Master Thesis Sociology Master programme UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM GSSS “Migration and Ethnic Studies” 2010-2011 Ethnicity and policing in France and in the Netherlands Clotilde Caillault Student number: 6348459 Amsterdam 31/08/2011 François Bonnet Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Universiteit van Amsterdam Joanne van der Leun Professor, Department of Criminology Universiteit van Leiden 1 Table of contents TABLE OF CONTENTS ....................................................................................................................... 2 ABSTRACT – KEYWORDS ................................................................................................................. 4 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................. 5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................. 7 1. THE MEASURE OF DISCRIMINATION ............................................................................................. 7 1.1. Statistical data – quantitative approaches ........................................................................ 8 1.2. Qualitative methods ........................................................................................................ 11 2. THEORIES EXPLAINING DISPROPORTIONALITY .......................................................................... 13 2.1. Differences in behavior ................................................................................................... 13 2.2. Prejudice and stereotypes ............................................................................................... 14 2.3. Occupational culture ...................................................................................................... 16 2.4. Organizational factors .................................................................................................... 18 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH DESIGN ................................................................................................. 20 1. RESEARCH QUESTION ................................................................................................................ 20 2. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ....................................................................................................... 21 3. METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................................ 24 3.1. Qualitative methods ........................................................................................................ 24 3.2. Interviews........................................................................................................................ 25 3.3. Participant observation .................................................................................................. 25 3.4. A „limited‟ comparative approach .................................................................................. 26 3.5. Sampling and sites selection ........................................................................................... 27 CHAPTER 3: STEREOTYPES AND DISCRIMINATION ............................................................. 29 1. STEREOTYPES AND CATEGORIZATION: THE CONSTRUCTION OF ‗DANGEROUS CLASSES‘............ 29 1.1. In the Netherlands: an explicit focus on ethnic groups................................................... 29 1.2. In France: les “branleurs”, les “racailles” (North African Youth) ............................... 33 1.3. The „French republican ideal‟ vs. pillarization .............................................................. 36 2. POLICE STEREOTYPES‘ MEANINGS AND FUNCTIONS .................................................................. 38 2.1. “It‟s the individual that makes the uniform” .................................................................. 38 2.2. Experience and police culture: stereotypes as practical knowledge .............................. 39 2.3. Stereotypes as „faulty generalizations‟ ........................................................................... 41 3. STEREOTYPES AS A TRIGGER OF SUSPICION: ETHNIC PROFILING IN PRACTICE ............................ 42 CHAPTER 4: THE ROLE OF INTERACTIONAL AND LOCAL DYNAMICS .......................... 45 1. THE ‗ATTITUDE TEST‘ ............................................................................................................... 45 2. POLICE-CITIZENS ENCOUNTERS: MUTUAL INFLUENCES ............................................................. 48 3. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LOCAL ENVIRONMENT AND POLICING TACTICS .................................. 52 CHAPTER 5: ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS .............................................................................. 56 1. POLICE ACTIVITY: FOCUS ON SMALL CRIME AND USE OF ACTUARIAL METHODS ........................ 57 2 2. UNINTENDED EFFECTS OF TARGETS .......................................................................................... 58 3. STOP AND SEARCH LAW AND PRACTICES ................................................................................... 61 3.1. ID checks in the Netherlands .......................................................................................... 61 3.2. ID checks in France ........................................................................................................ 62 4. FIGHT AGAINST IRREGULAR MIGRATION ................................................................................... 64 5. FILES ACCESS AND POLICE RECORDS ......................................................................................... 67 CHAPTER 6: THE AMBIGUOUS EFFECTS OF CITIZENS‟ DEMANDS ON ETHNIC PROFILING ......................................................................................................................................... 69 1. CITIZENS‘ DEMANDS: PROTECTING THE ‗RESPECTABLE‘ AGAINST THE ‗UNDESIRABLE‘ ............ 69 2. FRANCE: IMPACT OF DISTANCE ON POLICING ............................................................................ 71 2.1. Police-citizens relations: misunderstanding and disrespect ........................................... 72 2.2. French police officers as „strangers‟ in the city ............................................................. 73 2.3. Impact of distance on policing and disproportionality ................................................... 74 3. NETHERLANDS: THE AMBIGUOUS EFFECTS OF COMMUNITY POLICING ....................................... 75 CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................................... 79 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................. 82 REFERENCES ..................................................................................................................................... 83 3 Abstract – Keywords Abstract: This paper examines the mechanisms that contribute to the production of disproportionality in France and in the Netherlands. In both countries, police officers construct a category of ‗dangerous classes‘ on which to focus their attention. Even though the role played by ethnicity is more explicit in the Dutch case, both categorization processes involve ethnic components. For police officers, stereotypes on ethnic groups constitute a practical knowledge they acquired on the job and use routinely to carry out they work. Stereotypes do not however reflect the actual experience of police officers, but rather an experience mediated by a police subculture in which stereotypes on the criminality of certain categories are strongly anchored. By triggering police suspicion, stereotypes can in turn lead to ethnic profiling practices. In practice, police officers‘ decisions are influenced by a wide range of contextual factors, and it is often difficult to distinguish between the influence of ethnicity and other criteria (attitudes, clothing, age, etc.). Furthermore police officers work in an organizational environment that shapes their practices and decisions, and implement government policies and priorities. In some cases, these policies can have serious discriminatory consequences, beyond police officers‘ intent. Citizens‘ demands might also accentuate disproportionality, through the influence of their stereotypes. Keywords: disproportionality, discrimination, ethnic profiling, stereotypes, France, Netherlands, policing, organizational factors, citizen‘s demands 4 Introduction Quantitative studies and qualitative surveys conducted in Europe and in the US suggest that ethnic groups have significant higher crime rates than natives. While some authors argue that this disproportion can be explained by social factors (Merton 1968, Mucchielli 2006, Junger-Tas 1997), others emphasize cultural factors (Wolfgang and Ferracuti 1967, Lagrange 2010), or the influence of public policies (Van der Leun 2003, Harris 2002). Another hypothesis explores the existence of an ethnic bias in the police and justice systems, which could partly account for this disproportion (Harris 2007, Bowling & Phillips 2007). However, this hypothesis has not been sufficiently researched in European continental countries. By contrast, an extended literature on police discrimination can be found in the UK and the US, where ―stop and search policies‖ have been thoroughly studied and characterized as ―ethnic profiling‖. In France and in