Researching counterterrorism: a critical perspective from the field in the light of allegations and findings of covert activities by undercover police officers

Abstract

The article addresses some of the key issues that are raised for researchers engaging with counterterrorism police officers and initiatives, when undertaking research. A significant area to explore in this context is, in fact, the issue of relationships with counterterrorism police officers who may themselves directly have been covert police officers in the past and/or who may be continuing in their current, apparently more open, role (wittingly or otherwise) as agents of broader state strategies of exploiting trust for intelligence-gathering purposes. This article suggests that it is important for researchers to understand that working within the counterterrorism field involves degrees and shades of risk in the service of trust-building, sensitivity and the empowerment of communities, and that researchers themselves can (wittingly and unwittingly) be part of wider strategies instigated by security-minded individuals or groups of counterterrorism police officers. Reflecting upon the research that we have undertaken individually and collectively over the last number of years, in the light of the most recent spate of allegations about counterterrorism police officers infiltrating activist and political protest groups, having sexual relationships, and indeed, on occasion, children, with women whilst undercover and of potentially working to entrap vulnerable individuals into planning terrorist acts, this article raises questions around trust, credibility, legitimacy, the prevalence and near unavoidability of dysfunctional agendas and the implications of all of the above for community-based approaches to counterterrorism.

Keywords:

• counterterrorism
• policing
• research
• trust

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Corrigendum

Notes

^1. In Northern Ireland it has been demonstrated that counterterrorism police officers have been involved in murder by, for example, the Stevens 3 Inquiry public statement (2003), the OPONI Operation Ballast report (2007) Cassel and others (2006), Cory (2004), O’Brien (2005), McKay (2007), and, most recently, by the De Silva report (2012).

^2. In the words of long-standing policing expert, Peter K. Manning (1977, 103): “The police have staked out a vast and unmanageable social domain. And what has happened as a result of their inability to accomplish their self proclaimed mandate is that the police have resorted to the manipulation of appearances”. See also Mulcahy and Ellison (2001), Loader and Mulcahy (2001) and Mulcahy (2000).

^3. Note, for example, the allegations that family liaison officers dealing with the Lawrence family after the murder of their son, were co-opted, knowingly or unknowingly, to a very different agenda whereby their notes and reports of who was coming and going in the Lawrence household were passed to special intelligence officers to add to their information base and/or make their own intelligence assessments thereon.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Basia Spalek

Basia Spalek is Professor in Social Policy at Kingston University. Basia has extensive research, evaluation, training and consultation experience on issues of social and community cohesion and integration, understanding multi-cultural and multi-faith societies, cross-cultural dialogue and exchange, and community-based approaches to security and extreme forms of violence. Basia has written, edited and co-edited nine books and has written over 30 research papers. Basia has also led many international, national and local research projects and consultations for work. She is also a co-director of “ConnectJustice”, an organisation which researches, evaluates, trains and facilitates communities and states experiencing social and political conflicts. Basia is also a psychotherapist.

Mary O’Rawe

Mary O’Rawe is a barrister and senior law lecturer at the University of Ulster. She has researched and published extensively in the field of policing and human rights, particularly in transitional societies. Mary has experience as an NGO activist, legal advisor and as a human rights consultant to a number of official policing and other criminal justice bodies and processes. She is currently acting for the Senior Coroner of Northern Ireland in relation to a series of high-profile conflict legacy inquests dating back to the 1980s.