Policy Brief Exercise: Anti-Terrorist Policing

Introduction
This case study exercise is designed to combine and develop both
academic and professional skills. It will involve working in small groups so
as to develop a real-life policy brief relating to anti-terrorist policing. It will
then involve group presentations to communicate these policy briefs to
the rest of the seminar.
Resources
In this case study exercise you are given a narrative outlining a policy
problem relating to anti-terrorist policing (see below). The narrative
revolves around a fictitious character called Carlos, who is Secretary of
State for Homeland Security in a nameless country. You are also directed
towards two supplementary readings, which will serve to provide some
useful background to the case study. Although neither reading is digitised,
both are available as ejournals through the library website and can
therefore be accessed easily.
Task
The seminar will be divided into groups of either 4 or 5 people. In your
groups, you will be required to put yourselves in the position of Carlos and
his policy advisors and produce a two-page briefing paper on policing
reform. This briefing paper must set out three options for reforming the
overstretched police force described in the narrative.
This is an
experimental task, so be inventive and think creatively: consider of all the
different actors and agencies, both state and non-state, which could be
drawn into your proposals, and think about how they could then be joined
up. You should also be aware of the counter-arguments to policing reform
outlined in the case study.
You are required to email your two page
briefing paper to me in advance of the seminar in week 7. You are also
required to summarise your briefing paper on a powerpoint presentation,
which you must bring along to the seminar in week 7. Then, during this
seminar, one or two members of your group will be given 10 minutes to
present your briefing paper to the rest of the class, using your powerpoint
presentation. The two-page briefing papers will subsequently be used as
the basis for a further evaluation exercise during the seminar in week 8.
The premise of this additional exercise is that groups will be given the
opportunity to evaluate the proposals of the other groups.
Guidance Questions
During the process of putting your briefing paper together, it may be
helpful to consider some of the following questions:

What are the advantages of your policy proposals?

Who benefits from your policy proposals?

What are the disadvantages of your policy proposals?

Who loses out from your policy proposals?
From what perspective are you defining the policy problem?
Do your proposals draw upon top-down or bottom-up governance
methods?
Do your proposals have implications for the democratic accountability
and legitimacy of policing?
How will inter-organisational collaboration be maintained across your
policing network?
How will you define the success of your policy proposals?
How will you measure the success of your policy proposals?

Case Study Narrative: Carlos Dilemma

Carlos re-read the newspaper article that had been placed on his untidy
desk. The opening paragraph was circled with a bold red marker pen,
which meant it wasnt good news. The paragraph read as follows:

Office workers in the Northquay industrial complex were today

evacuated after cleaners found a suspicious package in a wastepaper
basket. The bomb-squad were rushed in and safely defused the
package, which was identified as a low-tech explosive device. But
despite the removal of the bomb without incident, the evacuated
office workers voiced much criticism towards the handling of the
situation, calling attention to the fact that the police had been
notified on numerous occasions of suspicious activity in the complex
over the previous few days. One senior manager said: I telephoned
the police twice last week to tell them that there were men behaving
strangely on the site, but they never followed it up. This whole bomb
scare shouldnt have happened.

Carlos rubbed his tired eyes. This was a mess. Eighteen months ago he
had, in his capacity as Secretary of State for Homeland Security, approved
the contracting out of vital government security intelligence work to
Infocorp., the high-tech IT management consultancy whose wastepaper
basket had been filled with explosive materials earlier on today. It was a
controversial decision, contracting out this intelligence work. Yet so many
of the other Ministries had successfully contracted out their functions in
order to balance their ever-shrinking budgets that he had thought or at
least he had hoped that this Infocorp. contract would follow the same
pattern. But then this was very sensitive intelligence work, so maybe in
retrospect the line shouldve been drawn. Maybe this sort of work should
only be done by the state. Maybe not.

