NCJ Number
79379
Journal
Criminology Volume: 19 Issue: 2 Dated: (August 1981) Pages: 231-250
Date Published
1981
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This article seeks to clarify the meaning of deviance by and within organizations engaged in political policing, to point out the structural sources of such deviance, and to assess the potential impact of various proposals for preventing or stopping such deviance.
Abstract
Deviance in political policing usually occurs either as demonstrable violations of legal rules or as blameworthy failures to accomplish organizational objectives. Any conception of legal deviance in political policing inevitably clashes with the fact that such organizations are invented to prevent radical political changes. Political policing agencies are assigned the specific task of detecting and neutralizing any present or potential deviations from the ground rules of conventional politics. The generous formal authorizations for political policing are supplemented by secret directives that spell out what may be only implicit in the authorizations: political and military considerations override any legal or ethical ones. Thus, it is quite possible for the same practice to be sometimes legal and sometimes illegal--depending upon what is required and the political consequences of disclosure. Tactics of secrecy and scapegoating to avoid the perils of external scrutiny are supplemented by applying the principles of need-to-know and plausible deniability. The demand for results regardless of methods makes legal deviance inevitable and behavioral deviance very probable. Moreover, deviance in political policing is very unlikely to be inhibited significantly by legal reforms or public politics. However, organizational changes are likely to have some impact. These organizational changes include redefining goals, closer formal monitoring, separating functions, and improving personnel management. Two notes and about 17 references are included. (Author abstract modified)