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0302/P03022011.pdf (Accessed 15
February 2012.)
The Times. (2012). Police Now Need a Chief with Integrity and Leadership Skills.
Editorial, May 28.
Visser, A. (2012). Gauteng Sick of Graft, Says Police Chief. Business Day, May 3.
Retrieved from http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=170824
(Accessed 15 June 2012.)
Lothar Bergmann,
Commissioner
[Leitender
Polizeidirektor], Home
12
Office, Inspectorate
of Constabulary,
Hamburg, Germany
INTERVIEWED BY
KAROLINE H. STARKGRAFF
Contents
Introduction 205
Career 206
Conclusion 217
Glossary 217
Notes 217
References 218
Introduction
Both the interviewee and myself are high-ranking police officers and for
almost two decades served in the same force, the Hamburg Police Force, at
the same time. Commissioner Bergmann already held senior posts when, in
1982, I joined the Hamburg Police as a recruit. Since transferring in 1997, I
have maintained a professional relationship with him.
Germany’s population is estimated at 81 million. After World War II,
Germany was divided into four zones, under American, British, French,
and Soviet occupation. Whereas the first three agreed on amalgamation, the
205
Soviet Union went its own way. Finally, on the Western territory, the Federal
Republic of Germany (FRG) was founded. The prewar federal structure was
reestablished, and thus the regional entities (Bundesländer) could constitu-
tionally inaugurate a new “parent” state. On the other hand, the German
Democratic Republic (GDR) consisted of the territory of the constituent
states (Bundesländer) under Russian postwar administration. In the 1960s,
the entities in the GDR were abolished and regions (Bezirke) formed within
a centralized state. In 1989, the breakdown of the GDR led to German reuni-
fication on 3 October 1990.
Presently, Germany consists of sixteen independent constituent state
entities (Bundesländer), each with its own constitution and freely elected
government (for details cf. Ernst, 2010). Schooling and policing are among
the main responsibilities of the regional entities. One independent police
force operates in each constituent state.1 Individual officers in general do not
transfer from one police force to another. Even chiefs of police are recruited
from within the service. However, Germany’s reunification in 1989–1990
revealed an urgent need for practical help in former Eastern communist
Germany regarding all areas of civil service, including the police. A certain
age group of police agents in the GDR, especially in high-ranking posts or in
vital departments such as homicide and antiterrorist units, more often than
not had close links to the Secret Service of the former German Democratic
Republic. They were not tolerated in a newly formed democratic police ser-
vice and had to leave. Therefore, quite a considerable amount of officers for
various reasons went “East”—some for a clearly defined period, others for
good, thus filling the facilities.
The Hamburg Police force is responsible for policing the Free and
Hanseatic City of Hamburg and its 1.8 million inhabitants. Almost 10,000
policemen and women serve the public.
This interview was conducted (in German) over several hours on 29
February 2012, in the interviewee’s office in Hamburg. We covered a wide
range of topics. The answers are not transcribed verbatim and where neces-
sary are summarized.
Career
KS: Tell us about your career, your family and upbringing, your educational
background, and your training.
LB: My father had been a police officer after World War II. Obviously, at that
time a police career was often chosen out of the necessity to survive.
Even my grandfather for a short time had police powers, but origi-
nally he had been in hospital service tending the sick. My father
being a police officer certainly influenced my decision to become a
Lothar Bergmann, Commissioner 207
police officer myself. Following in one’s father’s footsteps is not the

only decision possible (my brother became an air pilot), but cer-
tainly my childhood was influenced by my father’s job. So I joined
Hamburg Police in April 1970 when I was eighteen years old.
The career that followed can only be described as varied and
diverse. Also, quite a lot of time was spent in training and addi-
tional education. I think almost nine years out of forty-four were
spent in numerous training courses. The initial training course for
recruits lasted three years. In 1975, I went on a promotion course
for those aspiring to the rank of inspector and beyond, which was
conducted within the police but had recently begun offering a
diploma at the end of it. Actually, we were the first students at the
newly inaugurated Hamburg Police University of Applied Sciences.
Before that, police training was nonacademic and concentrated on
drill and basic instructions. Still, and in spite of several degrees I
acquired later, I regard that initial diploma in policing and civil
service as the most important educational achievement. That is
probably because it was something unparalleled and quite new at
that time.
As an inspector, I worked at a police station as head of a team on
shift duty but later became a full-time lecturer at the police train-
ing school. I got affiliated with Hamburg University at that time,
in my spare time acquiring background knowledge of criminology
and public administrative law. I was motivated by the fact that I
wanted to perform better in front of a class. After two years as an
inspector, I was asked to try for an accelerated promotion scheme.
More than 300 applicants from within the force competed for just
four or five places at the academy. I was successful. That entailed
another two years of study at the then Police Academy Münster-
Hiltrup (PFA)—an institution run jointly by all regional govern-
mental entities [Bundesländer].
When I returned to Hamburg to serve in a senior [ACPO rank]
capacity, I had no idea that I was to meet another major challenge
very quickly. I was the officer in charge when a pleasure boat, The
Martina, hired for a birthday celebration, sank in Hamburg Port,
killing nineteen people, including eleven children. The handling of
that major policing incident brought me to the notice of Hamburg
Police water division. I was eventually offered the post of head of
the water division. I stayed with them for sixteen years. Due to
the international commercial port of Hamburg, the water division
within the Hamburg Police is a major tier of policing, next to the
uniformed branch and CID [criminal investigation division].
I stayed in Hamburg throughout my career and am still work-

ing in this city. For the last twelve years I have worked for the
Inspectorate of Constabulary in Hamburg. In more than forty
years, I never transferred to another police agency in Germany.
KS: Please describe your present position and responsibilities.
LB: I am presently working at the Inspectorate of Constabulary, as head
of the Office for Public Security, which is a ministerial position
linking the police and the government. I am still a sworn police
officer, although the post may be held by a civil employee; in other
words, I still retain my rank as Leitender Polizeidirektor. I bridge
the interests of both sides: the working level and the governmen-
tal decision-making level. My daily routine covers all questions of
public security. Naturally, the police service is my first priority cli-
ent, but there are others …
KS: … such as?
LB: We hold permanent responsibility and are the relevant authority for all
questions concerning the transportation of dangerous goods; the
same holds good for port security. In addition, we are the inter-
ministerial coordination office for all antiterrorist activities. We
are also deeply involved in interministerial working groups on
juvenile delinquency. I shall stop enumerating everything. This
post combines a wide variety of topics. A major priority is to rep-
resent the regional governmental entity of Hamburg at working
groups and subcommittees of the interior minister’s regular meet-
ing, and for the federal government, to prepare documents for the
elected interior minister and act in an advisory capacity as senior
civil servant during the regular meetings just mentioned.
KS: Germany is a federal republic. Would policing be better in the hands of
the federal government even if the state as such is structured as a
centralized state?
LB: I am familiar with a number of centralized states like France and Spain
and with federal states like Germany and Canada. In my own view,
federal states are superior—as long as they don’t overstate the fed-
eral attitude—at finding suitable solutions. This will be challenged
by those who try to amass power in their own hands. In a federal
state, you cannot “rule from above” and cannot decide without
consulting others.
Democracies do not function by decree “from above.” Emperors
are no longer heads of governments. In a democracy, the sovereign
is the people. If this is understood, then in my opinion all social
life develops “bottom-up,” within the community, in the area the
size of a city council or in even smaller entities such as a suburb
or a village. Not only social life and emotional environment, but
basically interacting as a human being needs and stems from the

