Policing Post-Communist Societies: Police-public violence, Democratic policing and Human Rights, N. Uildriks & P. van Reenen

English
Published by: Intersentia, Antwerpen
2003, 249 pages

‘Policing post-communist societies’ analyses the present state of policing in different post-communist societies. The data presented in this book are collected by the authors in two studies, one in the city of Perm, in Russia, and the other in the Baltic state Lithuania. Some 450 police officers, both traffic police and officers in patrol service, participated in the studies. They first participated in group interviews (39 altogether) after which they were asked to fill in questionnaires. Where appropriate the data are complemented by data from Bulgaria, Poland and Romania, collected in studies by the Organization Mondiale Contre la Torture (OMCT).

The book starts with a short but very interesting and adequate historical overview where the role of the police in the Soviet era is described, and from there how ‘transition’ affects policing and in what directions police development can take place. The authors define four; crisis policing, authoritarian policing, democratic policing and human-rights oriented policing. These four options for how to conduct policing form one of the backbones of the book.

After this general introduction the book addresses the issue of reform and policing in post-communist societies in general, with a focus on Perm and Lithuania. Criminal justice reforms in both countries are elaborated upon, as are the present obstacles. The main obstacles are twofold; lack of public trust and police legitimacy on the one hand and organizational issues on the other.

After these introductory chapters the book then presents the data collected in two studies the authors have conducted themselves, and compare these with data from Bulgaria, Romania and Poland. The first chapter deals with police-public violence. Police use of force and firearms and justifications for this by police officers are discussed, including the legality of these justifications, followed by a paragraph about violence and aggression against the police by the public. The next chapter deals with controlling the police and the state of affairs with regard to accountability mechanisms in the respective countries.

The final chapter of the book, with the optimistic title ‘policing towards stability’, addresses all the mentioned topics in an integral way and gives some, though modest, recommendations for developing towards democratic and human rights oriented policing.

The book is easy to read and has a comfortable balance between in-depth analyses and practical implications. Everyone working in the field of police and human rights will find many pleasant ‘Aha-Erlebnissen’. Not because the book addresses issues we already know about, but far more because the book finally puts them in words. And by doing so it becomes something one can discuss, address and -hopefully- tackle when dealing with these issues in former Soviet countries. In that respect the book is an absolute must for everyone, be it the human rights expert or the police officer, working in this area of expertise. Apart from that the book also gives meaningful information on how to interpret the police and policing in the studied countries. For example, when reading about the extreme situations under which police officers work in Russia, underpaid -when paid at all-, one easily wonders why people decide to join the police in the first place. The given explanation is very straightforward: it prevents young Russians from being sent to serve in Chechnya for their military service.

However, some points need further attention. The most important is the sometimes slightly confusing way the book was set up. Because the authors intended to compare two countries, and sometimes even five, sometimes even added by a sixth (Ukraine) and a seventh (Mongolia) makes it hard to grasp the overall picture. Greatly respecting the authors’ clear intention not to redress to simple stereotypes or generalizations, and to focus on the specific peculiarities of each country, it must be said that it sometimes results in too many details and too little conclusions.

The second remark has to do with the Perm study. A lot of background information about Russia is given, often based in Human Rights Watch information. However, the authors also state that Perm must not be taken as an example for Russia, because “the exceptional reputation of the Perm police for openness and reform means that the Perm data cannot be considered representative for Russia as a whole.” (p. 220). This makes relating Perm to the general information on Russia rather tricky, however, all the background information is on Russia ‘as a whole’.

A third point has to do with the scope of the presented data. The authors have chosen not to compare the data with comparable information on policing in well established democracies as for example indeed the Netherlands are. This may suggest that some answers have to do with the phase of transition in which the country finds itself. Even though the explanation may well be that police sometimes have a certain way of reasoning because they are police. The selection effect in this regard is often discussed in police literature as well as the socialization effect within the police forces. An example is the statement in the questionnaire for which the authors found (strong) agreement: ‘[m]any complaints are filed with the sole intention of seeking revenge on or damaging the officer in question’. It may very well be that police in Northwestern Europe will also express a high degree of agreement on this issue; unfortunately we do not know this.

The central theme of this book can be formulated as ‘the police will align with the cultural and historical aspects of a country’. From this it follows that police cannot be asked to be the initiator of social change. A country in transition will effect policing, how the police deals with this depends on many factors. And reverse: the way the police respond can facilitate or frustrate further societal development, indeed the authors give quite a few examples of this. However, even when accepting that democratic and human rights oriented policing are the best ways to police, that does not necessarily mean that crisis and authoritarian policing must lead to human rights violations. Professionalization is the key. As the authors state at the end of their book: “by professionalizing on a variety of fronts, the police can do much on their own to bridge the legitimacy gap regardless of the limiting conditions encountered.” (p.204). This is a realistic view which creates ground for optimism.

Note: this review previously appeared in the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, vol. 22, nr. 1, March 2004, pp. 145-147.