Policing and Society: An International Journal of Research and Policy

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Rotten Orchards: "Pestilence", Police

Misconduct and System Failure*
a
Maurice Punch
a
Visiting Professor , London School of Economics , UK
Published online: 27 Oct 2010.
To cite this article: Maurice Punch (2003) Rotten Orchards: "Pestilence", Police Misconduct and
System Failure*, Policing and Society: An International Journal of Research and Policy, 13:2, 171-196,
DOI: 10.1080/10439460308026
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10439460308026
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Policing and Society, 2003, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 171–196
ROTTEN ORCHARDS: “PESTILENCE”, POLICE

MISCONDUCT AND SYSTEM FAILURE*
MAURICE PUNCH†
Visiting Professor, London School of Economics, UK
(Received: April 2001)

Downloaded by [Universite Laval] at 04:20 06 July 2014
The literature on police corruption tends to be dominated by North American studies of widespread
“grass-eating”. By contrast, this article examines scandals in three European societies (Belgium, the
Netherlands and Great Britain) requiring analysis at the system level. In all of these instances, police
deviance was unlike much of that in North America: there was either gross failure in the system to perform
adequately or systemic rule-bending to achieve formal or informal institutional ends. The cases reveal that
misconduct and/or failure to perform fostered significant scandals that implicated others within the criminal
justice system and even beyond it. Understanding such upheavals requires cross-cultural attention to the
specific social-political context. In addition, reform of police and justice agencies after major scandal
demands proposals at the system level. Institutions often rationalize excesses with the “rotten apple”
metaphor (human failure is the cause and can be swiftly rectified by removal). Here, the systemic emphasis
is conveyed by the alternative metaphor of “rotten orchards”.
Keywords: Police corruption and reform; System failure; Miscarriages of justice (Britain); Dutroux case
(Belgium); IRT case (the Netherlands)
INTRODUCTION
When we scrutinize the subject of police misconduct – particularly corruption and other
forms of police crime – we should be under no illusion as to the seriousness of the
issues involved. These impinge on fundamental abuses of the rule of law, due process
and human rights (Amnesty International 1999; Kappeler et al. 1998; Chevigny 1995).
In a trawl through some recent cases of police abuse of power, for example, it is
possible to come up with the following examples:
• In Spain there was a secret unit (GAL) that carried out the murders of ETA members
(i.e., Basque separatists) associated with terrorism. The former Minister of the
Interior and a number of police officers have been jailed in relation to this clandestine
policy (De Volkskrant, 20 June 1998).
*An earlier version of this article was presented at a National Institute of Justice/New York University
Seminar “Police Integrity and Democracies” held at Villa La Pietra, Florence, Italy, May 1999.
†Correspondence to: Maurice Punch, Veenendaalplein 8, NL 1185 DD Amstelveen, The Netherlands
Tel.: 31 20 6412339; Fax: 31 20 6435496; E-mail: punch@xs4all.nl
ISSN 1043-9463 print/ISSN 1477-2728 online/03/020171-26  2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/1043946032000071802
172 M. PUNCH
• In Turkey members of the government, the police and security agents, as well as the
“Mafia”, are alleged to have been involved in the murders of opponents and in
helping to run the drug trade (Bovenkerk and Yesilgoz 1998).
• In South Africa testimony before the “Truth Commission” revealed close cooperation
between the police and the underworld in attacks on ANC (African National
Congress) members during the period of the apartheid regime (Truth and Reconcili-
ation Committee 1999).
• In Northern Ireland there were suspicions that the security forces fostered a “shoot-to-
kill” policy against IRA (Irish Republican Army) terrorists (Stalker 1988).
• In New York the Mollen Commission (1994) revealed that corruption and violence
seemed to go together. Suspects were “tuned up” (severely beaten) by officers. Some
police officers were closely involved with drug dealers, had themselves become drug
users and were prepared to do dirty work for the dealers (including “riding shotgun”
for them and even committing murders).
The severity of the police crimes – drug dealing, excessive violence, criminal
collusion with organized crime and/or politicians and murder – and the high level
of organization required to articulate the offences, takes us beyond “free meals”,
“kick-backs” and much conventional bribery. It leads us to focus our attention on the
context within which such deviant behaviour takes place. Many of the intricate
processes underpinning these cases simply are not reflected in much of the standard
literature.
