My dissertation, From Vaqueros to Mafiosos: A Community History of Drug Trafficking in Rural South Texas is an ethnographic study of the impact of the drug trade in South Texas, with a specific focus on Starr County. This dissertation examines drug trafficking along the U.S-Mexico Border at two levels of analysis. First, through historical ethnography, I provide a cultural history of South Texas, as well as a specific history of drug trafficking in Starr County. In doing so, I highlight the different trafficking practices that emerge throughout South Texas’ history, and I document the social changes that develop in Starr County as a result of these illicit practices. The second half of my dissertation, however, is devoted to a contemporary analysis of the impact of the drug trade on the border region by analyzing important social practices in Starr County relating to drug abuse, policing and the criminal justice system, youth socialization and family life. Through ethnography I present the devastating effects of the drug trade and border policing on this Mexican American border community in rural South Texas. / text

This paper concerns the changes in attitudes towards the use of force within the South African police force after democratisation. The paper debates the current approaches towards the analysis of violence and a new theory on community and conflict management is developed. This new theory aims to provide a new framework for analysing the use of violence. The theory is then applied on a fieldwork conducted at a local police station in Cape Town, South Africa.

<p>This dissertation is a social history of the city of Detroit in the 1970s. Using archives official and unofficial - oral histories and archived document collections, self-published memoirs and legal documents, personal papers and the newspapers of the radical press - it portrays a city in flux. It was in the 1970s that the urban crisis in the cities of the United States crested. Detroit, as had been the case throughout the twentieth century, was at the forefront of these changes. This dissertation demonstrates the local social, political, and economic circumstances that contributed to the dramatic increase in prison populations since the 1970s with a focus on the halls of government, the courtroom, and city streets. In the streets, unemployed African American youth organized themselves to counteract the contracted social distribution allocated to them under rapidly changing economic circumstances. They organized themselves for creative expression, protection and solidarity in a hostile city, and to pursue economic endeavors in the informal economy. They sometimes committed crimes. In the courts, Wayne County Juvenile Court Judge James Lincoln, a liberal Democrat long allied with New Deal political alliances, became disenchanted with rehabilitative solutions to juvenile delinquency and embraced more punitive measures, namely incarceration. In city hall, Coleman Young, the city's first African American mayor, confronted this crisis with a form of policing that concentrated predominately on the city's unemployed African American youth, and the result was the criminalization of poverty and race we have come to understand as mass incarceration.</p> / Dissertation

This research project explores critically the broader social context of the rise of global private policing in Africa, using Nigeria and South Africa to provide an in-depth illustrative and comparative context. Drawing on insights from global security and police research, Foucauldian governmentality studies, and postcolonial perspective in particular, the overarching question addressed in this research is that of whether the apparent rise in global private policing in Africa is occasioned by real need, or it constitutes an imperialist project? In other words, how do we make sense of this development? This research finds that private policing is largely a function of a paradigm shift from a collective human security to an individualistic sense of security through greater emphasis on competition, and private property or gain, in contrast to the collective welfare that predominantly characterized most pre-colonial African societies. Accordingly, global private policing is seen largely as a product of long-term historical undercurrents of colonialism and contemporary forms of Western imperialism, and the leadership crisis rooted in high-profile corruption and economic mismanagement in most parts of Africa; however, their impact on the extent of global private policing differs significantly due to the country-specific internal social, political, and economic, dynamics. This research therefore makes a contribution to the theoretical debates surrounding the growth of global private policing, particularly in the African context; and considers the broader implications for security policies grounded in private versus collective human security.

This research considered the perceptions of policing students who attended a Preparing to Teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector (PTLLS) course at a Central London College for Further Education, in relation to their study needs, motivation levels, relevant support and reflective practice. This phenomenological study considered 15 students from the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) employing the use of semi-structured interviews to gather data. The findings were that the students‟ perception in relation to the support offered by the MPS was insufficient and this may be due to the pedagogical approach to learning favoured by many students. Several appeared to require support with learning and writing level at three or four. The college did very well in respect of the perception of the students in relation to the support they experienced. The scarcity of time and the intensity of the course was a prominent factor, where some had underestimated how much time they would need to allocate to study. Overwhelmingly the students required support when engaging in study at level three or four and there appeared to exist very little knowledge in how to write an assignment. Some of the students appeared to favour a more pedagogical approach to study and in some cases reacted against the andragogical style employed by the college. Support from the mentor was valued considerably by most of the students and this appears to be a contributory factor in easing the students back into study. In relation to students‟ perceptions of Reflective Practice (RP) there existed three distinct groups, namely those who considered that they used reflective practice, those who considered they did on certain occasions and one who did not. In general there existed a positive attitude towards the concept of RP although none of the students kept a record of their subsequent RP following the PTLLS course. The phenomenon of Situational Reflective Practice was observed which took the form of Reflection-re-Action and Reflection-re-Inaction. This is concerned with the way in which a social group or an organisation is behaving and the impact this has upon an individual. Further research in relation to the idea of Situational Reflective Practice is called for.