smallest available social entity. It is these local institutions that act
as an enhancement of democracy, beginning with parental meet-
ings at schools or the local council. I am very much of the opinion
that regional bodies should be responsible for as many issues as
possible. I feel strongly about federalism or decentralization. The
necessity to centralize powers is rare and should, in my opinion, be
restricted to those few fields where it is unavoidable. With regard
to the ability to change and to adjust to changes and challenges, it
appears to me that smaller units are at a huge advantage politically,
economically, and ecologically.
KS: I am very interested in your own personal policing philosophy. What do

you think should be the role of the police in society?
LB: I must admit that my attitude toward the police has changed since I
began work in my present supervisory capacity. Previously, I had
assumed that the role of the police was clear to most people and that
the public trusted their police service. I also assumed that among
the populace, among politicians as well as the media, widespread
consent existed as to what police functions are. However, experi-
ence has shown me that that is not the case (cf. Weite-Kamp et al.,
2003, p. 59). Having an external view on policing, I now notice that
sometimes police powers are regarded with mistrust, even with
fear. For example, a young foot patrol officer almost always meets
with positive resonance from the public. The very same officer in
riot gear, with helmet and shield, is regarded as an enemy. But it is
still the same human being!
In my present position, I try to bridge diverse understandings
and different attitudes. The police are sometimes seen as more
monolithic than they really are. Of course, the enormous powers
they possess—to arrest, to carry and use weapons, to use violence
if necessary—may be perceived as threatening. However, as an
insider I know of the diversity and manifold opinions within the
police force, the range in upbringing and education, the multiplic-
ity. Of course, a certain esprit de corps does and should exist, in a
positive sense. But sometimes police act with the best intentions,
dealing with a situation, without realizing that they are alienating
the public through disregarding different points of view.
KS: In my experience, overzealous officers sometimes tend to bend the law
to the breaking point for the “right cause,” especially if the officer
feels that the existing laws and precedents fall short of the need
to police a certain incident or to prevent more harm to society.
Should they do so, or do you recommend a different attitude?
LB: Of course, laws in a democratic society are compromises. And of course
lawmaking takes time and patience. But one dogma should be
inscribed on all police vehicles: “Though we serve everyone, we are
only accountable to the law.” Couple this sentence with Immanuel
Kant’s categorical imperative* and you’ve got everything straight.
Nothing else is needed in a democracy; mind you, I repeat and
insist, in a democracy. On no account would I want to become a
police officer in an undemocratic society. Only there and then, one
is licensed to act contrary to the law. In our Western democracies,
we are sworn in, not on the will of our chiefs or commanders or
any political leaders, but on our constitution and the laws of the
land.
Changes Experienced
KS: What do you see as the most important changes that have happened in
policing or in your career over the course of your career?
LB: The major change that I experienced personally was my transfer-
ral to the water division. As a rule, the three tiers of policing
were kept strictly apart. I had been a uniformed police officer,
and for a short while in the CID; but now I was asked to fill the
position of head of the water division. I insisted on having the
opportunity to take all the courses and sit all the exams that all
those under me were required to pass. The then interior minister
pointed out to me that I already was a qualified chief with expe-
rience in leadership. Still, I wanted to know the ropes, so I got
another year and half, and I never ever before had had so much
on my plate, I assure you. I often studied through the night. I
got the nautical and technical certificates necessary for seamen,
and thorough training in environmental law and immigration
issues. The Hamburg Police water division acts as an immigra-
tion authority in addition to policing the waterways and the
port area.
Politically, the major change was German reunification in
1989–1990, when the Berlin Wall came down. I was really, really
delighted when the wall came down. In 1962, I was ten years old,
* A categorical imperative denotes an absolute, unconditional requirement that asserts its

authority in all circumstances, both required and justified as an end in itself.
and I vividly remember the times when the inhuman internal

German border was set up.
KS: So you left the uniformed branch and went into the water division. That
was quite unusual at that time, wasn’t it?
LB: Nowadays, frequent changes between the three tiers of policing—uni-
formed and traffic police, criminal investigation, and water divi-
sion—are not unusual. Especially in higher ranks, the change more
often than not is a requirement for promotion. But, yes, you describe
the general rule which is still fiercely upheld by some union repre-
sentatives, especially of those in CID. I would like to totally reject
the idea that the three tiers mentioned are incompatible. Of course,
any officer skilled in investigating a major motor accident (in pour-
ing rain in the small hours) is well able to investigate the scene of
a burglary in broad daylight. There is some immense arrogance in
this assumed supremacy. To my understanding and experience, it
just does not exist. However, attitudes are changing and the gaps
are not so deep anymore.
KS: Would you mind commenting on any drawbacks or any lessons learned?
LB: What always amazed me and still is the cause of much uneasiness is
the amount of unprompted and impulsive violence against all our
officers on duty—violence and aggression measured out by those
who are supposed to benefit from our action. Take the drunk
and disorderly, for example. When I was head of the water divi-
sion, sometimes quite genteel businesspeople would refrain from
bodily violence (that was due to their upbringing) yet would show
an enormous potential of verbal violence when caught in an act
of environmental crime—not any minor infringement, but actual
criminal acts. It was astonishing to what extent they disregarded
the fact that they had violated the law.
It is down in the rulebook that you will never organize a proper
soccer game without a referee. Some hooligans have not learned
that yet. They also depend on violence against anyone, especially
the police. But similar to a referee, you need the police to maintain
law and order, in a kind of refereed society.
As another very stressing and demanding issue, I do recall a
number of incidents of alcohol abuse resulting in the death of offi-
cers—sometimes intoxicated officers, sometimes officers unaware
of the intoxication of their driver. In one incident, five of our offi-
cers died in a car crash. There were others. In my opinion, the
overall attitude toward abuse of any kind—drinks, drugs, nico-