Often the accent in research on police deviance, integrity and corruption is geared
toward “low-level” deviance (so-called “grass-eating” – Sherman 1974). The police
themselves often employ the “rotten apple” metaphor – the deviant cop who slips into
bad ways and contaminates the other essentially good officers – which is an individu-
alistic, human failure model of deviance. When more serious or prolonged forms of
corruption are uncovered, the imagery tends to be of illness and of contagion in a
particular area or unit, with talk of cancer or pestilence. There is, then, an implicit
analogy that surgery can remove clinically the offending part in an otherwise healthy
“body”.
When dealing with systemic and endemic deviance of a highly serious nature,
however, these metaphors are inadequate and can be seen as a part of the rationalization
process that beleaguered institutions engage in when defending themselves. What
usually cannot be admitted is that deviance had become systemic – in some way
encouraged, and perhaps even protected, by certain elements in the system. This leads
to the fundamental question: Why do “systems” deviate? “Systems” refers both to the
formal system – the police organization, the criminal justice system and the broader
socio-political context – and to the informal system of deals, inducements, collusion and
understandings among deviant officers as to how the corruption is to be organized,
conducted and rationalized.
My interest is in the relationship between the two that is sometimes consciously
articulated, but at other times it arises from the unanticipated consequences of formal
or informal processes whereby the complex interaction between an intricate web of
factors fosters and perpetuates deviance. To investigate this area I wish to use the
metaphor of “rotten orchards” to indicate that it is sometimes not the apple, or even the
barrel, that is rotten but the system (or significant parts of the system). Furthermore, of
what does the “pestilence” consist? What is it precisely that makes the orchards
POLICE MISCONDUCT AND SYSTEM FAILURE 173
“rotten”? I shall illustrate this by focusing on three scandals in police forces in Western
European countries: the Dutroux case in Belgium, the “miscarriages of justice” in
Britain and the “IRT” case in the Netherlands. The theme running through this article
is that, at certain times and in certain contexts, police deviance becomes virtually
institutionalized, is affected by and affects other parts of the criminal justice system,
may be related to wider influences in the broader environment and leads to what I call
“system failure”. There has been, for instance, a long tradition of corruption in North
American policing with both institutionalized patterns of bribery and a seeming
inability to enforce internal control (Sherman 1978). Indeed, the current concerns in this
area, drawing on the American contributions to a seminar in Florence in 1999
(organized jointly by the National Institute of Justice and New York University), are
predominantly related to police on the take – especially given the huge sums of money
available in the drug trade – but also on excessive violence (Skolnick 2000; Com-
mission on Police Integrity 1999; Los Angeles Police Department Board of Inquiry
2000).
The central argument here is that there is a contrasting pattern in Europe. Most of the
forms of misconduct and corruption that have been identified and categorized (Newburn
1999) are to be found at some time and, and to some extent, in most countries. Yet it
would be surprising if there were no cross-cultural and cross-national differences and
variations. For instance, the widespread graft of some North American cities, so
graphically recounted in the Knapp Commission (1972) and in Serpico’s biography (he
blew the whistle on corruption within the New York Police Department – Maas 1974),
is simply not typical for most Western European police forces (Punch 2000).
The cases mentioned above may, for instance, be seen as extreme cases in special
circumstances. The murder of Stephen Lawrence in London in 1993 appeared, in
contrast, to be simply a routine case of youth violence. However, Stephen was black,
his assailants were white, and the police bungling of the case meant that no convictions
for his murder have been forthcoming. This “routine” case has led to nearly a decade
of pressure on the Metropolitan Police, a widely reported public enquiry (Macpherson
Report 1999), accusations of “institutionalized racism” within the police force, public
apologies by senior officers to the Lawrence family, and substantial demands for reform
of the system by politicians and others. Individuals had failed, but so had the system;
and the micro-processes of conduct in the Lawrence affair exposed the institutionalized
shortcomings of the Metropolitan Police.
