Does police work need a police institution? The evidence from Mogadishu

Abstract

What happens to the organisation and activity of public policing when the institutions and processes on which it is seemingly predicated for existence and opportunity fragment? This article uses the experience of a paradigmatically weak police force – in this case, Mogadishu's Somali Police Force (SPF) – to question two aspects of police studies orthodoxy: that (1) police work is dependent on a police institution and (2) discipline and formality are key to structuring and understanding everyday police work. The SPF's record shows that the critical variables affecting police work are security levels, legacy issues and functional skills, rather than institutional resources, discipline or formality. Institutional resources are desirable, but do not necessarily play a significant role in influencing, co-ordinating or regulating officers' behaviour or goals, while the discipline and formality associated with ranks and uniforms are optional, rather than essential. The SPF's experience is extreme, yet the insight it offers into the relative importance of institutional resources, hierarchy and discipline for everyday police work has analytical and empirical implications for police studies more broadly.

Keywords:

• discipline
• Mogadishu
• police institution
• state-building

Acknowledgements

Special thanks are due to the UNDP's Rule of Law programme in Somalia, which supported the fieldwork underpinning this article, and to Jan Beek and Mirco Göpfert of the Department of Anthropology and African Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany. The views expressed are, however, mine alone.

Notes

1. Manning addresses the structural features of Anglo-American policing, rather than the relationship of dependency at the heart of this article, but his perspective is typical of scholars now working on international or comparative policing. Compare Bayley (1985) which discusses variability in police work in nine Western and Asian states and is arguably a better fit. However, Bayley's analysis is predicated on his research on ‘national police institutions’ and emphasises the publicness, specialisation and professionalisation he associates with ‘modern policing’. To his credit, Bayley notes that his evidence base is, inevitably, uneven, and ‘the propositions developed cannot be considered conclusive’ (1985, p. 16).

2. It was not possible to visit Mogadishu, but interviews were held in Nairobi with the Transitional Federal Government's police commissioner and director general of the Ministry of the Interior, as well as with past and current members of Mogadishu's Police Advisory Committee, either in person or by telephone. Background details were discussed with relevant Somali administrative staff and cross-checked against news reports (there are dozens of Somali news websites providing almost real-time updates).

3. The precise number of active officers is not known. Compare the case of the Nigeria Police Force where senior officers refer to 400,000 officers whereas consultants engaged by the Ministry of Police Affairs to set up an e-payment platform quote 297,000. According to newspaper reports in late 2010, NPF accounts include some 20,000 ghost officers.

4. This distinguishes the Somali experience from that of the alternative policing providers analysed in, e.g. Findlay and Zvekić (1993).

5. In 2009, a 17-month delay in paying the SPF meant that many police defected to insurgent groups who paid $10 a day (UNDP-SSA 2009).

6. The UNDP has supported the rebuilding or refurbishment of Mogadishu's stations, many of which now have better facilities than their equivalent in Puntland, but the existence of a station does not in itself signify a meaningful police presence. Compare, e.g. the SPF's achievement in keeping between four and six stations open throughout the wars with the reluctance of police in Somaliland and Puntland to operate in remote or coastal areas. Working from isolated stations and posts leaves officers vulnerable to attack, and their presence away from the main towns and tarmac roads is accordingly minimal. Puntland's Ministry of Security and DDR may have responded to international concerns about piracy by constructing three outpost stations along the northern coast towards the commercial capital of Bossaso in 2011, but none had equipment, furniture or officers.

7. There are no known analyses of police–military relations, and the only accounts of police institution-building are Ganzglass (1996), Thomas and Spataro (1998) and Perito (2002, pp. 27–35). Renders (2012) addresses police development in Somaliland in passing, rather than in detail.

8. For Somali swarm tactics, see Kilcullen (2013, pp. 81–86).

9. This affects postings and, no doubt, working practices (PAC official, interview, Nairobi, 15 Sep 2011). There are no known analyses of officers’ backgrounds, but in 2011 interviewees consistently emphasised the need for recruitment and appointments to be based on clan-based trust, rather than on merit, equality or diversity. The composition of Somali governments is similarly determined by an accepted formula for clan balance, and the city's police oversight committee is recruited according to trust-based clan calculations (PAC Official, interview, 15 Sep 2011; compare SomaliaReport 2011).

10. Compare the mayor of Mogadishu's recommendation that ‘any captured AL [sic] Shabaab members must be stoned to death on the place they are captured, they don't need to be taken to custody’ (Hiiraan Online 2014).