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29 Policing Soc'y: Int'l J. Res. Pol'y 1 (2019)

handle is hein.journals/pgsty29 and id is 1 raw text is: POLICING AND SOCIETY Routled e 2019, VOL. 29, NO. 1, 1-17 https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2017.1323893 Taylor & Francis Group Symbolic policing: situating targeted police operations/ 'crackdowns' on street-level drug markets Ross Coomber', Leah Moyle' and Myesa Knox Mahoneyb 'Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia; bSchool of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY The policing of local drug markets in England often takes the form of Received 21 December 2016 specific, high-profile, crackdown operations which themselves are mostly Accepted 22 April 2017 a generic, periodic response to particular criminality. Drawing on Innes' (2004) concept of 'control signals' and Edelman's (1985) notion of KEYWORDS Symbolic policing; signal symbolic policy', we argue that 'symbolic policing' relates to activity that crimes; drug markets; drug is principally about achieving symbolic aims - 'being seen to be doing dealers; crackdown something' rather than preventing or solving crime. This article, focusing operations; community on police crackdown operations on heroin and crack cocaine 'dealers' in policing; heroin; crack three English urban areas, considers the meanings of such operations, how they work, and in relation to local suppliers suggests they may in fact have counterproductive enforcement outcomes whilst still achieving symbolic objectives. It is concluded that generic crackdown operations at the level of local drug markets are unhelpfully insensitive to local conditions and that, in certain circumstances, they can be antithetical to more considered enforcement and public health aims. Introduction We will not stop until the last drug lord, the last financier and the last pusher have surrendered or (been) put behind bars. Or below the ground if they so wish. (Robert Duterte, Innaugral State of the Nation Address, July 2016) Last year, Philippine President Robert Duterte announced an escalation on the Philippines' war on drugs through a crackdown on drug users and 'pushers' with the aim to 'eradicate illegal drugs within the first six months' of his presidential term. Operation 'Double Barrel' draws on the concept of a gun to symbolise the firing of two shots in one squeeze of the trigger. As Chief Superintendent of the Philippine National Police, Ronald dela Rosa explains, the 'first barrel' is directed to those at the 'top', while the 'second barrel' is aimed at those at the bottom, resembling an approach which involves 'reforming drug users who want to get out of addiction' (The Philippine Star 2016). Police operations nearly always have names that signal intent. With an estimated 5000 people killed through extrajudicial police executions and government sanctioned vigilante attacks, along with a further 700,000 'drug suspects' having either surrendered or been arrested by police (Baldwin and Marshall 2016), Operation Double Barrel must surely be one of the most brutal and devastating drug crackdowns of our time. While the atrocities of Operation Double Barrel have attracted condemnation from the United Nations, media, and citizens worldwide, globally, police crackdown operations are regularly employed as a method of dealing with drug-related crime and disorder, largely unchallenged. Crack- down operations, just like Duterte's, commonly have specific symbolic operational names (e.g. CONTACT Leah Moyle I.moyle@griffith.edu.au © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

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