The same kinds of mechanisms of poor performance and institutional failure were at
work in the “Dutroux” case in Belgium (but without the racial element). One pattern in
Europe, then, can perhaps to be tied to cases of systemic incompetence and chronic
non-performance – it is not corruption in the conventional sense of breaking the law for
some kind of return involving others (although elements of corruption were alleged in
both cases). The second pattern is often referred to as “noble-cause” corruption, and is
generally found in detective units and especially specialized squads. The “IRT” scandal
in the Netherlands, and earlier the “miscarriages of justice” in Britain, are both
representative of this second category. The emphasis is on results, with no external
corrupter, and the deviance is largely self-generated. This is also referred to as
“corruption for the job” as opposed to “corruption on the job”.
The background to this article is years of researching “organizational deviance”
(Punch 1996). Behind the “myth system” that organizations present to the outside world
there is the “operational code” that governs how things actually get done (Reisman
174 M. PUNCH
1979). On the one hand, organizations ask people to bend and break rules for
institutional ends and, on the other hand, people are very creative at getting around
rules, regulations and procedures for their own ends. It is that discrepancy – between
what is supposed to be happening and what really goes on – that leads us to examine
the mechanisms and processes by which systems get “out of synch” and even out of
control. In an organization designed to uphold the law, the law can be broken because
control, supervision, checks and balances, monitoring, audits and leadership may all fail
to function adequately while cultural and institutional pressures promote and support
deviance (Crank 1998; Reiner 2000). This requires our explanations to be posited on an
analysis that ties individual and group behaviour to complex, causal strands of formal
and informal mechanisms of social interaction within the organization and with the
external environment.
BELGIUM AND THE DUTROUX CASE

I hold the state responsible for the murder of my daughter. (The father of one of the missing children)
In Belgium one particular case has dominated the headlines during the last few years
and it has come to symbolize the failure of the state to protect citizens, has exposed
dramatically the manifest weaknesses in the police and judicial apparatus, and has even
fostered a nation-wide, grass-roots swell of popular feeling demanding reform of the
“rotten” political system. The “Dutroux Affair” relates to a criminal, Marc Dutroux,
held responsible for the abduction, sexual abuse and murder of young children. There
were not only significant failures in the police and judicial investigations, but also
suspicions that Dutroux was small-fry in a wider web of Belgian and international
paedophile rings and that he had enjoyed protection from “above” (Barrez 1998; Bulté
et al. 1999). It is particularly this second feature that raised the case to prominence (also
internationally), and gave it a powerful social and even political significance.
The Dutroux case has to be placed in the wider context of a series of violent crimes
in Belgium, several of which have never been solved. This gave rise not just to criticism
of the police and judicial authorities, but also to speculation about interference with the
judicial process for party or factional reasons. One of these “affairs” related to the
“Nijvel Gang”. In the early 1980s, a number of extremely violent attacks took place that
resulted in 29 deaths. The attacks on supermarkets, stores, bars and a weapon depot
were conducted with military precision using automatic weapons with indiscriminate
violence, and with seemingly little interest in monetary gain. Suspicion fell on
disaffected members or ex-members of the “Rijkswacht” (Gendarmerie/National Police
Force; see below); and on members of the security services with an interest in
destabilising the country politically and promoting right-wing interests by adopting a
strategy of provoking tension. Investigations have not resulted in any arrests for these
crimes committed from 1982 to 1985.
Two official enquiries called for a reform of the police services (see Fijnaut and
Verstraeten 1997). Indeed, in 1990, then Prime Minister Maartens announced plans for
a drastic reorganization of the police and justice apparatus and particularly of the
Rijkswacht (“this military-style force has developed into a state within the state”,
according to one politician; Elsevier’s Magazine 16 June 1990). Five years later little
had been accomplished. The Nijvel Gang and other cases raised debate and speculation
about the Belgian “Mafia” (Fijnaut 1996), political interference in the judicial
arena, police rivalry and incompetence, sinister groups and their receiving protection,
and dubious connections between politicians and the underworld. Above all, justice was
seen not to be done. Van Outrive (1998: 43) comments caustically:
[T]he police and courts did not achieve any results after political assassinations, cases of terrorism with
right-wing overtones, fiscal fraud and corruption by important political figures. In many cases there
was no outcome, no verdicts or arrests or, at very best, there were outcomes which seemed dubious.