tine, painkillers, you name it—has to change. Too often it is only
after someone is exposed as an abuser that everyone expresses their
abhorrence, but that is far too late. It should have been challenged
beforehand, before it got to that level.
Another problem which is more and more pressing is the
increasing gap between expectations and the means to fulfill them.
It is like scissors, widening constantly. Politicians, the media, the
public voice their expectations toward the police, and yet we see less
financial support. On the one hand, police forces everywhere expe-
rience severe cuts in public funding; on the other hand, demands
are made that officers understand all the newly enacted laws, the
newest psychological developments, the demographic challenge.
Especially the laws; sometimes one wonders at the amount of laws
and bylaws, directives and regulations, lots of them now result-
ing from an EU initiative. Show me the lawyer who understands
a newly published law at the spur of the moment. With the police,
we are asked to act correctly according to these laws, even with the
power to be detrimental to a person’s health or freedom.
Presently, the Hamburg Police force annually undertakes
800,000 to 1.1 million hours of overtime annually. Even if we
reduce that figure by those hours that result from shift duty, there
remains at the lowest estimate a bulk of 600,000 hours. And in the
1990s, Hamburg’s situation was worse. We’ve been consolidating,
but the outlook is grim due to lack of public funding. We could do
with a lot more personnel to avoid overwork and mistakes result-
ing from tiredness.
Theory and Practice
KS: In your opinion, what should be the relationship between theory and
practice?
LB: We need theory in policing, definitely, more than ever before. Presently,
theory is not embedded enough within the police service. Look
at the laws that guide our behavior and that confer our powers.
As I mentioned just now, even trained lawyers would be at a loss
if they were to explain them at the spur of the moment. Imagine
what an officer might say regarding the theory to a young recruit
who says, “On my beat we are doing this differently.” What he or
she is in effect saying is, “We are doing this disregarding the law,
not respecting the law.” That is an unacceptable attitude. To a large
extent, policing is putting the law of the land to life, putting the
law to practice. Whoever fails to understand that should choose

another profession.
Yet even if you mean well and are driven by the wish to do right,
look at the amount of overregulation that is descending on us, the
daily flood of red tape, lawmakers counteracting their efforts to
reduce bureaucracy by the amount of details and exemptions they
put into their newest effort. And bear in mind that a police officer
has more to study than just the law; there is first aid, psychology,
and lots more to serve the public well. This parliamentary overreg-
ulation (and it is an issue throughout the civil service), combined
with the attitude of “less bureaucracy,” “leaner government,” and
other popular slogans, leads to frustration. The good intentions are
perverted, and political leaders lose their trustworthiness.
I am very open-minded toward academic education in policing.
The German system has always required longer training periods
than our Anglo-American counterparts. But I would not want
to externalize police education. At present, Hamburg finances a
Police University of Applied Sciences. Eighty to ninety percent of
our academic staff is nonpolice, truly academic. That is fine. Still,
the Police University remains part of the police force, an internal
organization. It is granted academic freedom.
KS: In your present position, transnational and international relations are

very important, are they not?
LB: Hamburg has always been internationally minded. That is due to its
trade, especially overseas trade, and with its tradition as a promi-
nent member of the Hanseatic League from the twelfth to the sev-
enteenth century. We have close police cooperation with all our
neighboring states. Hamburg Port is a Schengen border.2 We have
also negotiated a lot of bilateral agreements. In effect, the coopera-
tion within Europe now is similar to that between Germany’s con-
stituent states [Bundesländer] when I was young. Nobody could
have imagined then that today we would employ our police offi-
cers in Salzburg [Austria], or Geneva or Bern [Switzerland], acting
under Austrian or Swiss command. Vice versa, we have welcomed
officers from almost all European nations in Hamburg, acting in
uniform under our command. That was unheard of and undreamt
of only a couple of years ago. We have seen an enormous develop-
ment here, which is very positive.
Of course, the most important office for us in a constituent state

like Hamburg is the federal criminal office [Bundeskriminalamt
BKA], which acts as a service unit for almost all international
inquiries e.g. with EUROPOL and INTERPOL and the like
EUROPOL, now within the three tier EU system, which was first
headed by the well-known German, Storbeck. The German contin-
gent at EUROPOL experience daily the benefits of good and peace-
ful international cooperation.
However, one must bear in mind that as Europeans we are not
acting according to the same laws or legal traditions. And we will
not harmonize our legal systems; I do not see that in the near
future. In consequence, we will have to rely on international coop-
eration. In my opinion, EUROPOL, for example, should not lead an
operation as an organization of seniority. EUROPOL is supposed
to aid, to facilitate, to smooth matters so that the national authori-
ties can act internationally. And that system works. Additionally,
the Swedish initiative facilitates easy access to information abroad.
That information and data may bear certain restrictions in court,
as it is informally negotiated, but it helps.
Water division work has always been international. We are
members of UN committees on port security, immigration con-
trol, and so on.
I have never experienced any prejudices or difficulties with for-
eign colleagues when working abroad. The French, the Dutch, all
were very helpful and spoke German themselves when my basic
knowledge of English or French was insufficient. I speak a regional
northern German language [Niederdeutsch] quite well, which
enables me to understand a lot of Dutch. I remember once, on a visit
to the Netherlands, I came across a gaggle of youngsters at the sta-
tion, and they had quite astonishing anti-German attitudes. They
did not realize that I understood them quite well. Xenophobia is not
especially German. However, as I said before, with our colleagues I
never ever had anything to complain of. In the Netherlands, in the
UK, in France, the hospitality shown was overwhelming.
I would wish for international open-mindedness at least from
the rank of chief inspector upward, reading, for example, an
English popular newspaper or an international paper. Nowadays,
anyone in investigations or planning operations is likely to encoun-
ter international aspects in his or her work.
KS: I know that our Dutch colleagues are hard at work to include all groups
of society in policing. They undertake enormous efforts to recruit
young officers from minority backgrounds. What is your attitude
toward diversity in police personnel?
LB: You’re addressing a topic which is under intense discussion. Obviously,

