Page 34 - 1Proactive Policing

Pro-Active Policing

expose the abuse. If it were thoroughly exposed it would certainly generate as scandal. Common
man thinks about law enforcement as street policing – helping citizens, responding and solving

crimes. There is another hidden side of policing. It examines the phenomena in various contexts
without fear eliciting or sensational language like tyranny, police state, new world order,
dictatorship, etc. – it‘s not something new – it‘s been around for ages. It‘s another way to define

organized stalking – as one of the examples of high policing.

Policing political activities is usually regarded as deviant police action. The deviance approach
focuses on police abuse, which is deemed to be secretive and to confuse legitimate dissent with
political delinquency, such as terrorism. I take issue with the deviance approach and attempt to

replace it by distinguishing between high policing and low policing models of police action.
Political policing is then seen as a core feature of high policing instead of merely being a

suspicious peripheral aspect of the police apparatus. I also argue that mainly through
technological change, western police forces are increasingly operating under the high policing
model.

The term ―high policing‖ was introduced into English language police studies by Canadian
criminologist Jean-Paul Brodeur in a 1983. The term ―high policing‖ refers to the fact that such

policing benefits the ―higher‖ interests of the government rather than individual citizens or the
mass population. It also refers to the fact that high-policing organizations are endowed with
authority and legal powers superior to that of other types of police organizations. There is no

conventional designation for this category of policing in liberal democracies, however, and it
should not be conflated with secret police, although secret police organizations do use high

policing methods. Calling it ―secret‖ or ―political‖ policing is too vague since all police work is
somewhat secret. High policing has an extremely high potential for abuse. There is a tendency,
even in democratic countries, for high policing organizations to abuse their powers or even to

operate outside the law because many organizations involved in high policing are granted
extensive legal powers, including immunity from prosecution for acts that are criminal under

normal circumstances.

Peelian Principles:

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