How police detectives deal with policy alienation in the investigation of human exploitation crimes: Reinforcing or counterbalancing fatalism

This chapter focuses on how police detectives deal with fatalism they experience in their daily work, and whether their responses to fatalism reinforce or counterbalance feelings of policy powerlessness and meaninglessness. Police detectives investigate several types of law-breaking, such as human trafficking, smuggling of drugs and weapons, and violent crimes. In classic police culture studies interactions between police officers and law-breakers are presented in a rather negative way. There is also evidence that the protective attitude towards citizens, based on police detectives' moral mission, sometimes shifts to cynicism towards these same citizens. The findings result from a comparative ethnographic study in two human exploitation investigative teams of the Belgian federal Police and two field organizations of a Belgian Labour Inspection. Police detectives sometimes aim to reduce feelings of powerlessness and meaninglessness by framing their work as "just doing your job". They explain that every agency has its role and responsibilities.