any quota in recruiting ethnic or other minorities is not solely
a policing matter. It is a problem for all civil service vacancies. I
believe that migrant status should not be the principal or only con-
sideration in the recruiting process. It can only be a secondary con-
sideration. Firstly, as a public employer, I will have to lay down the
requirements of the job. Secondly, someone has to find applicants
who are suitably qualified for this job.
KS: But that still allows for minority groups to be excluded by the terms of
the job description.
LB: Yes, certainly, I do want to select. I do want to exclude from the police
those with right-wing extremist ideas, and those who do not accept
democratic structures, and those who do not accept a secular state.
An Islamic fundamentalist, disregarding the rights of women, dis-
regarding the neutrality of the state toward any kind of religious
belief, is not to be tolerated in any civil service function, not as a
firefighter nor as a police officer. And if this is called discrimina-
tion, yes, I am certainly discriminating. In a democracy, freedom
of speech and freedom of belief are elementary. As a society, we are
tolerating almost everything, however farfetched it might appear
to us; but not everything is acceptable in a government agent, nor
as a police officer.
To return to our starting point: bearing the above in mind, we
do recruit quite a number of immigrants and we are not short
in applicants. Actually, those recruits are not visible anymore. A
young Polish officer blends in; he or she does not feature in the
immigration discussion …
KS: … because he or she is an EU subject or because their background does
not show in their features?
LB: Both. Both are true. The Polish person just blends in—in upbringing, in
values, in outward appearance. Over the past, we have recruited a
large variety of individuals with an immigrant background. But
that is not at the back of the present discussion. What our critics
really say is: Why don’t you recruit people who are almost illiter-
ate, who came to Germany as poor refugees, with no intellectual
background, where the whole family does not own one single book
and no one ever reads, and definitely these people should acquire
A-levels and go to university and be granted tenure immediately,
all of them. This is preposterous. The barriers toward a police job
or any job in civic service are knowledge barriers. They apply to
Germans and foreigners alike. All refugees in Germany are very
welcome here. I am very glad that we are in a position to offer a safe
haven. And the industrious and intelligent student, tackling the
language barrier, is more than welcome to join the police or any

other career of their liking and ability. But a minimum standard
must be upheld.
KS: How is the overall outlook on recruiting?
LB: Well, we are not as attractive as we used to be. If you waver in your
career decision between becoming an accountant at a local bank
or becoming a police officer, there is a lot to be said for choosing
accountancy. No Saturday nights and Sunday duties, no blood,
no drunken riots, hardly any contact with hardened criminals.
You bear a slight risk of being victimized in a bank robbery, but
compared to the demands of policing, that is nothing. And you
earn more money. Policing should not make you rich, but par-
liaments should bear in mind that police officers risk their lives
daily and are poorly remunerated. The big German cities, like
Hamburg and Berlin, are still attractive. But I see problems on
the horizon.
Democratic Policing
KS: Can I ask you a question about German history? In your opinion, what
made the German police tolerate the rise of the Nazis and the
atrocities before and during World War II?
LB: I was born in 1952, so I can only answer from my understanding
of Germany’s recent history. First of all, a German police force
never existed and still does not exist today. Prior to World War
II, the Prussian Police, the Bavarian Police, Hamburg Police,
and all the others were responsible on their respective territo-
ries. The many small kingdoms and entities in Germany were
indeed a burden to the Weimar Republic [1918–1933]. Many
police forces acted against rising Nazi tendencies, often effec-
tively. Let me only mention the attempted Munich overthrow
and its failure in 1923.
Later, most of the high official posts were filled with Hitler’s fol-
lowers; democratic police officers were sacked in large numbers.
Police structures were changed so that the chain of command
began with the SS chief Heinrich Himmler and his office. The sev-
eral police forces were centralized, becoming part of “The Reich.”
In effect, a democratic police had ceased to exist and a “German
Police,” which only existed during these years of the so-called
Third Reich, took its place. Police suffered the role that every police
force in undemocratic societies suffers: mainly, being made instru-
mental for the benefit of the dictator.
KS: So, by way of a conclusion, would you like to give a brief definition of
your understanding of democratic policing?
LB: Democratic policing is about being answerable in law. Within a democ-
racy, each individual officer faces criminal proceedings whenever
they violate human rights. And quite rightly so. There’s no excuse
to misuse one’s powers—never.
Conclusion
Again and again, the interview revealed the interviewee’s sound ethical
understanding—that the law has to be adhered to, that officers who disregard
the law should leave the police and seek employment elsewhere, that the high
responsibility, which is the most important feature of policing, must result
in painstaking recruitment and high academic education of each member of
the police. He also stressed the importance of parliament enacting an unam-
biguous legal framework within which the police, and indeed all civil service
employees, may work.
Glossary
Bundesländer/Länder: Sixteen states within the Federal Republic of

