Writing the World of Policing by Didier Fassin

Author:Didier Fassin [Didier Fassin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-226-49778-5
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2017-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

Conclusion

Fırat’s comments and behavior in the juvenile justice training provide a glimpse into what the reframing of police work in terms of professionalization and expertise amounts to—especially with regard to its place in the larger governmental realm as this realm is being reordered in light of EU harmonization in Turkey. The reframing of the policing profession as one of expertise goes hand in hand with the delineation of the field of security as a scientific and specialized body of knowledge that is acquired through education. Although the most emphasized intended outcome of police reform is to standardize policing in order to enable its accountability, what becomes visible through ethnographic engagement is an effect of standardization that is less accounted for—the enhancement of the power of the police.

It is no coincidence that in both juvenile justice and domestic violence prevention trainings the talk of police professionalization and expertise was accompanied by accounts of how powerful the police was in other “advanced” European countries. Just like Fırat’s remarks on the authority of the police in security related matters in the Netherlands and the United States, Sertan too repeatedly mentioned how in the United Kingdom and Austria the police had extensive powers that enabled them to fight against domestic violence effectively. As human rights were translated into matters of technical expertise and professionalism that can help police officers do their jobs better, these better-functioning police officers were imagined to become more powerful government agents. The message communicated in all TNP trainings was that human rights and the law did not tie the police officers’ hands while fighting crime. On the contrary, human rights and the law were portrayed as “combat multipliers” that can help the police. In a similar vein, police reform via educating officers and standardizing their work was not thought of as limiting but increasing the powers of the TNP.

This ethnographic revelation of the unexpected consequences of human rights training for the police in Turkey compels us to look seriously into the uncanny relationship between audit cultures22 and governmental authority in general. The good governance framework asserts the improvement of professionalism and expertise through enactments of standardization, effectiveness, and efficiency as a key step for establishing the transparency and accountability of institutions. While the equation of this formula with democratization is rarely contested in places that are on both ends of transnational standardization, the constitutive relationship between capacity/ability and power/authority often gets overlooked. Despite its disregard at the transnational level, a closer look into the operationalization of good governance shows that this relationship is central for persuading the local practitioners. It is this very logic that got activated at the human rights trainings, when the TNP officials considered institutional capacity building synonymous with widening the power and influence of the police.

This particular mindset was not only confined to the training venues. It was—and still is—also manifest in current and past legal regulations as well as the actual practices of policing in Turkey. These manifestations include the controversial 2007 amendments to the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.