 Alice is currently with Durham University as Professor of Conflict Studies, has been there since 2013. Before Durham she was at the University of Leeds. She started off with a PhD in War Studies from the University of London. Decided she didn't want to be an academic and went off to work in the Cabinet Office in London for quite a number of years and then decided that wasn't interesting enough so she became back to become an academic and has pursued some, seems to me, from our discussion at lunch, some very interesting career interests and we're going to be very interested to hear about them. Alice, you're most welcome. Thank you very much indeed. Ten years ago the American analyst Thomas Carruthers wrote that the assessments of the rule of law assistance in post-conflict societies operated from a worryingly thin basis of knowledge. Since then millions, probably billions of dollars actually have gone into projects designed to improve policing and rule of law more generally in countries ranging from Afghanistan to Timor, less say via what, Iraq, Libya and Somalia. And as if this roll call wasn't enough the world seems to become more complicated in recent years. Urbanisation, demographic change, terrorism, you name it, it's all complicated matters it seems. Well, I want to suggest that despite that or perhaps because of that, our understanding of the nature of police development, particularly in the global south, is as thin and uneven an aspiration as it was ten years ago. I think this is primarily because the role of police is seen through the eyes of people such as us. You know, representatives of rich liberal democracies rather than through the eyes of the indigenous politicians and businessmen on whose behalf police actually operate or indeed through the eyes of the populace from which police come from and who they represent actually and in whose communities they live and work. We tend to dismiss that side. So we tend to see police reform in terms of ideals such as service and partnership rather than, as I think most indigenous police and businessmen would see, in terms of security of policing as a commodity, as something that can be traded, can be bought, can be lost. I think these kinds of trends suggest that we need to take a different approach to reform and police development more generally. I think we can get some idea of where and how far we've got to go if we address three issues. There are many more, but I'll just identify three because there are three that I actually want to say a little bit about over the next 20 minutes. The first one is I think that we should consider policing as a commodity rather than a service, certainly rather than a community service. The second one is that we can then identify some of the actions needed to develop a police with real strategic value to the local populace and if that isn't there, then we're wasting our time and our money. And then thirdly, I want to say something about some of the policy options that might be necessary for successful police development. My comments are based primarily on what I spent the last year doing, which is looking at policing in Somaliland and Mogadishu in Hargeyseryn and Somaliland. And I admit that what happens there doesn't necessarily transfer across regions. It certainly doesn't transfer to other parts of the world. But I think it's actually so basic and so fundamental and such a basket case in some respects that it helps us get to the heart, to the fundamentals if you like, of what drives policing and police dynamics in much of the world. So I think it's a little bit of an advantage that it is so extreme there. Plus it's where I've been most recently. It was by far the most interesting place I've been to recently, so I'm using that. So let's start off with policing not being a community service, which is my first big point if you like. I think that as a significance of police in post-conflict societies as we discovered, no researchers, policy decision makers, practitioners, Lord communities and community service. And I can't help thinking that people find some comfort in the cooperation harmony associated with community symbolism. I think this trend is then reinforced by donor projects on security and justice being presented in terms of community policing. Even if that means no more than a philosophy or an ideal that promotes policing as a shared endeavour. The result I would suggest is conceptual confusion, particularly about the operational direction of policing. Because donor definitions emphasise service, problem solving, diversity, accountability and so on. But in most of the world, and particularly the parts of the world where something that you can loosely describe as community oriented policing happens, it's the other way around. Communities have a responsibility to help the police and to deliver information and potentially actionable intelligence to police and other authorities. So it's a very different approach. So from Nigeria to Ethiopia, where you get community policing in quotes, because often the phrase isn't even used, it's very much they help us, they give information to us. And I can't resist actually reminding you of the Ugandan Inspector General's comment. It's a bit a bit trite, but forgive me, it's just a nice one. Because when the Ugandan police force was rebranded as the Ugandan national police, a lot of people said to the Inspector