Germany. Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg are cities as well as states.
Bezirke: Regions in the centrally organized German Democratic Republic
until 1990.
DHPol—Deutsche Hochschule der Polizei: The German Police University
in Münster is an internal university funded by the ministries and
senators of the interior of federal, state, and the Länder. It provides
further training of senior police officers.
PFA—Polizei-Führungsakademie: Forerunner to DHPol until 2008/2009.
Police University of Applied Sciences (Fachhochschule): Independent
internal institutions in most Länder offering three-year studies
courses and (since Bologna reform) awarding a bachelor’s degree in
policing/police administration.
Notes
1. Official homepage with links to all regional and federal police services. Retrieved
from http://www.polizei.de (accessed 12 July 2012).
2. lex.europa.eu/lexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?ur=CELEX:42000A0922%2802%2
9:EU:NOT (accessed 24 July 2013.)
References
Ernst, C. (2010). The German Länder and Their Participation on the European Level.
Bucerius Law Journal, 2, 59–65.
Weitekamp, E.G.M., et al. (2003). Problem Solving Policing: Views of Citizens
and Citizens Expectations in Germany. Social Work and Society, 1. Retrieved
from http://www.socwork.net/sws/article/view/253/428
Conclusion
What makes this book so fascinating and helpful, in our opinion, is that the
twelve leaders interviewed have not only described trends in policing over
their careers but, in many cases, they have made them happen. These are
the leaders who have had to grapple with improving the gender balance
within organizations; implementing ethical standards, new technology, and
different concepts of building bridges with the community; and establish-
ing links with agencies not traditionally associated with policing. They have
fought for better educated, more aware, and more fully accountable police
services. It is encouraging to read that they do not feel their efforts have been
in vain. They have seen not just change, but genuine improvement. Naturally
the context is shaped where the most significant change has taken place. In
Africa, the good news is that there is an increasing awareness by police offi-
cers of fundamental human rights and the need for protection of vulnerable
groups such as women, children, and refugees. In North America, it is not
just a story of increasing use of technology, but of enhanced accountability
for crime conditions in their areas of responsibility. For Eastern European
countries in transition, the trend has been one of higher and more effective
education for police leaders, which has led to greater contributions of the
organization to public service. In Western Europe, there is evidence of the
police becoming more sensitive to their role and a marked improvement in
the quality of policing. But wherever they are located, the leaders foresee an
inexorable trend toward increased collaboration between forces on a regional
basis and a trend toward greater police oversight and transparency. In other
words, despite the regular news bulletins that bring negative stories about
the police, there have in fact been substantial changes for good taking place
within police services across the globe.
In this volume the interviewees have reflected over the last two or three
decades of policing. How shall we summarize the qualities that stand out as
contributing to their success and accomplishments? It would be hard to miss
the old-fashioned value of hard work. None of these leaders got to where they
are or accomplished in post what they did by taking it easy. In fact, one sus-
pects that their successes were built on very long and antisocial hours with
some cost to their families and, maybe, to their lifespans. So is hard work a
virtue or a vice? One of the leaders notes in this volume that young police
officers see work differently from the prevailing attitude of his lifetime. He
219
220 Conclusion
finds them far less inclined to engage in a punishing work life of 70 hours a
week at the expense of their health and families. As a result, they live longer
and have a better overall quality of life. That suggests that hard work, though
vital, has to be qualified by common sense and the virtue of delegation, time
management, and team leadership.
Second, one notices the desire for learning. This may entail periods of
academic study, but learning is not something that only takes place in col-
leges and when one has a book in front of oneself. These leaders have been
committed to lifelong learning through experience—sometimes unpleasant
experience. Fifty-eight times in this volume they talk about “learning”—
learning from theory, learning from other agencies, learning from practitio-
ners, learning from different cultures, and learning from mistakes as well as
learning in the classroom. One leader admits that it is thirteen years since he
was last in a course but, nevertheless, he still has his own learning plan. For
him at least, having a learning plan is a key element of leadership. Far from
leaders as those who know a lot, it transpires that leaders are those who know
how much they have yet to learn.
Third, those who stand out are those who know more than just how to
manage; they know how to lead. Of course leadership involves management,
but it is clear that those interviewed are more than managers. Those recorded
in these interviews have sought to motivate, persuade, and shape their own
organizational culture. They have known how to pick up the morale of their
officers when their forces have been battered by scandal. But police leader-
ship for them extends beyond their own organizations. Those in this volume
have known how to reach out to those they are policing in all their diver-
sity, to convince them of their concern, and to win their support. As one of
them observes, a police leader can never take a community for granted nor
simply assume that a previous poll showing high levels of support from the
public will simply be repeated. Leadership knows that public support must
be earned constantly. That means never ceasing to build relations with the
poorest and most marginalized, and wherever that support is weakest.
Fourth, the best leaders evidently have public relations skills. This is not
a virtue that will appeal to all professionals. Many would rather stick to the
role of providing policing services and no more. However, in a world where
the traditional and social media are quick to criticize (and offer photographic
evidence) and where the public, bombarded by bad stories, become cynical
or even hostile, there is a need for leaders to stand up to give an account.
That account may be one of setting the record straight or an admission of
failure and clear evidence of what is being put in place to ensure that it is very
unlikely to happen again. In both cases it takes a leader who is courageous,
humble, clear, and personable to win the support that is so necessary for a
police service to function effectively. Talk of transparency and accountability
is easy until the big mistake happens, and then it is seen whether the instinct
Conclusion 221
is to deny and cover up, to blame-shift, or to take the rap. This is not about
waiting until months later when the courts have proven there was a failure
of policing; this is about being a leader of all those policed as well as those
who police.
We are sure that many other virtues stood out as you read these inter-
views. But whatever the length of our list, the point surely is not to write
them down, but to imitate them. To those who took the time to tell us their
insights we owe more than applause—we owe them a debt that can only be
paid by imitation.
International
Police Executive
Symposium (IPES)
www.ipes.info
nternational Police
I
xe iu m
E
cutiv p o s
e Sym
The International Police Executive Symposium was founded in 1994. The

aims and objectives of the IPES are to provide a forum to foster closer rela-
tionships among police researchers and practitioners globally; to facilitate
cross-cultural, international, and interdisciplinary exchanges for the enrich-
ment of the law enforcement profession; and to encourage discussion and
published research on challenging and contemporary topics related to the
profession.
One of the most important activities of the IPES is the organization of
an annual meeting under the auspices of a police agency or an educational
institution. Every year since 1994, annual meetings have been hosted by
such agencies and institutions all over the world. Past hosts have included
the Canton Police of Geneva, Switzerland; the International Institute of the
Sociology of Law, Onati, Spain; Kanagawa University, Yokohama, Japan;
the Federal Police, Vienna, Austria; the Dutch Police and Europol, The
Hague, The Netherlands; the Andhra Pradesh Police, India; the Center for
Public Safety, Northwestern University, the United States; the Polish Police
Academy, Szczytno, Poland; the Police of Turkey (twice); the Kingdom of
Bahrain Police; a group of institutions in Canada (consisting of the University
of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford Police Department, Royal Canadian
Mounted Police, the Vancouver Police Department, the Justice Institute of
223
224 International Police Executive Symposium (IPES)
British Columbia, Canadian Police College, and the International Center

for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy); the Czech Police
Academy, Prague; the Dubai Police; the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police
and the Cincinnati Police Department, Ohio, the United States; the Republic
of Macedonia; and the Police of Malta. The 2011 Annual Meeting on the
theme of “Policing Violence, Crime, Disorder, and Discontent: International
Perspectives” was hosted in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from June 26–30, 2011.
The 2012 annual meeting was hosted at United Nations in New York on the
theme of “Economic Development, Armed Violence, and Public Safety”
from August 5–10. The 2013 annual meeting on the theme of “Global Issues
in Contemporary Policing” was hosted by the Ministry of the Interior of
Hungary and the Hungarian National Police from August 4–9, 2013.
There have also been occasional special meetings of IPES. A special meet-
ing was co-hosted by the Bavarian Police Academy of Continuing Education
in Ainring, Germany, University of Passau, Germany, and State University
of New York, Plattsburgh, United States, in 2000. The second special meeting
was hosted by the police in the Indian state of Kerala. The third special meet-
ing, on the theme of “Contemporary Issues in Public Safety and Security,”
was hosted by the Commissioner of Police of the Blekinge Region of Sweden
and the President of the University of Technology from August 10–14, 2011.
The majority of participants in the annual meetings are usually directly
involved in the police profession. In addition, scholars and researchers in
the field also participate. The meetings comprise both structured and infor-
mal sessions to maximize dialogue and exchange of views and information.
The executive summary of each meeting is distributed to participants as well
as to a wide range of other interested police professionals and scholars. In
addition, a book of selected papers from each annual meeting is published
through CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Group, Prentice Hall, Lexington Books,
and other reputed publishers. A special issue of Police Practice and Research:
An International Journal is also published with the most thematically rel-
evant papers after the usual blind review process.
IPES Institutional Supporters
APCOF, The African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum, 2nd floor, The
Armoury, Buchanan Square, 160 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock, Cape
Town, 8000 South Africa (contact: Sean Tait). Tel: 27 21 461 7211;
Fax: 27 21 461 7213. Email: sean@apcof.org.za
Australian Institute of Police Management, Collins Beach Road, Manly,

