Abstract
Terrorism within Comparative International Context proposes measures to counter terrorism based on the theoretical framework provided by Community-Oriented Policing (COP). Community policing is presented as a potential tool to maintain ‘law and order without jeopardizing the freedoms and rights’ of the citizens in a democratic society (p. 11) in order to prevent, and prepare for, terrorist events. Haberfeld, King and Lieberman point out that excessive counterterrorist responses, though legitimate, have endangered civil rights, and so it is important to design effective law enforcement training beneficial for the local police and welcomed by the community. However, although the authors acknowledge that both aspects – law and order, and the preservation of freedoms and rights – are important, they are more interested in the question of public order rather than how human rights are affected.
Following the introductory chapter 1, chapter 2 reviews the concept of COP and its advantages and disadvantages. Community policing may be defined as ‘both a policing strategy and a philosophy that involves the partnership between police and the public in order to identify and solve community problems’ (p. 11). Although COP is considered a positive development, its effectiveness has been questioned due to the lack of a universal definition of what constitutes community policing. This leads to uncertainty when establishing whether or not it is being implemented within a police department and to difficulties in testing its success rate. Chapter 3 examines the strengths and weaknesses of the methodologies that have been used, which include interviews with police agents and focus groups and interviews with the media and politicians.
The authors have developed seven case studies (chapters 4 to 10) based on countries that have many years’ experience of dealing with terrorism. They acknowledge that circumstantial and funding constraints, which forced them to alter their initial selection of countries, have limited the depth of the research in some cases. They eventually covered the United Kingdom and Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Germany, and the United States. These chapters present a similar structure consisting of four sections, although some case studies are more developed than others. The History sections include information that is not always relevant to terrorist threats, but the sections on Terrorism are more focused on the topic and, although they are brief, broad overviews, the explanations of the terrorist threats specific to each context are useful. The contribution of these case studies is more valuable in terms of the findings provided by the authors’ primary research in each country.
Chapters 11 and 12 present the authors’ concluding remarks and recommendations. Haberfeld, King and Lieberman point out several areas for improvement in the way that intelligence is processed, and a template for creating and maintaining Intelligence Files is proposed. In addition, they highlight the importance of building collaborative connections between local law enforcement agencies and the community so that both entities may benefit from each other. However, risks such as those posed by the existing biases held by the community in relation to terrorism must be addressed by ‘re-educating’ them in conjunction with the media (p. 161). At this point, from a human rights perspective, the authors stress that the community’s perceptions of ‘others’ are essential if community members are expected to identify threats effectively and, perhaps more importantly, in order to prevent those threats from developing in the first place. Haberfeld, King and Lieberman suggest that social alienation and ‘othering’ of Muslims is a factor in the development of the ‘enemy within’ and home-grown terrorist threats.
The findings include information that may be relevant for policing agencies to manage and design their training programmes. For example, the authors found that none of the forces they visited implemented special training for patrol officers, even though previous research had indicated that it helped improve the relationship between the police and the community. However, suggestions seem inconclusive in other respects. For instance, the authors present CCTV as a potential life saver against terrorist threats (p. 56), but they do not explain how this method might be effective in dealing with attacks before they happen, rather than using it to investigate the event in its aftermath. The suggestion that CCTV cameras are positive tools is also not embedded in a critical discussion of surveillance methods that may endanger civil rights and liberties.
This is a valuable contribution for readers interested in community policing in relation to countering terrorism, and how partnerships may be created between police forces and the community to prevent and prepare against terrorist threats effectively. The book benefits from its clear use of English, although some of the information becomes repetitive across sections and the edition needs revision in some parts. Readers interested in the history of terrorism in particular countries, however, should seek other sources as this is not this book’s main objective. Indeed, the resource constraints mentioned earlier have led to some sections being underdeveloped, and the selection of case studies, including countries such as Sweden, is not consistent with the initial rationale of researching countries that have long traditions of coping with terrorism. This being said, overall the book provides some significant insights into how community policing works in several countries, based on the primary research conducted by the authors.