Policing must be based on human rights

Police services exist to uphold the rule of law. They can only do so if their policing model is based on protection of human rights.

The lethal police shooting of Nahel Merzouk (17) in Nanterre on June 27th was not an isolated incident. It was once again the terrible consequence of an erroneous police model, consciously or unconsciously encouraging the abuse of force.

For some time we have been facing a crisis in the model prevailing in most police services. The psychosis created by violent attacks across Europe in recent years has reinforced prejudices and stereotypes, such as Islamophobia.

Political speech spreading populism and nationalism has, in many cases, encouraged harsh application of the law and unconditional support for police services. But the systemic racism in European societies today is reflected in the actions of those services, which exercise a monopoly on the legitimate use of force.

Racial profiling in stop-and-search may be the clearest example of the lack of control in this regard. It not only undermines the legitimacy of police action but also hinders the confidence of a section of society in the police as the guarantor of human rights.

There has been a hardening of positions within police services: to varying degrees, their perspectives and equipment have been evolving towards a military style. Underlying this increased aggressiveness is a policing model, which must be questioned.

Most police services have plans full of words conforming to human-rights standards. Yet there are always clashes with individuals from minority backgrounds and abuses in the exercise of force. There is a lack of recognition by police chiefs and police unions—in many cases, by political practioners too—of the deficiences in the monitoring and enforcement of human rights inside police forces.

The obsession of many heads of police units is with getting good numbers on their performance evaluation. Almost all these numbers have to do with reducing crime rates—not reducing, or eliminating, complaints of human-rights violations.

Oversight mechanisms

Two levels of monitoring and protection are required. The first is when the police are accused of abrogating human rights in a particular instance. Then having an external mechanism with the capacity to investigate the police action is fundamental. If the police investigate themselves, complicity will always be at issue; even if they do a good job, there will be a lack of confidence on the part of the group or person who reported abuse.

Such independent oversight should not only entail making recommendations but also enjoy some executive or decision-making capacity. It should be part of a system in which supervision and control are shared among communities and their representatives, public authorities, legal institutions and the police.

Oversight mechanisms can also ensure police services are rendered accountable to the public more generally. Accountability should operate a priori and a posteriori: it should include assessment of the feedback police receive before developing an action or new working practices, as well as how implementation is monitored and subsequently evaluated.

Recruiting officers

Police services should be a reflection of the society they serve. Thus increasing the proportion of women and minority members within police services should be a guideline when recruiting new officers.

A decrease in testosterone in police services could lead to a decrease in the use of violence in conflict situations. This theory has been put forward by some female police chiefs in the United States who argue that women have skills other than the use of force in resolving conflict.

Another issue that needs to be addressed is the type of young person who thinks they want to enter the profession. Most have a ‘Hollywood’ idea of a police officer—this is not a person who manages conflicts and has strong convictions about protecting and enforcing human rights.

Community policing

Community policing is seen as the model for approaching the challenges of diverse societies, particularly with regard to human rights. More than an organisational model, it is a working philosophy in terms of public-service provision.

Rather than encouraging police to think of themselves simply as the monopoly of legitimate force, community policing requires collaboration between the police and other actors within a neighbourhood. It identifies how the police service interacts with others when dealing with conflicts, how it focuses on them and, above all, how it contributes to their resolution.

The police should not divide communities into ‘majority’ versus ‘minority’, but rather work with different parts of communities to address local problems. Building trust between the police and communities in a diverse society is a two-way process, based on mutual understanding, knowledge and respect. In this process, neighbourhood police should take on the role of mediators among the various components of society.

Community policing actually makes the work of the police easier: if the community trusts its police, it will be more willing to co-operate and will more readily inform the police about situations that are suspicious or that may represent a risk to the community itself. The opposite is also true: neighbourhoods where there are tensions with the police will be much more reluctant to inform them about acts of racism, xenophobia, homophobia or hatred. These acts will not be aired or they will be reported through parallel channels: associations, friends, social networks, religious centres and so on.

Training and specialisation

Also important in police protection of human rights is education and training. Training and specialisation in police services is one of the pillars of the new policing model for diverse urban areas. The success of community policing will hinge on the skills of officers responsible for managing diversity, including in building relationships based on trust and mutual respect.

Such training should not be limited to the learning opportunities offered in police schools. To fully understand intercultural issues, police officers should have access to training that is as broad as possible, involving all relevant actors and including field experiences.

Training should be comprehensive in relation to human-rights principles and legislation, covering national and international standards. Officers must also be trained on the indicators that differentiate a mere incident from hate crimes or intolerance: sometimes hate crimes are overlooked or camouflaged in events that have nothing to do with intolerance.

Training will also have a positive impact on the treatment of victims. The more specialised the training officers receive, the greater their ability to understand victims and their circumstances, which will enable them to provide better-quality care.

Citizen participation

A new element to be taken into account is citizen participation in the design of public security protection. Citizen security is not only the responsibility of the police: citizens can be protagonists too, ‘co-producing’ it as groups or individuals able to express their opinions on security matters. Few programmes however genuinely aspire as yet to such co-production of security, as a public-service desideratum—let alone where police and citizens stand in a position of equality.

In sum, what is needed is a change in the security model, so that protection of human rights becomes the foundation of police work, from which the tasks of the police flow. This cannot be reduced to a programme or a declaration of intent: it must be a total reform, following a decision to change, requiring:

• a comprehensive organisational-change approach;
• a unified, committed and involved leadership;
• an articulated vision and shared terminology;
• empowered and capable lead agents;
• a multi-stakeholder structure and process for change;
• identification of, and planning for, resistance, and
• strategic areas of focus for change.

Human-rights organisational change aims to prevent rights violations and address concerns as they arise, recognising that human-rights issues are many, complex and constantly evolving. Such change must include efforts to establish permanent systems and processes to respond to issues as they emerge.

That way, episodes such as the tragedy in Nanterre need not be so predictably recurrent.