NSW 2095, Australia (contact: Connie Coniglio). Tel: +61 2 9934
4800; Fax: +61 2 9934 4780. Email: cconiglio@aipm.gov.au
Baker College of Jackson, 2800 Springport Road, Jackson, MI 49202,

USA (contact: Blaine Goodrich). Tel: (517) 841-4522. Email: blaine.
goodrich@baker.edu
Cyber Defense & Research Initiatives, LLC, PO Box 86, Leslie, MI

49251, USA (contact: James Lewis). Tel: (517) 242-6730. Email: lew-
isja@cyberdefenseresearch.com
College of Health and Human Services (Mark E. Correia, PhD, dean),

Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 216 Zink Hall, Room 105, 1190
Maple Street, Indiana, PA 15705-1059. Tel: (724) 357 2555. Email:
mcorreia@iup.edu.
Defendology Center for Security, Sociology, and Criminology Research

(Valibor Lalic), Srpska Street, 63, 78000 Banja Luka, Bosnia and
Herzegovina. Tel and Fax: 387 51 308 914. Email: lalicv@teol.net
De Montfort University, Health and Life Sciences, School of Applied

Social Sciences (Dr. Perry Stanislas, Hirsh Sethi), Hawthorn
Building, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH, UK. Tel: +44 (0) 116 257
7146. Email: pstanislas@dmu.ac.uk, hsethi@dmu.ac.uk
Department of Criminal Justice (Dr. Harvey L. McMurray, chair),

North Carolina Central University, 301 Whiting Criminal Justice
Bldg., Durham, NC 27707, USA. Tel: (919) 530-5204, (919) 530-7909;
Fax: (919) 530-5195. Email: hmcmurray@nccu.edu.
Department of Psychology (Stephen Perrott), Mount Saint Vincent

University, 166 Bedford Highway, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Email: stephen.perrott@mvsu.ca
The Faculty of Criminal Justice and Security (Dr. Gorazd Mesko),

University of Maribor, Kotnikova 8, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia. Tel:
386 1 300 83 39; Fax: 386 1 2302 687. Email: gorazd.mesko@fvv.uni-
mb.si
Fayetteville State University (Dr. David E. Barlow, professor and dean),

College of Basic and Applied Sciences, 130 Chick Building, 1200
Murchison Road, Fayetteville, North Carolina, 28301 USA. Tel: (910)
672-1659; Fax: (910) 672-1083. Email: dbarlow@uncfsu.edu
International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) (Andre

Souza, senior researcher), Visconde de Piraja 577/605, Ipanema,
226 International Police Executive Symposium (IPES)
Rio de Janeiro 22410–003, Brazil. Tel: (+55) 21 3186 5444. Email:

asouza@icosgroup.net
Kerala Police (Shri Balasubramaniyum, director general of police),

Police Headquarters, Trivandrum, Kerala, India. Email: manojabra-
ham05@gmail.com
Law School, John Moores University (David Lowe, LLB program

leader), Law School, Redmonds Building, Brownlow Hill, Liverpool,
L3 5UG, UK. Tel: +44 (0) 151 231 3918. Email: D.Lowe@ljmu.ac.uk
Molloy College, The Department of Criminal Justice, 1000 Hempstead

Avenue, PO Box 5002, Rockville Center, New York, USA 11571-5002.
(contact: Dr. John A. Eterno, NYPD captain—retired). Tel: (516) 678
5000, Ext. 6135; Fax: (516) 256 2289. Email: mailto:jeterno@molloy.
edu
National Institute of Criminology and Forensic Science (Mr.

Kamalendra Prasad, inspector general of police), MHA, Outer Ring
Road, Sector 3, Rohini, Delhi 110085, India. Tel: 91 11 275 2 5095;
Fax: 91 11 275 1 0586. Email: director.nicfs@nic.in
National Police Academy, Japan (Naoya Oyaizu, deputy director),

Police Policy Research Center, Zip 183-8558: 3-12-1 Asahi-cho
Fuchu-city, Tokyo, Japan. Tel: 81 42 354 3550; Fax: 81 42 330 3550.
Email: PPRC@npa.go.jp
Edmundo Oliveira, professor and PhD, 1 Irving Place, University

Tower, Apt. U 7 A 10003.9723 Manhattan, New York, New York,
USA. Tel: (407) 342-2473. Email: edmundooliveira@cfl.rr.com.
Cliff Roberson, Professor Emeritus, Washburn University, 16307

Sedona Woods, Houston, TX 77082-1665, USA. Tel: +1 (713) 703-
6639; Fax: +1 (281) 596-8483. Email: roberson37@msn.com
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (Craig J. Callens), 657 West 37th

Avenue, Vancouver, BC V5Z 1K6, Canada. Tel: (604) 264-2003; Fax:
(604) 264-3547. Email: bcrcmp@rcmp-grc.gc.ca
School of Psychology and Social Science, Head, Social Justice Research

Centre (Prof. S. Caroline Taylor, foundation chair in social justice),
Edith Cowan University, 270 Joondalup Drive, Joondalup, WA 6027,
Australia. Email: c.taylor@ecu.edu.au
South Australia Police (Commissioner Mal Hyde), Office of the

Commissioner, South Australia Police, 30 Flinders Street, Adelaide,
SA 5000, Australia. Email: mal.hyde@police.sa.gov.au
Southeast Missouri State University (Dr. Diana Bruns, chair), Criminal

Justice & Sociology, One University Plaza, Cape Girardeau, MO
63701, USA. Tel: (573) 651-2178. Email: dbruns@semo.edu
UNISA, Department of Police Practice (Setlhomamaru Dintwe), Florida

Campus, Cnr Christiaan De Wet and Pioneer Avenues, Private Bag
X6, Florida, 1710 South Africa. Tel: 011 471 2116; Cell: 083 581 6102;
Fax: 011 471 2255. Email: Dintwsi@unisa.ac.za
University of the Fraser Valley (Dr. Irwin Cohen), Department of

Criminology & Criminal Justice, 33844 King Road, Abbotsford,
British Columbia V2 S7 M9, Canada. Tel: (604) 853-7441; Fax: (604)
853-9990. Email: Darryl.plecas@ufv.ca
University of Maine at Augusta, College of Natural and Social Sciences