General, who's basically the chief officer, why not the Ugandan police service? And his reply was, and I quote, cops aren't waitresses. Anyway, there's also policy relevant confusion, I think, because community policing reflects donor's beliefs or belief that police can be an agent for social change. And there are some fundamental questions about that that need to be addressed. I think in practice we are limited in our understanding because we frame these problems in terms of democratic ideals for the best possible reasons. And because we dismiss therefore the political economy of policing, which generally speaking gets downplayed. This is unfortunate because it means that there are questions about the realism of what we're offering and the appropriateness of it. I think what we should be doing actually, rather than talking about community services, is asking how local expectations are rather than should be fulfilled. Because I would suggest that what police actually do is shaped as much by community expectations as by the resources available. From this perspective, the key to understanding what police community engagement relations, whatever you want to say, is actually to be found in the knowledge, the skills and the resources that police need to fulfil societal preferences regarding the management of low level forms of insecurity. It's that rather than fulfilling international expectations I think that lie at the heart of these issues and it's transactional. It's a shame we don't explore this in more depth because I suspect that it could actually take us beyond the more value based judgments that we have of policing, in a good bad policing, robust community oriented policing. And it could also perhaps help us to get beyond the debates about whether in fact trust and procedural justice actually determine police community engagement. Moving on to my second big point now, which is about identifying some of the actions needed to develop a police with real strategic value for local people. And if you haven't got that, say there are fundamental problems, I think we need to forget what I or what donors think that local people want. In Hargasa I tried to get round this problem and I should say by the way that the Hargasa research and the Mogadishu research has been funded by the European Commission. I tried to ask local people in one of the safer neighbourhoods what they really wanted, what they thought of police. Most of the people were illiterate, not all but most were, a range of, a representative range of people in that part of the world in a big urban setting. And I had about 180 that I spoke to all told and I asked some fairly naive questions, but it was questions like what kind of police do you want your children to meet, to know? Because that might help me to understand what their ideals of policing are all about. And what they, just as people in Karno in Nigeria told me, they want honest police who perform their tasks quickly and don't harm civilians. The people in Hargasa, most on the whole had fairly clear ideas about what they thought the police's job was. It's about securing peace and stability from the village level right up to the national level. Some people described police as a tool for punishing criminals and the guilty. Some people talked about the police's responsibility for ensuring rights and property and property is very, very important to these people. Some people thought, though fewer, thought that police exist solely to hurt, arrest and restrain people. And inevitably there were several like a handful who said they had no idea what the police do. Interestingly, if I compare that to other research either I've done or colleagues have done right across sub-Saharan Africa, what most people actually want is a response from police. They might criticise police, and they do invariably with very good reason, but they want to call on police in certain circumstances. When there is a fight that's getting out of control they would like police to be there. When there are thieves, gangs and so on destroying property they would like in an ideal world police to do something. So I think there is an expectation or a desire for police to be there despite the corruption. How to get that response? Well, most people end up talking in terms of, well, police would only respond if they had more equipment, if they had a salary increase, if they had education, if they had better treatment within the police. If they were treated less like animals when they joined the police, for example, and in Somalia if they stopped trains chewing cat. In fact, I suspect pay isn't necessarily the answer because there's also been work done in Afghanistan as to whether, in fact, better pay, more regular pay would make a major difference. I think one of the problems with that might be in Afghanistan, as in Somalia, as in Nigeria, as in most places that skimming takes place from the bottom to the top of society. And if that's the case, then no amount of pay increase or regularity of pay is going to make a major difference because the skimming will just become more regular. So there are issues there. I think more positively what all this adds up to is that local people would like police to have a presence in their locality with the point of contact being a police station or a post. Okay, stations are often avoided for very good reasons, but they are a recognised place