Drug Detectives' Self-legitimacy and its implications for Revisiting Police Culture and Police Legitimacy

• In Event: POL Panel 15. Perceptions and impacts of self-legitimacy and trust amongst criminal justice actors

Abstract

Drug detectives are the guardians of the drug prohibition policy and the question is raised to what extent, and on what basis, drug detectives feel their power is morally correct. Ethnographic fieldwork, which included 40 epistemic-confrontational interviews, was carried out over 10 months in two cities in Belgium among drug detectives operating at street level and in local drug investigation units. The study finds that drug detectives derive their self-legitimacy primarily from subjectivation in the eradicative drug discourse and from endogenous elements such as identification with the professional identity of ‘crime-fighter’, and being good at your ‘craft’ and seeking validation of this from colleagues. It is argued that an endogenous construction of self-legitimacy co-produces and strengthens some (dysfunctional) core characteristics of police culture. Furthermore, drug detectives’ underlying motivation is rarely fuelled by a belief in the effectiveness of their actions in reducing drug use or selling, but by the conviction that they have to take action because ‘otherwise things would get out of hand’. Drawing on the analysis, suggestions are made on how police culture and police legitimacy can be influenced by facilitating a shift in officers’ perception of their professional identity.

Author

• Steven Debbaut, Vrije Universiteit Brussel