In these circumstances suspicions began to grow that important channels of communication linked
policemen, magistrates, lawyers, politicians, and industrial and commercial interests.
In this small country, nationhood has always been hindered by the fact that Belgium
is divided between north (with Dutch-speaking “Flemings”) and south (with French-
speaking “Walloons”). The social and political tensions that have characterized Belgian
society are largely related to the “language” issue. It is a multilingual country, but with
a language barrier; and in the postwar period there have been fears of a civil war and
even the prospect of the country splitting up. Eventually these strong political divisions
led in 1993 to the formation of a federal state with three regions: Wallonia, Flanders and
Brussels (the latter, to complicate matters, is the predominantly French-speaking capital

in northern Flanders). This political and linguistic divide means that there is a
multiplication of governmental and other posts in the north, the south and in Brussels
with three regional parliaments and one national parliament.
This cumbersome apparatus in a relatively small country of 10 million inhabitants is
further complicated by intricate coalition politics (Fitzmaurice 1997). There are three
major political alliances (each including Dutch- and French-speaking sections) and
many small parties. The delicate coalition politics, the strong regional interests, the
volatility of the language issue and the weaknesses of central government have fostered
a culture of deals, division of the spoils, intrigue, “clientalism” (political appointments
to official positions), compromise and people seeking favour from politicians. The norm
is that “it is not what you know but who you know” and there is frequent reference to
the expression “ons kent ons” or “us knows us” (rather like earlier “machine politics”
of some major American cities). Others speak cynically of the “Belgian Disease”.
Police Forces: Divide and Rule?

There is a sense in which the Belgian people feel themselves to be occupied by their own state.
(Officer in the Rijkswacht, quoted in Sheptycki 1999: 3)
Most Western, continental European countries have several police forces in contrast to
the United Kingdom that only has one (but with different jurisdictions in Scotland and
Northern Ireland). This is related to the influence of Napoleon who imposed a central,
military-style police on the countries he occupied along the lines of the French
Gendarmerie; these operated alongside the patchwork of local forces. The Belgian
national police agency is the Rijkswacht/Gendarmerie. There were also two other types
of police forces at the time of the Dutroux case (Velpen 1998).
The Rijkswacht is a general police service that operates throughout the country and
has about 16,000 officers. It is a military-style organization and was answerable to the
Ministry of Defence until 1992 when responsibility shifted to the Ministry for Home
Affairs. When its members function in criminal investigations, they fall technically
under the Minister of Justice. A member of the investigatory police commented: “The
176 M. PUNCH
Rijkswacht is essentially a military force, it always seeks to impose a military solution”

(quoted in Sheptycki 1999: 16).
Local policing is conducted by the “gemeentepolitie” (municipal police) under the
authority of a mayor. There are some 589 forces varying in size from just one officer
to over 2,000 in Brussels. The total number of officers is estimated at 16,000.
The Minister of Justice and the “magistrates” of the Prosecution Service have control
of over 1,280 police officers in 22 districts and a number of specialized units. These
police officers have a reactive, “repressive task” limited solely to criminal investiga-
tions. In some continental European jurisdictions, the magistracy consists of judges who
adjudicate at trials, judges who conduct or oversee criminal investigations, and public
prosecutors who prosecute offenders (in an “inquisitorial” system; see Rose 1996). In
Belgium, the Prosecution Service is led by the Procurators General. The Chief Public
Prosecutor is the “Procurator des Konings” or “Crown Prosecutor”. However, an
important role is played by the “Onderzoeks-Rechter” (Investigating Magistrate) who
conducts criminal investigations and has a separate police force (the Investigatory
Police) to assist him (or her). Although formally he reports to the other courts, he has
considerable autonomy in carrying out investigations before handing them over to the
Crown Prosecutor. The Investigating Magistrate can also set up a team whereby
policemen from other forces are combined with their own Investigatory Police.
