Cross-border police collaboration: building communities of practice in the Baltic Sea area
In: Routledge innovations in policing
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In: Routledge innovations in policing
In: Routledge innovations in policing
"This book focuses on a border police collaboration project in the Baltic Sea area aiming at fighting cross-border crimes. It deals with the challenges that inherently "suspicious" organizations face when forced to work together. The study offers unique insights into a European border police project, giving the reader a behind the scenes account of how cross-border policing and organized crime in Europe is prevented and solved. Through detailed ethnographic descriptions, the book describes how a trust-based relationship, which is necessary for the exchange of sensitive intelligence information, gradually developed by the participants in and through their joint efforts to protect Europe from external threats and by performing everyday work together. The study presented in this book is of interest to scholars as well as practitioners concerned with migration management, border policing, intelligence analysis, police culture, and the changing nature of policing in an increasingly global and interconnected world. The book includes various sociological features, such as emotion management, emotional labor, hegemonic masculinity, and takes an interactionist perspective on informal interactions such as joking, bantering, and telling stories. It is also of interest to readers engaged in various forms of intra-, inter-organizational, and inter-cultural collaborations"--
In: Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism: JPICT, Band 18, Heft 2, S. 174-188
ISSN: 2159-5364
In: Routledge innovations in policing
The risks and insecurities emphasised in contemporary societies have given rise to diverse forms of policing, such as transnational and intelligence-based police collaborations. This dissertation focuses on a border police collaboration project, called Turnstone, that took place between 2014 and 2015, aiming to address issues related to irregular migration and cross border crimes in the Baltic Sea areas. The purpose of this study is to provide a community of practice perspective on cross- border police collaboration drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with a number of intelligence police, coast-guard, and border guard officers from Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden. The study illustrates the everyday interactions as well as the formal processes and practices that have generated a trust-based collaborative environment, which is necessary for sharing secret intelligence information. Increasing demands of collaboration places the officers in an ambivalent position: their neighbouring countries are both their work partners and the "source" of the cross-border criminals. Two processes account for the emergence of a community of practice: 1) the development of a common linguistic repertoire (a set of norms and values that served as guidelines for streamlining and guiding the pursuit of their joint daily activities), and 2) the actors' engaging in what they consider "real police work". The study shows how the participants are at pains to reconcile between these two demands: "real police work" involving "action" and aiming at catching criminals, versus formal work practices, such as attending formal meetings and writing reports, thereby catering to bureaucratic needs. By focusing on their joint activities organized during the project (referred to as Power Weeks), the study shows how a trust-based relationship, which is necessary for the exchange of culturally, politically and professionally sensitive information, has gradually developed by the participants in and through their joint engagement in these everyday practices. The study highlights the importance of both informal face-to-face encounters and more formal processes in the development of the group as an entity. The findings of this study suggest that working together, attending formal meetings, producing reports, sharing sensitive information, and profiling suspects are equally important as the informal after-work activities. The Power Weeks included various episodes of telling stories and sharing jokes and this has proved to a be a fertile context for generating trust, knowledge, and innovative work practices. The study emphasises the relevance of community of practice for understanding how participants from different organizational and cultural contexts brought together in a project can develop a collaborative environment around sensitive issues.
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The risks and insecurities emphasised in contemporary societies have given rise to diverse forms of policing, such as transnational and intelligence-based police collaborations. This dissertation focuses on a border police collaboration project, called Turnstone, that took place between 2014 and 2015, aiming to address issues related to irregular migration and cross border crimes in the Baltic Sea areas. The purpose of this study is to provide a community of practice perspective on cross- border police collaboration drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with a number of intelligence police, coast-guard, and border guard officers from Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden. The study illustrates the everyday interactions as well as the formal processes and practices that have generated a trust-based collaborative environment, which is necessary for sharing secret intelligence information. Increasing demands of collaboration places the officers in an ambivalent position: their neighbouring countries are both their work partners and the "source" of the cross-border criminals. Two processes account for the emergence of a community of practice: 1) the development of a common linguistic repertoire (a set of norms and values that served as guidelines for streamlining and guiding the pursuit of their joint daily activities), and 2) the actors' engaging in what they consider "real police work". The study shows how the participants are at pains to reconcile between these two demands: "real police work" involving "action" and aiming at catching criminals, versus formal work practices, such as attending formal meetings and writing reports, thereby catering to bureaucratic needs. By focusing on their joint activities organized during the project (referred to as Power Weeks), the study shows how a trust-based relationship, which is necessary for the exchange of culturally, politically and professionally sensitive information, has gradually developed by the participants in and through their joint engagement in these everyday practices. The study highlights the importance of both informal face-to-face encounters and more formal processes in the development of the group as an entity. The findings of this study suggest that working together, attending formal meetings, producing reports, sharing sensitive information, and profiling suspects are equally important as the informal after-work activities. The Power Weeks included various episodes of telling stories and sharing jokes and this has proved to a be a fertile context for generating trust, knowledge, and innovative work practices. The study emphasises the relevance of community of practice for understanding how participants from different organizational and cultural contexts brought together in a project can develop a collaborative environment around sensitive issues.