for engagement. And that matters, particularly when police is, I'm not quite sure what it is, primarily an urban phenomenon anyway. In most of the countries I've been to, you don't get police in rural areas. It's too dangerous, etc, etc. Moving on then to my third big point, which is about some of the policy options that might actually help mitigate these problems, rebalance the situation. And I'm talking here about successful development, I think, from the point of view of donors rather than local people. Before we actually go into this any further, it's worth stressing that well-intentioned policies and practices aren't necessarily the answer because they can actually unintentionally abet or aid corruption or abuse. So I think consistency primarily needs to mitigate some of the problems that are widely recognised by both local people, local decision makers, as well as donors and internationals. Reform doesn't necessarily improve security and justice. In fact, I would suggest that even the best reform projects tend to result in merely superficial, localised or temporary reform and quality phases relatively standard. And also, if you're thinking about reform, it's very difficult to think of successful examples of value-based reform. Sierra Leone in 2000, perhaps, but I'm less sure about it now. Northern Ireland, you make up your own mind. It's very difficult to actually think of good examples of a normatively driven reform approach. I would suggest that there are improvements. We were talking at lunch actually, and I was saying I genuinely think that Nigeria, for example, is moving in the right direction. But the right direction is not a linear progress. It's very much a dialectic. It's, yes, perhaps one step forward, but then it's a step sideways or a step back and then another little shuffle forward. The risk of over-extending metaphors. It's a bit more of a walk than anything else. So improvements are possible, but they're limited. In theory, perhaps cultivating the Inspector General of the Police concerned, the chief officer, if you like, could make a difference, but Inspector General's often don't have the power and the influence that they would like. I certainly came across cases in Nigeria where the Inspector General said one thing and his seniors just put the advice, the report into the circular filing cabinet. They were never acted on. And, of course, Inspector General themselves are accountable, but they tend to be accountable to their president rather than to anything that could be described as community representative. But that's all a bit negative. So let's be a bit more positive. Everything changes. So why shouldn't police development as well? So what might help to facilitate reform? You know, what kind of things should we bear in mind? Well, one of the strategies that donors often use, if strategy is the right word, is actually fairly basic because it's about building or renovating a model police station. I stressed earlier that stations are useful as a point of engagement and donors obviously accept that this is a way into influencing community relations. So these model stations, theoretically at any rate, conform to international design processes and procedures, sorry, principles and procedures. They emphasise service provision. So we're relating back to the first point about community service. There are designated places for public access, for weapons storage, for women and children deaths, and for separate male and female laboratories and cells. But in practice, does this matter? I would suggest it probably doesn't because it doesn't mean anything in the community is concerned. The objectives promoted in the names of such stations, gender equality, empowerment, protection for the vulnerable, yes, they're great from my perspective, I suggest from our perspective, but if you combine that with a lack of traction in the local cultures, if you combine that with a lack of budgetary organisation and political constraints, then these stations are simply too expensive to be sustained, let alone rolled out across countries. This was certainly the case of a station promoted by the UNDP in Hargesa, exactly the same one that I used as my base for asking local people what they thought of police. It was created, if you like, in 2012. It was designed to strengthen community participation. It was indeed a model. It talked about using 70 officers to provide security services for precisely 30,000 people. Did it work? No, of course it didn't. Nothing happened. By the time I'd gone there, it was a model station, but only in name. So, given this kind of picture, what are the general guidelines? I don't think there's a continuation of my third big point. I don't think there's anything new to be said, actually, guidelines or otherwise, because it's back to basics. We know what the basics are, but for whatever reason, we tend to put them to one side, or we downplay them, or we offset them with perhaps today's latest fashions, buzzwords, because they're as strong in policing and international development and the academic world as they are anywhere else. So, back to basics. Well, I can give you five. I think they all remain relevant. The first one would be, and this is so basic for giving context matters. Well, it's obvious, isn't it? Projects need to be tailored to the society concerned. There is no point in introducing ICT-dependent approaches to