Selection in Border Areas: Profiling Immigrants or Crimmigrants?

Date01 March 2019
AuthorTIM (T.J.M.) DEKKERS
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12301
Published date01 March 2019
The Howard Journal Vol58 No 1. March 2019 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12301
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 25–44
Selection in Border Areas: Profiling
Immigrants or Crimmigrants?
TIM (T.J.M.) DEKKERS
PhD Candidate, Department of Criminal Law & Criminology, Leiden L aw
School, the Netherlands
Abstract: Research on profiling in law enforcement focuses mostly on traffic stops and
stop and searches in an Anglo-American context. This article aims to expand this scope
by studying profiling practices in migration checks in the Netherlands, aiming to see
how migration officers select potential immigrants in the absence of a requirement of
reasonable suspicion and how they deal with the legal complexity of the role of race
and nationality in the selection process. It does so by employing an elaborate case study
of the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee (RNLM). Findings show that officers are not
looking for immigrants in general but focus on a subset of criminal immigrants based
on stereotypical perceptions of specific nationalities. While these perceptions could be
attributed to the discriminatory beliefs of the individual officers, the present study moves
beyond that by documenting how unclear legislation and organisational factors are
important to understand how these beliefs come to be and are maintained.
Keywords: crimmigration; discretion; legal consciousness; migration control;
policing; profiling
How professionals deal with discretionary decision making and what the
consequences of discretion are is heavily debated in the academic litera-
ture (Gelsthorpe and Padfield 2014; Lipsky 2010; Spader 1984). One of the
central issues regarding discretion is the influence that biases or discrim-
inatory beliefs could have on decisions. This issue is especially prominent
in the literature on police decision making and police profiling. While
profiling can take many forms (Van der Woude and Dekkers 2017), this
article will focus on proactive profiling in the context of migration control.
The increased use of proactive profiling strategies in policing in general
has led to a fierce debate regarding the legitimacy of such practices (Delsol
and Shiner 2015; Gelman, Fagan and Kiss 2007; Rodrigues and Van der
Woude 2016). Police organisations and their supporters emphasise the ef-
ficiency and effectiveness of profiling (Engel, Calnon and Bernard 2002;
Glaser 2014). Critics, on the other hand, state that proactive profiling is
not only ineffective or not proven to be effective, but also harmful, as
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2018 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
The Howard Journal Vol58 No 1. March 2019
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 25–44
it often disproportionately targets minorities and erodes trust in the po-
lice and society at large (Baker 2002; Delsol and Shiner 2015; Engel and
Cohen 2014; Gabbidon, Higgins and Nelson 2012; Gonzales 2002; Har-
court 2006; Harris 1999).
Most research on profiling in law enforcement is (i) focused on reg-
ular police controls, often in the context of stop and searches or traffic
stops, and (ii) conducted in Anglo-Saxon countries with particular police-
citizens relations and a particular discourse around police-race relations
(cf. Bonnet and Caillault 2015). Yet, profiling is also utilised by organisa-
tions operating in other fields, other countries, within different contexts,
with different histories and speech norms, and it is unknown to what ex-
tent existing findings are generalisable. Migration control, for instance,
has remained understudied (Pratt 2010). While there is an abundance of
normative debate and critical theoretical research in border and migration
studies, empirical research on border practices such as profiling is far less
common (Cˆ
ot´
e-Boucher, Infantino and Salter 2014). This is surprising, as
border security and migration control have been high on social and politi-
cal agendas of many countries, not in the last place because of the so-called
European ‘migration crisis’.
This article aims to address this research gap by looking at the practice
of decision making in migration control by drawing from extensive field-
work conducted with the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee (RNLM). The
RNLM is a paramilitary organisation responsible for migration control
in the intra-Schengen border areas of the Netherlands. As laid down in
Article 23 of the Schengen Border Code, while systematic border con-
trol has been abolished, member states are allowed to exercise police
powers in border areas, which in the Netherlands has taken the form
of the Mobile Security Monitor (MSM). These spot checks are aimed
at combatting irregular migration and – both related to irregular mi-
gration – identity fraud and human smuggling in the intra-Schengen
border areas (Van der Woude, Brouwer and Dekkers 2016; Van der
Woude, Dekkers and Brouwer 2016). While the MSM is carried out on
highways, trains and intra-Schengen flights at airports, this article and
the underlying research involve the selection process at the highways
only.
In this article we seek to answer the question of how RNLM officers
select potential immigrants in the context of the MSM in the absence
of a requirement of reasonable suspicion, how they deal with the legal
complexity of the role of race and nationality in the selection process and
the potential negative consequences of singling out certain groups while
still adhering to the principle of free movement crucial to the Schengen
Agreement, and place these results in a broader organisational context.
Based on observations during MSM checks combined with field interviews,
focus groups, and quantitative data, the article aims to give insight into
the profiling practices and views of RNLM officers on migration control
and its organisational complexities against the background of literature on
profiling, crimmigration, and legal consciousness.
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2018 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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