(Richard Myers, professor), 46 University Drive, Augusta, ME 04330-
9410, USA. Email: rmyers@maine.edu
University of New Haven (Dr. Mario Gaboury, School of Criminal

Justice and Forensic Science), 300 Boston Post Road, West Haven,
CT 06516, USA. Tel: (203) 932-7260. Email: rward@newhaven.edu
University of South Africa, College of Law (Professor Kris Pillay, School

of Criminal Justice, Director), Preller Street, Muckleneuk, Pretoria.
Email: cpillay@unisa.ac.za
University of West Georgia (David A. Jenks, PhD), 1601 Maple Street,

Carrollton, GA 30118, Pafford Building 2309. Tel: (678) 839-6327.
Email: djenks@westga.edu
Suggested Guidelines
for Interviewers
General Remarks
The general goal of the interviews is to present the views and interpretations
of policing developments and current issues by experienced practitioners.
What do they see happening in policing in their countries and internation-
ally, and how do they evaluate or interpret developments? We have many
analyses and interpretations of policing by scholars and policymakers from
outside police organizations. What we would like to have are views and inter-
pretations from within the organizations. What do police leaders who do the
work see happening in policing? What are the issues they consider impor-
tant? What changes do they see as successes or failures? What are likely last-
ing futures or passing fads? What we are also seeking is to build personal
profiles of the judges interviewed: their careers, backgrounds, the influences
that shaped their personalities, their successes, failures, joys, temptations,
and frustrations in their career and in their job.
The basic goal of the interviews is to capture the views of police officials.
Your role should not be to be too critical or to interpret what the officials
meant to say, but to write as accurately as possible what the officials have told
you. It is their views, based on their experience and thinking, that we are
interested in. We know what scholars think about policing, but we know less
about what the people who do policing think and how they evaluate trends,
developments, and issues in policing. That is the important goal.
The basic reason for doing these interviews in the first place is our firm
belief that police officials know a lot and that practitioners can make signifi-
cant contributions to our understanding of the prospects and problems of
policing today. It is that knowledge and their judgments of policing that we
are after. But that knowledge is not easily captured.
The practical reason for the interviews is that police leaders do not have
the time to write and reflect on their experiences, views, opinions, and per-
spectives. We think interviews are one means to capture that knowledge and
that is why we are requesting researchers like you to record their views.
We want to reemphasize one major point: We do not want the official
rhetoric (or the official success stories) that high-level people sometimes fall
back on during interviews; we want their personal views and thinking. If you
229
230 Suggested Guidelines for Interviewers
have the sense that you are getting the formal language and official views of
policing and reforms, see if you can get the officials to go beyond that and
push them for their own views. The interviewer should seek to get the per-
son interviewed to move beyond simple answers, to get them to analyze and
reflect on their experiences and knowledge. That takes skill on the part of the
interviewer—but that is why you were asked to do an interview.
Topic Areas Which Should Be Covered
These are the basic areas we would like to cover. In some cases there may be
other areas of importance in “your” country or community and you should
ask about those areas as well.
For example, questions of police leaders in transitional countries will
likely deal more with changes in policing philosophies and organizations
than questions for leaders in stable democracies. We know, when asking you
to conduct an interview, that you are quite familiar with the policing situa-
tions in “your” country and that you will tailor your questions toward the
dominant local issues which have had to be dealt with by the leaders. Be
creative, but not overly so.
We have listed a number of topics that should be covered in the
interview. Please try to cover the topics mentioned below as the conduct
and f low of the interview dictates. And add, elaborate, and follow up as
you see fit and necessary to clarify points, expand on ideas, or pursue an
insight offered.
All the topical areas should be asked, but the specific questions listed
below for each topic area are suggestions. Interviews have their own dynam-
ics. Follow them down their most fruitful avenues. Since each of you will be
interviewing officials within different organizations, the list and sequence of
questions will have to be adjusted in any case.
The wording of questions is, of course, your own. In follow-up questions,
try to get specific examples or details of generalizations made. (Examples are
probably among the most useful pieces of information to readers.)
Career
Tell us a little bit about your career: length, organizations worked in,
movements, specializations, etc. What motivated you to enter/stay in
police work?
Changes Experienced
What do you see as the most important changes which have happened
within your organization over the course of your career, e.g., in police phi-
losophies, police priorities, management, gender, diversity, training, spe-
cializations, equipment, organizational culture, human rights compliance,
legal powers?
Have current economic conditions resulted in budget cuts, and if so, how
has this impacted the organization?
In regards to external relationships, what changes have you observed,
e.g., in police relationships with the public, interagency cooperation, person-
nel within the criminal justice system, relations with minority communities,
political influence, human rights activists?

What do you think is/should be the role and functions of the police? What
should be dropped or left to other public and nonstate organizations? What
should be done about unpoliced areas?
What facilitates/hinders good relations with the community, with gov-
ernment, with other criminal justice organizations, with nonstate secu-
rity providers such as community groups, customary, and commercial
enterprises?
What should be the priorities of your police service?
Problems and Successes Experienced

What areas have you seen develop during your time, and how has this been
achieved? What obstacles have stood in the way of progress?
In your experience, what policies or programs have worked well and
which have not? Why?
What would you consider to be the greatest problem facing the police at
this time? Are there corruption or lack of resources issues?
How can corruption and human rights abuses be tackled in the
service?
Theory and Practice

Would you say theory has played a part in your practice and that of your
organization?
What kind of research, in what form, on what issues do you find most
useful for practice? Does your organization do research on its own?
232 Suggested Guidelines for Interviewers
How have you and the work of your organization been affected by develop-
ments outside the country (human rights demands, universal codes of eth-
ics, practical interactions with police from other countries, travel outside the
country, new crime threats, “the war on terror,” etc.)?
How transferable do you regard your skills to police services in countries
of different development levels, and what value is there in advisers and senior
officers coming to your service from abroad?
Democratic Policing
What do you see as the key elements of democratic policing?
Does maintaining law and order mean that policing is involved in main-
taining the existing social order and power structures, or can it allow seri-
ous protests against the government and laws and powerful elites? Can the
police resist demands from the government to crack down on opposition and
protest?’
What levels of public support does the police service have?
Looking Ahead
What are the most likely developments you see happening? What would you
like to see happening?
What to Do Before and After the Interview
Before the Interview

Get a sense of how much time you are likely to have and what questions you
can get to during that time. In no interview will you be able to ask all the
questions you want. When you write up the interview, you will have space
for about 6,000 to 8,000 words (on the average). Choose your priorities. The
top priorities for us are the reflections by the officials interviewed on changes
experienced during their careers, how they evaluate those changes, and the
interrelations of theory and practice. We also want insights to the person of
the leader interviewed. These are high priorities for the interviews.
After the Interview