This thesis has explored the context of police interviews with suspects of serious crimes. Focus group studies, a case study and additional interviews have shown several aspects of information flow, decision making, interviewing tactics, human rights and tacit knowledge as these interviews are planned, performed and evaluated. The informants, homicide investigators, describe their work as an information generating and information evaluating process. They apply a series of methods, e. g. different forms of tactics in the use of investigative information during the police interviews. Based on the informants’ description and the case study, their methods seem to have research evidence in general, where such is available. The informants specifically stress the important role of planning and evaluation. The investigative process generates a vast amount of situations where decision making is needed. In these, the bases for the decisions are mainly the information flow of the investigation, which tends to be obscure and in constant change. The investigators’ decision making is thereby exposed to the risk of confirmation bias. The informants express an ambition to work objectively and to presume the suspects’ innocence. However, this generates a psychological conflict, which might affect the human rights of the suspect in negative ways. The informants describe several ways to handle this conflict. The informants describe that they have several concerns when making decisions. These can be categorized as legal, organizational and tactical concerns. Taken together, legal rule conflicts and the organizational ambition to lead the investigators in a target oriented way using quantitative measures, result in strong incitements for investigations to be finalized when they are good enough, rather than when they are good. The informants describe their profession as one where it is possible to develop expertise and where tacit knowledge plays an important role. When previous research on tacit knowledge is combined with the interview results, there seems to be a level between the tacit and the explicit knowledge. I have called this low-key knowledge. This low-key knowledge can be verbalized in the proper context in communication among those initiated in the subject at hand. The low-key knowledge also seems to risk being over-voiced in certain contexts.

Uniformed presences are thought to create feelings of safety in people. However, do different uniformed people contribute to the same amount of safety and are there differences dependent on the situation? The present study examined the association between various types of uniformed presence and people’s feelings of safety through a questionnaire among 352 respondents (18-86 years) (49.1 % women). The questionnaire contained pictures of relatively safe and unsafe situations with or without uniformed presence. The respondents estimated how safe they thought they would feel in these situations with and without two police officers, six police officers, a police car, two security guards, or two police volunteers. The results showed that uniformed presence does not increase feelings of safety in an already relatively safe situation, making patrol unnecessary. In relatively unsafe situations however, all types of uniformed presence increase feelings of safety. Foot patrolling police increased feelings of safety the most. Security guards and police volunteers created approximately the same amount of safety; making police volunteers a cost-effective alternative, although some situation, gender and age differences were found. All types of foot patrol were better than vehicle patrol (with some gender differences), making non-police groups an alternative to vehicle patrol.

This paper studies the police reform in Egypt in the light of the revolution 2011. The ousting of the authoritarian president Hosni Mubarak was the beginning of the transition towards democracy. Within 15 months both parliamentary and presidential election had taken place. The political leaders were new and the transitional process had begun however the institutions where still the same and one feature of the revolution was to reform the police since the police was hated as the oppressive power it was. Transition from totalitarian regime to democracy is more than elections it is about reforming the institutions and especially the security sector hence they often play a significant role in oppressing the citizens in an authoritarian state. The police in Egypt used repressive methods to control the citizens. Therefore it is interesting to investigate whether the police are beginning to transform along the principles of democratic policing, a specific part of security sector reform focusing on the reformation of the police. The notion of human security with the people at the centre lay as a foundation of the theoretical framework. The material consists of in- depth interviews with leaders and active people in the civil society and their view regarding police work and police reform after the revolution. The conclusions drawn from the study is that the police lack capacity, understanding and training to reform. The reformation has to be influenced by political will from legislative and institutional level as well from the police officers themselves. There are challenges if a reform of the police will be successful and some of them are connected with national and international circumstances.