The Dutroux Dossier

The Dutroux dossier is the dossier of missed chances. (Police officer, quoted in Wincklemans 1997:
21)
A brief chronological overview will be given of the Dutroux case, based largely on the
report of the parliamentary Dutroux Commission (1997, 1998), which is one of the
main sources for this scandal while there is also an abridged version of the first report
by Wincklemans (1997) with a commentary by the author. Another source of infor-
mation is the many Dutch and Belgian newspaper articles devoted to the affair
(including a three-part series in the Dutch weekly HP/De Tijd: 27 July 2001, 3 August
2001, 10 August 2001).
In 1985 Dutroux was arrested on charges of rape and theft and placed in custody. He
was soon released but was arrested again in 1986. For a number of reasons, his case
went to a lower court that could only impose a maximum sentence of 10 years for the
rape charges, unlike a higher court that could have imposed a life-sentence. The
prosecutor at the time saw him as a dangerous criminal and wanted him put away for
a long time, but he had to bow to pressure from his superiors who felt a conviction was
more likely in the lower courts. His judgement had been that Dutroux was a “serious
sexual offender, of whom it is recognized that he is responsible for his deeds, but who
feels invincible and who has not shown the least bit of regret” (Wincklemans 1997: 23).
This was the beginning of a long series of decisions that seemed to favour Dutroux. In
1986, he was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment; 10 years for raping several young
girls and 3 years concurrently for theft with violence (plus 3 months for possession of
illegal firearms). Most of this case took place in French-speaking Wallonia where
Dutroux mostly operated and where the investigations were largely conducted.
In 1992, Dutroux was released from prison after serving only half of his sentence (he
profited from two collective reductions in sentences). The various reports on him,
related to his early release, were generally negative; his behaviour in prison was
exemplary but he continued to deny the facts of the case. Despite a number of
objections – the prison governor saw him as a man with no feelings of guilt and a
“psychopath” (Wincklemans 1997: 27) – the Minister of Justice signed his release form.
The conditions for early release where scarcely followed in practice. Dutroux was able
to convince a psychiatrist that he was unfit to work and he received unemployment
benefits. The control of his compliance with parole conditions was lax. Dutroux proved
highly manipulative and managed to create a favourable impression with various
agencies, and there was a “failure of communication” with regard to his supervision.
In 1992, Dutroux assaulted a number of young girls at a skating rink and was
questioned by the local municipal police. This was not officially reported and no check
was made of his record and status as ex-prisoner with a conditional discharge. He
applied for and received a firearm licence from the police, although this contravened the
conditions of his release from prison. Although Dutroux was drawing benefit payments,
he owned several houses, did some building work, and engaged in the theft and trade
in stolen vehicles, which again brought him under suspicion.
Then in 1993 an informer approached the Rijkswacht in Charleroi with information
that Dutroux was carrying out work in one of his houses in order to conceal young
children before they could be “exported” abroad. No written report was made of this to
protect the informant who felt intimidated by Dutroux. The two officers concerned
claimed that they informed the Investigating Magistrate Lorent with a view to a search
warrant, but Lorent later denied any knowledge of this (officials with poor memories
feature prominently in the Commission’s report). In relation to allegations of theft, a
search of five houses owned by Dutroux was conducted in December 1993 and it was
noticed that work was being carried out on the cellars. The police also found a number
of radios adjusted to police frequencies and two weapons, one with a licence and one
without. Dutroux’s explanation that he wished to deepen the cellars was accepted,
although it seemed to confirm the tip from the informant.
A specialized observation team watched Dutroux’s home for a number of days but
reported only on who entered and left in the daytime, even though it was known that
Dutroux was particularly active late at night. Nothing suspicious was reported. In June
1994, another search revealed that there had been no progress in the rebuilding of the
cellars.
On 24 June, two 8 year-old girls (Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo) disappeared in
Grâce-Hollogne. An eyewitness reported seeing a small, blue car which she identified
as a Peugeot 205. On 7 July, the Rijkswacht in Charleroi sent information to their
colleagues in Grâce-Hollogne about the cellars in Dutroux’s houses. The Rijkswacht
claims that it informed Investigating Magistrate Doutrèwe about the lead on Dutroux,
but she has denied this. A second informant mentioned the cellars in relation to
abducted children. A number of officers wanted to follow the Dutroux trail, but reported
that Investigating Magistrate Doutrèwe displayed little enthusiasm. She left soon
afterwards for vacation. There were later mutual accusations about this interchange
between police and the magistrate. It should be noted that in Belgium the investigating
magistrate is effectively head of the police investigation and the officers are subordinate
to him or her (unlike the United Kingdom, but much like the role of the Fiscal in
Scotland).