Please write a short introduction to the interview. The introduction should
• Briefly describe the basic structure of policing in your country. You

have to be the judge of how much an informed reader is likely to
know about the country and how much should be explained.
• Describe, briefly, the interview itself. Where and when it was con-
ducted; how long it took, or multiple sittings; how honest and open
you feel the discussion was.
You should, if at all possible, tape record the interview. For publication,
edit the interview to bring out the most important discussion and answers.
Chances are you will have much more information than we will have space
for your interview in the proposed book.
Write a short conclusion on your impression of the interview. What
the major themes were, how well the views expressed accord with the
known literature, but do not be overly critical on this point, please.
Again, brief ly.
Write a glossary of terms or events mentioned in the interview a reader
might not be familiar with. For example, if interviewing a German official
and Bundeskriminalamt is mentioned, describe very briefly what that is; or
if in an interview with a South African official and SAARPCO is mentioned,
describe that. Just select the most likely items non-experienced readers might
not know.
We have had two basic styles in writing up interviews. Both are accept-
able, but we prefer the second style.
• One style is to simply transcribe the interviews—questions asked,

answers given.
• The second style, which requires more work, is to write short state-
ments about the topic of a question and then insert long excerpts
from the interviews. The main point is to have the voice and views of
the leaders being interviewed, not your own.
Send the completed interviews to Bruce Baker and Dilip Das at

bruce@bakerbrum.co.uk and Dilipkd@aol.com. The total interview,
with introduction, conclusion, and glossary should be about 6,000 to
8,000 words.
Finally, each interview will be a chapter which should be useable to teach
students in a university class or as a book. It should be a source of knowledge
and information to readers interested in policing, including police practi-
tioners, policy makers, police trainers, police researchers, and academics in
universities, as well as teachers and trainees in police academies.
FORENSICS AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE
VOLUME FOUR
TRENDS IN POLICING
Interviews with Police Leaders Across the Globe
Trends in Policing: Interviews with Police Leaders Across the Globe,

Volume Four is the latest installment in a series of insightful interviews with
senior police executives worldwide. The book offers readers an unparalleled
insider’s perspective on police goals, practices, and management in nationwide,
regional, and city environments. Conducted by a team of academic and practitioner
experts following the same schema of topics, the interviews explore the executives’
backgrounds, education, and careers and provide insight on a number of topics
relevant to their work, including
• Conception of the police mission and police role

• Views on strategy and tactics
• Experience with democratic policing
• Major changes in policies and procedures
• The relationship between police theory and practice
• The impact of globalization
The interview participants are drawn from four continents and from a broad variety
of policing contexts—from metropolitan to largely rural areas, developed and
developing countries, from emerging democracies to stable democracies. They are
diverse in age, ethnicity, education, background, and career trajectories.
This volume constitutes a resource of immense value to academic analysts of

policing philosophies and leadership, as well as to policymakers and practitioners
who wish to have a sense of where the leaders in their field have come from and
where they are going. The book and its predecessors are a major contribution to the
study and practice of policing around the world.
International Police
Executive Symposium Co-Publication K13795
6000 Broken Sound Parkway, NW

Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL 33487
711 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10017
an informa business
2 Park Square, Milton Park
w w w. c r c p r e s s . c o m Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN, UK w w w. c rc p r e s s . c o m

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VOLUME FOUR

International Police Executive Symposium Co-Publication

International Police Executive Symposium Co-Publications

Dilip K. Das, Founding President-IPES

International Police Executive Symposium

Boca Raton London New York

CRC Press is an imprint of the

No claim to original U.S. Government works

International Standard Book Number-13: 978-1-4398-8074-6 (eBook - PDF)

Series Editor Preface ix

1 Carlos Mauricio Escobar, Special Prosecutor,

2 Sir Norman Bettison, Chief Constable, West

3 Brigadier General Dr. József Boda, Director

4 Charles H. Ramsey, Commissioner of the

5 Stephen Williams, Deputy Commissioner of

6 Vernon White, Chief Constable, Ottawa Police

7 Ogbonnaya Onovo, Inspector General of Police,

8 Todd Wuestewald, Chief, Broken Arrow Police

9 John Rizzo, Malta Police Commissioner 145

10 Tapio Huttunen, Chief of the Varsinais-Suomi

11 Lieutenant General Mzwandile Petros, Provincial

12 Lothar Bergmann, Commissioner [Leitender

International Police Executive Symposium (IPES) 223

Suggested Guidelines for Interviewers 229

The International Police Executive Symposium (IPES), in collaboration with

of cultures, political environments, and economic systems. Representatives

Dilip K. Das, PhD

Series Editor, Advances in Police Theory and Practice

Series Editor, PPR Special Issues as Books

Founding Editor-in-Chief, Police Practice and Research:

Interviews are a problematic guide to practice, but well-conducted

Bruce F. Baker is professor of African security at Coventry University in

Dilip K. Das is the founding president of the International Police Executive

Amos Oyesoji Aremu is an associate professor of counseling and correctional

Christopher Chapman, director of the Criminal Justice Degree Program and

Curt T. Griffiths is a professor and coordinator of the Police Studies

Christine Guzman graduated college with a major in government and world

Richard Heslop is a sergeant in the West Yorkshire Police, England, where

Terhi Kankaanranta holds a PhD (health sciences), an MSc (economics),

Anthony LaRose is a 2004 Fulbright Scholar and an associate professor at

Monique Marks is professor of sociology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal,

Mary Muscat is a lecturer in crime prevention, police, and correctional law

Gusha X. Ngantweni is a senior lecturer in the Department of Police Practice

José J. Rincón is a native of Bogotá, Colombia, and moved to the United

Karoline H. Starkgraff holds a first-class honors degree in law and suc-

Matti Vuorensyrjä is a senior planning officer at the Police College of

and articles on performance management, performance appraisal process,

Wendell C. Wallace is a doctoral candidate researching a concurrent analy-

Lothar Bergmann is currently commissioner at the Inspectorate of

Sir Norman Bettison is the former chief constable of Merseyside, United

József Boda is the director-general of the Special Service for National

Carlos Mauricio Escobar studied law and, after graduating, specialized

Tapio Huttunen is chief of police of Turku, Finland. Following his studies at

Ogbonnaya Onovo is the former inspector general of police in Nigeria. He

Mzwandile Petros, lieutenant general of the South African Police Service

Charles H. Ramsey is the commissioner of the fourth-largest police depart-

John Rizzo is the Malta police commissioner, heading a force of 1,800 in a

Stephen Williams is the current (acting) police commissioner of the Trinidad