Multicultureel politiewerk

D. Kleijer

Research output: ThesisDoctoral thesis 1 (Research UU / Graduation UU)

Abstract

In recent decades, disadvantaged areas with existing general social problems have also attracted migrants from a weak socioeconomic background. Multiculturalisation of these neighbourhoods has created increased potential for interethnic conflict. In today’s risk society, focusing on safety and absence of risk, the multicultural aspect is considered to be one of the great risks. Safety as a societal problem is more and more often regarded in relation to problems of migration and integration, where the police force is in the exact middle. They are permanently in the ‘frontline’ of society and have the monopoly on the use of force. This research studies how the police respond to the fact that the Netherlands has become a multicultural country at two levels, dividing it into two subquestions. First, the author analyses the police’s political-administrative response to society’s multiculturalisation. Second, the author studies how street-level police officers perform their task in multicultural disadvantaged areas, based on more than one year of ethnographic fieldwork within two police forces. Participant observation allowed the author internal insight into police practice, rituals and perceptions, on the street and ‘backstage’. This research structures the author’s empirical material using two ideal-type models, which have been constructed on the basis of academic literature (regarding the police) and an overview of police history: the police management model and the police work model. These theoretical constructs serve as heuristic means to understand empirical reality. The study shows that the way the Dutch police respond to the multiculturalisation of society has two realities, which in part have developed separately, in different worlds, but are also in each other’s way. The political-administrative answer to the fact that the Netherlands is a multicultural country is mainly characterised by the police management model: attempts to keep control and numerous top-down measures, with a focus on structure, uniformity and result. However, this frustrates day-to-day work in the lower ranks of the police force and is counterproductive in actual practice. The police work model offers the best explanation of how in everyday reality the Dutch police actually respond to society’s multiculturalisation. In a street-level bureaucracy such as the police force, street-level police officers are faced by the impossibility to protocol their work. In their continuous and often complicated interaction with citizens, they have to solve conflicts on the spot. In the areas studied, street-level police officers particularly need discretion. After thirty years of diversity policy, the same problems still exist and to a significant extent, the field seems resistant to policy. Police officers on the ground have little interest in political-administrative or management problems, but face social problems at the heart of the multicultural society every day. Moreover, this study shows that in part of the police work, the multicultural society is not the first issue occupying street-level police officers, or that they do not see this multicultural society as the main problem. It is not ethnicity that is emphasised, but individual psychopathology, antisocial behaviour and substance abuse after a night out.
Original languageDutch
QualificationDoctor of Philosophy
Awarding Institution
  • Utrecht University
Supervisors/Advisors
  • Bovenkerk, Frank, Primary supervisor
  • Korf, D.J., Supervisor, External person
Award date30 Sept 2013
Publisher
Publication statusPublished - 30 Sept 2013

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