A mixed group of local and national police officers was assembled as an investigating
“team”. The majority of them came from the Rijkswacht and felt that the leadership of
the team should have been given to a Rijkswacht officer. Instead it was given to an
178 M. PUNCH
officer from the Investigatory Police who operated from a separate office at some
distance from his unit (while he was hardly a “bundle of energy” according to the
Commission of Inquiry). Furthermore, a member of the Rijkswacht formally reports to
his or her own superior and not to the team leader from another force. With weak
coordination and leadership, the two elements in the “team” ended up working on their
own suspects. In the absence of the Investigating Magistrate, the dossier was dealt with
by a succession of ad hoc substitutes. Although Doutrèwe went on vacation twice
within a short period (she was recovering from a serious illness), she did not appoint
a proper replacement in her absences. It was in this period that a fax came in from the
Rijkswacht in Charleroi (from a Sergeant Bouvy) stating: “It has been noticed by us that
the person concerned [Dutroux] is said to have been working in the cellars of his house,
with the intention to conceal children there until he can bring them abroad.” Bouvy
further remarked that Dutroux “has just spent a long time in prison, following
conviction for the rape of children whom he abducted together with his wife”
(Wincklemans 1997: 49).
Bouvy, and his colleague Pettens, then viewed Dutroux as the number one suspect in
the disappearances of Julie and Melissa. “We are passing on this information in relation
to the disappearance of the two children about whom you are conducting an investiga-
tion” was the conclusion of Bouvy’s fax. However, the fax was viewed as “informal
information” and no separate, formal statement (“proces verbaal”, see below on the
importance of this legal document) was made of it so the information did not reach the
magistrate responsible for the case (i.e., Doutrèwe), who should have been informed.
Doutrèwe called very few meetings on this case and the police had to demand one. She
also confined the investigation strictly to the geographic region of her court area. There
appeared to be no clear strategy in tackling the case, and no clear lines of authority and
responsibility were laid down in the investigation.
In Charleroi, the original informant stated that Dutroux had offered him money to
hang around schoolyards in order to abduct a “young, slim girl”. A second informant
said that Dutroux wanted him to assist him in abducting young children and, that
when he refused, Dutroux became quite aggressive. He said that Dutroux usually left
his house between 2 and 4 am and regularly met a man with a blue Ford Fiesta.
Sergeant Pettens, in writing this up, noted the similarity between a Ford Fiesta and a
Peugeot 205, but in Grâce-Hollogne the focus still remained on the Peugeot. The
original informant now added that Dutroux displayed great interest in young girls
with long hair and said to him “such young girls are fresh, that sells well and brings
in a lot”; and that he admitted to wanting to abduct girls to raise money. There
were now two separate investigations running with Doutrèwe being kept in the dark
on the Rijkswacht efforts in Charleroi, which technically amounts to concealing
evidence.
On 22 August 1995 An Marchal (17) and Eefje Lambrechts (19) disappeared in
Oostende, which is in Flanders and outside of Dutroux’s usual territory. The Rijkswacht
asked for all information on Dutroux to be assembled. Again Dutroux was subject to
surveillance by an observation team ostensibly in relation to theft. On 4 September
1995, Dutroux’s mother wrote to Investigating Magistrate Lorent in Charleroi stating
that two teenage girls had been at her son’s house and that she felt obliged to pass this
on because of the various disappearances. Earlier, the first informant had passed on
information about a friend of Dutroux who owned a white van. Again this was seen as
internal Rijkswacht communications and was not passed on.
