Europe: A New Police Terrain (1) Justifications

Abstract

The development of a notion of ‘permanent security deficit’ has been crucial in helping to determine and, as we argue, restructure police work in the new Europe. Within the context of the steps towards European union, no matter has been more the subject of intense discussion and debate than that of border controls: it has had an ‘activating presence’ (a term borrowed from Bauman 1978). The removal of border controls and their relationship to the ‘threats’ of illegal immigration and cross-border crime have structured this internal security field (Bourdieu 1989). Much of this is termed ‘new’ and is itself the product of the creation of institutions to ‘deal with’ these perceived ‘new threats’. At the heart of this restructuring are processes of ‘linking and glossing’, whereby separate activities of drug trafficking, terrorism, money-laundering, illegal immmigration, extreme right movements and football hooliganism are assembled into a causal ‘field of intervention’.