crime reporting in an illiterate and oral society. Not even an illiterate and oral society with high access to mobile and cheap tablets. We were talking about Somaliland earlier at lunchtime. Rates are so cheap there, but I did a big project on whether, in fact, text-based messaging can help to improve crime responses, and the answer is no. Nobody used it. I'm not joking. After four months, a project initiated by two wonderful, very, very competent Irish advisers, actually, had received no calls, and when I asked people if they'd heard it, they said, no, what's that? So, there are problems, context matters. And there's no point in introducing UK-style community policing either into society like Somaliland because it just reminds people of the Barrier Region era, repressive military-oriented approach to quote, directing the people. The phrase has legacy issues that we haven't necessarily accommodated in our different promotion of community policing. Secondly, another general guideline, we need to give police, rather than anybody else, something they understand value or can actually use. This means in practice that the more educated and also some of the less educated really want investigative training. That's what they really want because it's proper policing as far as they're concerned. Whereas diversity and gender-based approaches are often, well, at best meaningless as far as many of those I've spoken to are concerned. In fact, I would suggest some of those programmes can even be counterproductive. And there is no point, I would suggest, whatsoever, forgive me for being quite so personal about these matters, but I'm very conscious that this is very much a personal view. I don't think there's any point in trying to introduce radical solutions addressing, for example, women's policing into a patriarchal and conservative society. It can be counterproductive. Technical assistance could avoid some of these problems, but it comes with an awful lot of baggage, so there are issues there too. My third general guideline would be how the police distinguish themselves from militia and military. In somewhere like Somaliland and Mogadishu, most people aren't too bothered about the distinctions between police and militia. Actually, there is no distinction quite a lot of the time in Mogadishu. But they do want them distinguished from military. Uniforms can help achieve this, particularly if those uniforms are distinctly sort of international police style rather than just anodd miscellaneous uniform that's been picked up somewhere. Okay, it's just free clothing, but police like that, even if the result tends to be rather filthy, in some cases, it might smelly. But it helps to distinguish them, and it's something they can use every day. Fourth, donors should be prepared to stay for some years. Approaches that are feasible tend to engage for the long term, i.e. 10 years or so, and I think what's particularly interesting from recent ICA IKEA reports, donor projects working on specific, context specific challenges make more sense and create a chance of actually producing good results. Fifthly, donors or interveners have to be prepared to pay. Not necessarily large sums, though. It's using money wisely in carefully targeting money. So, for example, there's actually a great example I've got from Ireland's work. Ireland supported Ugandan community policing projects in the late 2000, and it costs something like €1.5 million, I think. And it's been relatively successful because mid-ranking officers and senior officers are still talking about it. I can't speak about practicalities too much, but I've got a research student, a Japanese research student, who's only just come back, actually, after yet another field-working trip there. And she's found that actually Ireland's work is regarded very highly. So that was successful. Contrast that with my own experience of some of donors' failures in Mogadishu to actually make a difference with small amounts of money. They spend huge amounts of money on countering violent extremism in Mogadishu. Even as they refused, in case I'm thinking of in particular, to spend something like, what, $2,000 on chlorine needed to treat the stagnant water flowing into land-nated as a football patch for pitch rubber, for otherwise bored youths. With the chlorine to remove the stagnant water the youths could play, which actually makes the life of the local police commander a lot easier too. So the picture is still mixed, but I need to conclude now so I can just pull some points out. In much of the world and in post-conflict societies in particular, I suggest that policing is a commodity. It is not, it never has been, it never will be a community service in the sense that we would like to think. And when it is a service, it's a service for regimes, for politicians and for businessmen. So I have three sort of simple principles for understanding post-conflict policing. First, context matters. A police's role, structure and functions reflect the expectations for policing within any given cultural, political and situational context. Secondly, police aren't agents for social change. To put it crudly and please forgive me if it sounds offensive but I genuinely, the more I think about it the more I think it's relevant societies get the police they deserve. And thirdly, my last point we need to be realistic about what we can and we can't change. Thank you.