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In: Policing and society: an international journal of research and policy, Band 32, Heft 9, S. 1103-1123
ISSN: 1477-2728
The purpose of this ethnographic study is to analyse the collaborative work among intelligence and operative personnel from different border authorities in Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. The aim of this article is to illustrate and discuss how transnational/interorganisational police identities and trust come into being through officers sharing a construction of specific significant 'other' – in this case that of 'Russian spies/crooks'. Cross border collaboration among police organisations is made difficult as police officers tend to be suspicious of outsiders and colleagues that they have not yet worked with. In this study, we explore how trust among a specific group of officers was however built by contrasting themselves against not (just) criminals but an enemy that could be found among them or have an influence over their colleagues, namely Russia or Russian spies. We refer to this category as 'normdissolving Russian'. This category included concepts such as being a spy, a criminal and a potential military threat, and became a sort of 'Other' that reinforced their own in-group bonds. Intelligence and operative personnel present in the analysed collaborative sequences create their professional identities by contrasting themselves with these categories. Drawing on ritual theory as well as symbolic interactionism this article discusses how an in-group feeling and idea of a higher moral order was created and recreated during their collaborative work. Morality is thus created and recreated in the encounter with people that are associated with being the 'enemy', present in the situation both in physical and invisible form. ; Bibliografiskt granskad ; Definitions of successful intelligence and operational police work
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The risks and insecurities emphasised in contemporary societies have given rise to diverse forms of policing, such as transnational, intelligence- and operative-based police collaborations. The purpose of this ethnographic study is to analyse the collaborative work among intelligence and operative personnel from different border authorities in Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. The focus of this study is how the collaboration activities created an in-group mentality among the participating officers which was contrasted with another category, that of the "norm-dissolving Russian". This category included concepts such as being a spy, a criminal and a potential military threat, and became a sort of "Other" that reinforced their own in-group bonds. Intelligence and operative personnel present in the analysed collaborative sequences create their professional identities by contrasting themselves with these categories. They build up a kind of group feeling and present a particular moral order that is created and re-created during their collaborative work. The norm-stable and the threatening norm-dissolving moralities are created within the interaction – especially when meeting work groups that differ from their own normative code. Morality is thus created and re-created in the encounter with people that are associated with being the "enemy", present in the situation both in physical and invisible form. ; Definitions of successful intelligence and operational police work Successful collaboration
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The risks and insecurities emphasised in contemporary societies have given rise to diverse forms of policing, such as transnational, intelligence- and operative-based police collaborations. The purpose of this ethnographic study is to analyse the collaborative work among intelligence and operative personnel from different border authorities in Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. The focus of this study is how the collaboration activities created an in-group mentality among the participating officers which was contrasted with another category, that of the "norm-dissolving Russian". This category included concepts such as being a spy, a criminal and a potential military threat, and became a sort of "Other" that reinforced their own in-group bonds. Intelligence and operative personnel present in the analysed collaborative sequences create their professional identities by contrasting themselves with these categories. They build up a kind of group feeling and present a particular moral order that is created and re-created during their collaborative work. The norm-stable and the threatening norm-dissolving moralities are created within the interaction – especially when meeting work groups that differ from their own normative code. Morality is thus created and re-created in the encounter with people that are associated with being the "enemy", present in the situation both in physical and invisible form. ; Police Education: Altius – Fortius – Diutius, 8th Nordic Police Research Conference, Police University College, Tampere, Finland (20210614-202106116). "Anomie and collaboration in intelligence and operational police and border guard work in the Baltic Sea area: In-group mentality and construction of the Other". Goran Basic & Sophia Yakhlef. ; Definitions of successful intelligence and operational police work ; Successful collaboration
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Recent events in Europe concerning the large influx of irregular migrants and re-implementation of bordercontrols have drawn our attention towards European migration management and border politics. Border officers claim that they must rely on cooperation to perform their duties of border guarding. In 2014 acollaborative project initiated by the Stockholm County Police, Border Division in Sweden wascommenced. The project was partly funded by the European commission. The participants were borderpolice and border authorities in Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Sweden. This is a qualitative study based on empirically gathered material such as field interviews with border officers and fieldworkobservations. This study suggests that the border officers re-negotiate spatial and cultural identities to makecooperation possible creating new distinctions and boundaries of "us and them". The border officers areunited in their views and efforts to protect EU territory and Schengen space from criminal activity butsome express ambivalence towards categories of "criminals" concerning irregular migrants. At the sametime, cooperation and increased social interaction stimulate the officers to create new categories of "us andthem"; those who you know personally trust and those whom you do not know and cannot trust. Earlierdistinctions between the east (the former soviet states such as Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia) and the west (Sweden and Finland) are in some ways diminished through interaction and close cooperation. Instead, the Baltic Sea officers create distinctions between themselves and southern European countries regardingwork methods, general attitude, opinions, and efficiency.