This dissertation investigated a very specialised, highly sensitive and complex research area in policing known as undercover policing or covert policing operations. This is the first examination to be conducted in the Australasian policing context and the only known research to explore, empirically, undercover operatives' experiences of returning to mainstream police duties after completing their covert duties.----- There were two main research objectives in this dissertation. The first was to develop research methodology specific for use with undercover police officers. The second main objective was to conduct an empirical investigation to identify the psychological processes associated with the reintegration or re-assimilation of undercover police officers into mainstream policing environments. Social identity theory was applied to deconstruct undercover police officers' reintegration experiences.----- Given the closed and protected nature of covert policing, careful consideration to methodological and ethical issues required high priority in the development of research practices. Addressing these considerations in research practices protected the anonymity and security of those involved in the research. Tailoring research methods to suit the officers' circumstances and satisfy police managements' security concerns improved the practical application of research methods and research relations with police members and, therefore, the quality of the findings.----- In developing a research methodology for specific use with undercover police officers, a multi-method approach was adopted. Data triangulation with the use of a variety of data sources and methodological triangulation with the use of multiple methods and multiple indicators were employed. This technique proved constructive in creating a more holistic perspective of undercover policing and officers' experiences of re-assimilation.----- In theoretical terms, the major issue under investigation is of negotiating dual memberships or multiple identities. Three studies are reported. The first study is a field study, in which the researcher spent more than 18 months in the covert policing context, as a participant observer. Through field research, the researcher was able to learn about the Australasian covert policing context; obtain in-house police documents; define research issues and hypotheses; understand methodological considerations; identify a psychological theoretical framework; and examine &quotthe fit " between theory and the social dynamics of covert policing. Other benefits of becoming immersed in the working life of undercover police officers and the police organisation included understanding the ways of proceeding and the social and organisational structure that exists among covert personnel.----- The second study interviewed 20 former covert police personnel, from two police jurisdictions, who had been reintegrated for more than three years. The majority of officers found returning to mainstream police duties a difficult experience and two separate profiles of reintegration experiences emerged from the data. This study identified the presence of more than one police identity among former operatives. It found that some officers internalise aspects of the undercover policing norms and use these police norms to define aspects of the self both as a police officer and as an individual. That is, role-playing the undercover police persona became an extension of the officer as an individual and contributed positively to their personal self-worth. It was noted that the majority of officers expressed cognitive confusion over how to behave in the mainstream policing environment after covert duties had ceased.----- The other profile to emerge from the data was of officers who characterised their undercover policing experiences as being more integrated into their overall police persona. Officers interviewed in this study employed different identity decision-making strategies to restructure their police identities. In sum, this study found that the extent, to which the undercover and mainstream memberships were integrated cognitively, influenced officers' experiences of reintegration.----- The third study is a cross-sectional design using survey methods. Thirty-eight trainees, 31 currently operational and 38 former undercover operatives from four police jurisdictions took part in this study. A group of mainstream police officers matched according to former operatives' age, gender and years of policing experience was also included. This study found that police identities change over the phases of undercover police work and that changes in former operatives' mainstream police identity were a function of covert police work. Cross-sectional comparisons revealed that former operatives' undercover police identity had declined since covert policing, however, officers' mainstream police identity had not significantly increased. Failure to increase identification with mainstream police after undercover police work has ceased has a number of implications in terms of predicting re-assimilation. Operatives most likely to experience difficulties were those who resisted the mainstream police identification and reported difficult relations with their mainstream peers. Trends analysis revealed that despite the physical change, 'cognitive' re-assimilation actually commences in the second year of the operatives' reintegration. These exploratory analyses revealed that following return to the mainstream policing environment, identity stressors were mostly likely to be experienced in the first year of reintegration.----- To determine psychological adjustment since undercover police work, the person-environment fit was also investigated in the study. Operatives' current perceptions of working in the mainstream context were reported using a number of behavioural and organisational indicators. Overall, this study found that former operatives remain committed to their policing profession, however, those who experienced identity stress during the re-assimilation process were less satisfied with their current work duties and failed to find their work interesting, tended to perceive undercover duties as having been detrimental to their career, and expressed greater intentions to leave the service within 12 months of the survey. Overall former operatives' satisfaction and commitment levels were not significantly different from mainstream officers. Mainstream police, however, reported being under greater pressure and felt more overworked in the mainstream context than former operatives. In summary, these organisational indicators revealed that the difficulties of re-assimilation and intentions to leave the service are more related to the stress of modifying officers' police identity during this period than the workload characteristics of mainstream policing.----- Overall these studies demonstrated that the process of negotiating police identities is an important psychological dynamic present in undercover operatives' reintegration experiences. The identity stress experienced during this period was shown to have a number of organisational-behavioural consequences, such as problematic intergroup relations and greater intentions to leave the police service after undercover police work. Based on findings from this research a number of practical recommendations are made and suggestions for the direction of future research are outlined. Contributions to theory are also discussed.

Law enforcement agencies worldwide, including those in Australia, have declared partnerships with the private sector to police e-crime as “critical”. However, this strategy faces uncertainties about appropriate formats and the potential for fostering corruption. Sarre and Prenzler’s (2000) Regulated Intersections model proposes that, to avoid corruption, cooperation must be limited and regulated closely. Consequently, this thesis examines the conditions under which investigative partnership policing of e-crime at the state police level can be mutually beneficial to police and the private sectors, while maintaining public interests. The thesis aims, therefore, to establish normative standards and guidelines for configuring effective and ethical public-private partnerships for e-crime investigation. An exploratory analysis of 3529 e-crime incidents, reported to and cleared by Victoria Police during 1999/00 to 2003/04, investigated the nature of reported e-crime, routine factors affecting its successful investigation and whether partnership was one of those factors. A pilot survey canvassed private sector responses to these issues and partnered e-crime investigation. Thirty-seven interviews were conducted with police, private investigators and e-crime victims. During the research, three Australian attempts at public-private investigative partnership formed to varying success, including the Joint Banking and Finance Sector Investigation Team (JBFSIT) at the Australian High Tech Crime Centre.