Dutroux stole a lorry on 25 September 1995. Inspector Zicot of the Investigating

Police was aware of this, but took no action. In November, Dutroux and his accomplice,
Weinstein, abducted three young boys but soon released them. Again Zicot was aware
of this but did nothing. During a search of one of Dutroux’s houses, the voices of
children were heard. A police officer accepted, without checking, Dutroux’s explanation
that it was the noise of his own children (they were not present in the house). No
listening or infrared devices were used in any of the searches. Julie and Melissa were
not discovered. The police did find handcuffs, chloroform, vaginal cream and a
gynaecological mirror. The Commission commented:
The quality of the POSA-observation [specialized observation team] was simply shameful. The
organization of the search was conducted in a chaotic fashion (certain material was not taken away for
examination, the searches were not carried out simultaneously), and the documenting and handling of
what was taken was absolutely below any standard. (Wincklemans 1997: 153)
On 22 November 1995, a young girl was dragged into a small car, raped and her
throat was cut. The assailant used chloroform. The girl miraculously survived. Sus-
picion fell on Dutroux, but she did not recognize him from the police photographs
perhaps because he had altered his appearance. The case was shelved because of lack
of leads in June 1996. There was evidence that connects Dutroux to this case and the
likelihood that he used the blue Fiesta. If the case against Dutroux had been pushed at
this stage (he was one of several suspects), then Julie and Melissa would almost
certainly have been found alive because they were in a concealed upstairs room in one
of his houses and not in the secret part of the cellars. Unfortunately, Dutroux was never
seriously questioned. There are so many blunders and gaps in this investigation that it
later raised the issue of protection. Again Inspector Zicot was involved and he was later
arrested on suspicion of aiding Dutroux in his car thefts. As a member of the
Investigatory Police, he may perhaps have managed to pass the case to the local police
in order to keep it away from the two other specialized teams who were investigating
Dutroux.
On 6 December, Dutroux was, nevertheless, arrested by the Municipal Police. This
was in relation to the theft of a lorry; the theft proved abortive but Dutroux then
abducted and stupefied with drugs the three accomplices whom he held responsible for
the failure; but one escaped and raised the alarm. The Rijkswacht was not immediately
informed and only by chance did an officer see Dutroux’s name on a list of detainees.
Pressure was then put on Investigating Magistrate Lorent to sign a search warrant, but
he later denied that the names of the missing girls were ever mentioned which was
strongly contradicted by others present. The search was carried out in an unsophisti-
cated manner. At one stage, an officer heard children’s voices and called for silence.
Someone said that perhaps it was children outside on the street. Although the search
was geared to hidden spaces, little was done to inspect for signs of reconstruction or for
discrepancies with the building plans and no special search equipment was employed.
The police sealed the building and refused Dutroux’s wife access, despite her persistent
requests that should perhaps have drawn suspicion. This meant she was unable to feed
Julie and Melissa who starved to death alone in the cellar in truly appalling conditions.
It is difficult to distil with clarity the motives and behaviour of the many actors
involved, but again critical questions were not raised, connections were not pursued,
and some people did not carry out their responsibilities effectively and resolutely. The
Rijkswacht stopped their investigation code-named “Othello” because Dutroux was now
in detention. However, in December 1995, a policeman from a local force sent three
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faxes to the court in Charleroi mentioning suspects who had used a white Mercedes car
and who were seen taking photographs of children at school-gates with the intention of
making a “catalogue” of them. There was also mention of a small blue car. The officer
had heard of someone in the region wanting to kidnap girls to sell abroad. There was
no reaction to this information. Later, the same officer sent another fax to the
Investigatory Police in Luik mentioning Julie and Melissa, Dutroux and his record, and
the possibility that he was active in paedophile rings that abducted children. No one saw
any relationship between these various cases and that of An and Eefje up in Flanders;
potential connecting information simply fell through the cracks between the various
services in the different regions. An eyewitness description in Oostende of a grey
Citroen CX car in the area of the abduction, which was being driven in a “strange
fashion”, was not seen as relevant. A Citroen CX was later found at one of Dutroux’s
houses.
On 20 March 1996, Investigating Magistrate Lorent released Dutroux. On 28 May,
Sabine Dardenne (aged 12) disappeared. During a meeting related to Sabine, Dutroux’s
name was mentioned. On 9 August, Laetitia Delhez (aged 14) was abducted. A witness
at the swimming pool where Laetitia was taken noticed a white van and recalled three
letters of the number plate. The local police passed this information to the Rijkswacht
on 12 August. That afternoon a computer search displayed 77 possibilities – including
the name of Dutroux. He was arrested the same afternoon; clearly things could move
fast when people used information adequately. On 15 August 1996, the police, working
on information from Dutroux, freed Laetitia from one of his houses. To their surprise,
they also found Sabine in a corner. No one had connected the two cases. The freeing
of the two young girls and the emotional reunion with the families was sent out live on
television. The entire nation watched in shock and disbelief.
