Understanding the Juveniles’ Attitudes Towards the Police in Hakkari, Turkey

• In Event: Police Interactions with Special Populations

Abstract

Starting from the 1990s, aggressive policing strategies were widely used in some ethnically-Kurdish populated cities of Turkey, in response to the terrorist attacks carried out by the PKK terrorist organization. However, many argue that this strategy harmed the trust between the police and the ethnically-Kurdish citizens. The high number of illegal riots and ethnically-Kurdish juveniles’ clashes with police in the eastern cities of Turkey may serve as a symbol of hostility toward the police. The aim of this study is to understand how the increased security measures in the region, such as the use of deadly force during an illegal riot, checkpoints, stops and search practices, shape ethnically-Kurdish juveniles’ perceptions of and attitudes towards the police. Twenty-one in-depth interviews were conducted with ethnically-Kurdish young man who lives in Hakkari City, Turkey. The majority of the respondents reported that they have not attended to an illegal riot, but most of them witnessed juveniles clashing with the police in their neighborhood and sometimes police using excessive force. The respondents also considered checkpoints, stops and searches as annoying and discriminatory, and the juveniles who had negative experiences during stops and searches reported less confidence in the police.

Authors

• Nusret M. Sahin, Turkish National Police

• Samet Baysal, Uludag University