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Project Turnstone is a collaborative project partly funded by the European Commission. The project is an initiative by the Stockholm Police. Collaborating partners in the project are the Swedish Coast Guard; Region Northeast, the Helsinki Police, the Gulf of Finland Coast Guard District, the Police and Border Guard Board in Estonia, the State Border Guard of the Republic of Latvia, and the State Border Guard Service at the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Lithuania. The aim of this project is to decrease trans-boundary criminality and improve day-today cooperation between border officers in the Baltic Sea region. This study analyses this collaborative project and especially the operative joint activities conducted during the implementation of project Turnstone. What is unique about the Turnstone model of working is the implementation of the operative action week where officers have the chance of exchanging, sharing, and cooperating with immediate action in the same office using their own channels of information. The purpose of the study is to map and analyse how the staff of the different organizations experience, understand, and define successful cooperation and collaboration obstacles encountered during cooperation with neighbouring organizations. The study is qualitative and based on ethnographically gathered material such as field observations at the different border agencies and qualitative interviews. 73 interviews were conducted with border police officers, police officers, border guards, and coast guard officers from the participating organizations. The findings suggest that interviewed officers see Project Turnstone as a rare opportunity for close, personal cooperation where officers can build strong police, border, and coast guard networks and increase and strengthen previous cooperating practices. This is due to colocation and interpersonal interaction where officers can learn about each other's organizational practices, establish trust, and achieve the same goals. On the other hand, collaboration obstacles were also raised, such as language and communication difficulties, differences in national legislations, and fear that the opportunities for joint action weeks and close cooperation will diminish after the termination of project Turnstone. Despite these obstacles, interviewed officers share a common sense of purpose and motivation and see close interpersonal cooperation as the best way of protecting the EU and Schengen area from criminality in the Baltic Sea area.
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In: Qualitative sociology review: QSR, Band 16, Heft 3, S. 70-84
ISSN: 1733-8077
Meetings are common in contemporary working life, but they are often overlooked in academic studies and sometimes defined as empty or boring by employees. Yet, the meeting society is being reproduced again and again. There seem to be hidden ways to incorporate meetings into today's working life without arousing critique about pointless activities and deviations from what should really be done. One strategy was illustrated in a study of a transnational police project. Police culture celebrates visible crime fighting, which is associated with action, physical toughness, and capturing criminals. The police officers involved in the project emphasized the need to avoid "a lot of meetings," but de facto constructed their project as meetings. Nonetheless, the project was declared a success. We analyze this paradox in terms of boundary work concerning meetings; the police officers turned some meetings into "real police work" by discursively and practically removing them from the category of bureaucracy and its associations with formalities, rigidity, and documentation. The most important example is how an "operational action group meeting" was renamed "power weeks," eradicating the very word "meeting" from the term. This was closely associated with increased informality and multi-tasking during these gatherings.
"Collaboration" is generally portrayed as being beneficial to intelligence and operational police work, even if previous collaborative research shows that conflicts are common between authorities who are supposed to cooperate. The present study focuses on how officers collaborate in their day-to-day management of borderguarding, taking into consideration the different social and cultural backgrounds of the project participants. To these ends, this qualitative, ethnographically study is based on empirical material gathered from interviews, field observation sessions with officers working at the Baltic Sea border agencies and documents. The findings suggest that, although collaboration is burdened with bureaucratic difficulties, there is a common understanding of purpose among the project participants. These border officers' common declared their objective is to fight criminality and createa safer Europe. However, the participants possessing different organizational and cultural backgrounds have to adapt to adopta common language (in officers' terms EU-English), common schemes of categorizing (inside-outside distinctions), and develop a sense of trust and identity. Collaboration is claimed by the informants, and is best achieved through getting involved ineveryday practices. They worked side by side, and spent free time together rather than following bureaucratic rules and regulations. ; Definitions of successful intelligence and operational police work
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"Collaboration" is generally portrayed as being beneficial to intelligence and operational police work, even if previous collaborative research shows that conflicts are common between authorities who are supposed to cooperate. The present study focuses on how officers collaborate in their day-to-day management of border guarding, taking into consideration the different social and cultural backgrounds of the project participants. To these ends, this qualitative, ethnographically study is based on empirical material gathered from interviews, field observation sessions with officers working at the Baltic Sea border agencies and documents. The findings suggest that, although collaboration is burdened with bureaucratic difficulties, there is a common understanding of purpose among the project participants. These border officers' common declared their objective is to fight criminality and create a safer Europe. However, the participants possessing different organizational and cultural backgrounds have to adapt to adopt a common language (in officers' terms EU-English), common schemes of categorizing (inside-outside distinctions), and develop a sense of trust and identity. Collaboration is claimed by the informants, and is best achieved through getting involved in everyday practices. They worked side by side, and spent free time together rather than following bureaucratic rules and regulations.
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