Where were the police?, Carlos angrily exclaimed out-loud, as he

slammed the newspaper back on his desk. Almost half of his Ministrys
budget was pumped into the police forces, he thought, and for what? If
only theyd have done their job properly, this incriminating newspaper
article wouldnt be circled red on his desk and he wouldnt have to answer
to this in Parliament tomorrow morning. Why hadnt the police followed
up on these two telephone calls, especially on the site where Infocorp.
were based? But he already knew the answer to his question. The police
were over-stretched. Hed known this for years now. Ever since the socalled War on Terror was announced, this old-fashioned, centralised and
under-funded institution simply didnt have the man-power and expertise
to respond to every telephone call reporting suspicious terrorist activity.
There were so many terrorist sightings these days it was depressing. The
population, it seemed, was reaching new heights of paranoia. These
terrorist networks appeared to be everywhere at once. How on earth were
the police supposed to cope?

Carlos stared out of the window for a while, focusing on the ornate
Parliament building where the opposition party would joyfully tear him to
pieces tomorrow morning over this. Dread was sinking in. Was his job on
the line? After twelve years as a loyal and distinguished public servant,
was this how it was going to end? The Prime Minister wasnt going to be
happy, that was for sure. With his Partys slim majority in Parliament and
a general election coming up, the PM was liable to explode anytime,
especially when security-related problems came to his attention. Ever
since the PM had signed-up the country to the War on Terror (foolishly in
Carlos opinion) he had re-cast himself as a quasi-military leader, which in
turn meant that issues relating to national security were now more
politically charged than ever. The PM had made it clear to him on
numerous occasions that security screw-ups werent going to be tolerated.
And now this had happened. This was bad news indeed. Carlos
depressing thoughts were then suddenly interrupted by a loud knock at
the door.
He prayed it wasnt Malone, the PMs Director of
Communications, entering with a summons to the PMs office.
Fortunately, it was Helena, his favourite Junior Minister and most trusted
policy advisor. She looked determined.

Whats going on out there?, Carlos said, glancing nervously at the hive of
activity he could see through his partially opened office door.

Ive got them digging out all of our old policy papers for reforming the
police, Helena replied. You know the ones. Four years ago we said the
police forces werent ready to deal with these new terrorist networks. And

we were right. We need a policing network

network, not a centralised police force, like we
Thats how we should deal with the opposition
our police reforms and now this has happened.
that.

to combat the terrorist

proposed in the reforms.
tomorrow. They blocked
They need to answer to

Carlos remembered the policing reform debates well. The opposition had
put together a very effective campaign objecting to the policing reforms
using the classic civil liberties argument. Their position was that the
creation of a policing network through the decentralisation of core state
policing activities to the private sector, community organisations and
other intermediate public service providers would create a surveillance
society in which peoples civil liberties would be violated at every turn.
Police work should be done by the police and no-one else, they argued,
and should be accountable directly to Parliament. At the time, the public
agreed with this analysis and Carlos had lost this particular battle, much
to his and his Partys embarrassment. Helena was right though: now was
the time to re-enter these debates. Perhaps, with a bit of luck and skilful
political manoeuvring, he could potentially turn this Infocorp. situation into
a victory for his Party.

Bring in the best policy advisors you can find and order an enormous
Chinese takeaway, Carlos said with renewed enthusiasm. Use my credit
card. Were going to work all night on getting these reform proposals right
if we have to!

Supplementary Readings

Shearing, C. And Wood, J. (2003) Nodal Governance, Democracy and the

New Denizens, Journal of Law and Society 30(3), 400-419.
This article outlines a futuristic vision of what security provision could look
like in years to come, where the state is just one actor among many in a
pluralised security network. Used alongside the concepts of new public
management, central strategic capacity, regulation, public-private
partnerships and delegation, this article is a good source of ideas about
where to take policing reform within the context of the case study above.

Zedner, L. (2003) Too Much Security?, International Journal of the

Sociology of Law 31, 155-184.
This article questions whether or not the pluralisation of security is
actually a good thing. It asks whether the proliferation of security

providers in contemporary society serves to enhance the safety of citizens

or whether it actually compromises their liberties. This article can
therefore be used to develop a clearer idea about what the objections to
police reform might be, particularly in the context of the case study above
where the opposition Party object to policing reform on similar grounds.