Security Theatre

Police ballet in Vinohrady calls bigger questions to mind



There is a nightly ballet in Prague 2, but it doesn’t take place at Divadlo Na Vinohradech (Vinohrady Theatre).

Instead, the stars are police, tow-truck drivers and city officials, and the setting is the not-so-mean streets of Mánesova, Polská, Blanická and Anny Letenské.
Hunting in packs, police seek out cars that violate Prague 2 parking restrictions. The orange, flashing lights of the trucks and the attending police and city officials would need only to be accompanied by music to create a performance worthy of homage to Karlheinz Stockhausen, the avant-garde German composer.

At first glance, the Prague 2 authorities’ efforts to address the parking situation seem laudable. However, their efforts form part of a wider security trend, which is altogether more worrying.The tow trucks are often augmented by state police who stop drivers and dish out on-the-spot fines for minor violations. Walking through this melee, a visitor would likely draw conflicting conclusions about the state of security in Vinohrady.

On one hand, actions are being taken in the name of safety, order and the rule of the law, so it would be hard not to feel like this is not a terribly safe place. But, since Vinohrady seems like such a peaceful and affluent neighborhood, why do police devote so many resources to this job, particularly when there are so many news reports about serious and organized crime?
What if the very presence of large numbers of police uniforms on the streets actually perpetuates the problem rather than helping with the solution?

You have probably heard of the popular “broken windows” police policy, which calls for police and residents to deal with small problems like graffiti and broken windows right away to reduce the likelihood that more serious crimes will be committed. It’s used in much of the United States these days as one of the basic tenets of community policing.

But the broken windows policy is also controversial and highly disputed. The jury is still out on whether this kind of policing works, despite well-publicized claims that it does from former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his law enforcement chief, Ray Bratton.

It may be that the criminality in the United States is decreasing for other reasons, as argued in Freakonomics, a book by renowned economist Steven Levitt, who argues that the social demographics of the United States in the post Roe v. Wade era are a more significant determinant of crime than any method of policing. Levitt illustrates the correlation between those sectors of society that are most likely to exhibit criminal behavior and those seeking abortions. Controversially, yet compellingly, Levitt argues that those who were committing the crimes are simply no longer being born.

Whatever your opinion on the merits of this particular argument, it demonstrates that “law and order” politicians such as Giuliani are willing to claim credit for their methods without considering the wider factors at work or the potential ramifications of their policies.
If, in British parlance, getting more “bobbies on the beat” may not be effective in actually reducing crimes, what would justify this massive investment of resources in Prague?

Perceptions of crime and perceptions of safety are often quoted as indicators of the success or failure of policing strategies and as providing guidance for future action. The British Government Crime Survey is just one example of perception based research that is used to support the demand for more street-level policing.
If we go back to our example of the Vinohrady visitor, what is the actual effect of the orange and blue lights, two sets of police uniforms and the massed vehicular presence?

First, the visitor may think something serious has happened, which is unsettling in any neighborhood, let alone in the relative peace and affluence of Vinohrady. Although the visitor would soon realize there’s nothing wrong, a second impression may then take hold — the possibility of being in the wrong, of being caught and being punished by the temporary removal of property or the issuing of monetary penalties.

This would likely be disturbing, since money and property are everyone’s ultimate goals in the currently dominant value system. If you increase the threat of removing my car, especially through the application of opaque or complex rules, it makes me feel uneasy. It also gives me the feeling that it could well be me next who is “in the wrong” and has to deal with police.
So this is the heart of the point:

“In the absence of existential comfort, people settle for the pretense of safety,” notes sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, in his book Liquid Times.
Bauman goes on to show how the globalized consumer capitalist system causes a general existential insecurity. The expendable nature of labor, the constant shifts in trends and the apparent disconnect between the real economy and global financial markets give an impression of unknowable and uncontrollable forces at work on our lives.

People attempt to mitigate this by grasping for personal safety in their surroundings and by demanding that politicians recognize their position as potential victims. From the top, this is manifested in public displays of strength, from parking armored vehicles outside of airports to the previously mentioned street-level policing, even if parking and traffic violations are not a major threat to the well-being of most consumers.

From the bottom up, the growth in the number of closed-circuit TV cameras, people adding fortifications to their homes and businesses, and more people participating in self-defense and martial arts classes are all examples of what people do to try to increase their personal safety. They also withdraw from public transport in favor of isolating themselves in their own cars, the better to avoid interacting with any dangerous outside elements.

There are certainly clear dangers in contemporary society — from large-scale terrorism and fights between mafia gangs to the elusive yet pervasive presence of pickpockets invading our personal space.

But are street-level policing measures actually providing us with greater security? Or are they just providing us with the pretense of safety?
It is the contention of Bauman, and many others, that these safety measures — while justifying law and order politics — can actually have detrimental effects to our collective well-being. They create an existential insecurity, even if nominal (and often short-lived) safety gains are made.
This happens for two reasons.

First, the perception created by these visible safety actions may give you the idea that there are myriad potential dangers to you, your family and your property. Those dangers are lying in wait for the moment you drop your guard.

If these dangers really exist, we must strengthen our own safety measures and keep our guard up at all times. This fuels the inherently competitive nature of the prevailing system, with a race to safety and the perceived need to do your protective duty — to yourself, your family and your property. This only accelerates the perceptions of fear themselves, which are compounded by the governmental security theater described above. It creates a vicious cycle.
Fundamentally, these measures make us all less safe, as they encourage the disparity of wealth and power that we currently see.

The Czech Republic has not gone as far down this road as many American and West European societies, but once the journey starts, it develops momentum and accelerates in a way that becomes difficult to stop, let alone reverse.
Czech society’s innate civility can be a powerful bulwark against this declining solidarity, which actually leaves us more vulnerable to the real dangers that do threaten our security and our safety.

But these qualities will only be useful if harnessed by people, communities, institutions and the government. This requires leadership.
In the current vacuum of vision that characterizes not only the Czech Republic but also large political swaths worldwide, the security agenda is a powerful and expedient, legitimate tool for power.

With that last thought — let me illustrate how this affects us all on a large scale.
The plan for the United States to build a radar system on Czech soil to monitor potential missile threats from “enemy” countries is a discussion about security. While the radar system seems to offer the promise of safety, the plans have already succeeded in antagonizing Russia and putting Czechs in the firing line.
Keep that in mind the next time you see the tow trucks in Vinohrady.
From the smallest example of parking violations, to the geopolitics of missile defense, such “safety agendas” must be resisted.

This article originally appeared in The Prague Post on 02/04/2008