Help was called in from abroad, including experts from England and the Netherlands
specialized in the tracing of human remains. On 17 July, the bodies of Julie and Melissa
were discovered. The body of Dutroux’s companion, Weinstein, was also found; he had
probably been murdered by Dutroux. Two weeks later, the remains of An and Eefje
were found at another property. Eventually 12 people were arrested, including Inspector
Zicot.
It is difficult to convey the emotional impact that these gruesome discoveries evoked
in Belgium (Graaf 1998). Dutroux was the ultimate folk devil. When he was first
transferred from the court to a police van, the police almost lost control of the crowd
and there is little doubt but that he would have been severely molested if not killed.
Later he appeared wearing a bullet-proof vest when being escorted to court. The
Procurator General Boulet, but especially the Investigating Magistrate Connerrotte,
were national heroes because their district, Neufchateau, had tackled the cases with
conviction and dispatch in contrast to the delays and blunders of the Luik court district.
Then there were the victims. Four young girls had died under horrifying circumstances,
while two others had been rescued after having been drugged, abused and filmed by
their captors. The parents became household names attracting wide sympathy. There
were many more cases that emerged of missing children in Belgium (Punch 1998).
Reactions
In the period leading to the discovery of the bodies, and soon afterwards, there were a
number of developments and reactions. The parents felt badly treated by the authorities
and sought publicity. They had been poorly informed, refused access to the dossiers,
and were not allowed to see the bodies of their children. The media became their allies
against the slow and unfeeling bureaucracy. In particular, the Marchals (the parents of
An) proved tireless campaigners, turning their house into a crisis-centre and making
themselves readily available to the media, including the foreign media – for instance,
a lot of attention was paid to the case in the Netherlands where most people could
receive the Dutch-language television programmes on the affair while the written press
also gave extensive coverage to events in the neighbouring country (Knoop 1998).
The children’s funerals were national events attracting massive sympathy and
extensive media coverage. Parents and others made hard-hitting speeches at them
blaming the authorities. Paul Marchal said his daughter would have still been alive if
the police had reacted more alertly and professionally to information and signals. There
were calls for blame to be laid at the doors of those responsible. Workers, firemen,
students, civil servants and schoolchildren all displayed their sympathy with flowers,
work stoppages and messages. In an unprecedented move, the King invited family
members to the palace. He also demanded a thorough investigation and supported a
proposed march. It is most unusual that a member of the Belgian royal family becomes
so closely involved in a current societal issue. Then in October 1996, Investigating
Magistrate Connerotte attended a benefit evening for Laetitia, consumed a plate of
spaghetti, and accepted a fountain pen as a gift. This was leaked to the press and the
High Court removed him from the case because of partiality. This provoked immense
public anger and strong feelings that yet again a case was being undermined by
powerful interests. There were strikes, people threw vegetables (especially spaghetti) at
court buildings, and several fire brigades played their hoses on courts and covered
buildings in foam in order to give them a “cleaning up”.
The high-point of protest came with the “White March” through Brussels on October
20. The crowd was estimated at 300,000, making it one of the largest demonstrations
in postwar Belgian history. One source claimed that nearly one million people came to
the capital that day (Walgrave and Rihoux 1997). The entire nation was united. There
were Flemings and Walloons, young and old, rich and poor, and from every political
persuasion – they all wore or carried something white. Fears of disturbances proved
groundless. It was a genuine popular movement demanding reform not just of police
and justice, but more fundamentally of the state and society. It was referred to as the
“Revolt of Tears”. A Dutch newspaper commented on the march:
The protest comes from all regions, ages and classes. This is a national rebellion in the real meaning
of the word, emerging from the people who are the source of sovereignty, and devoid of ethnic
drum-beating. The Belgians demand justice, openness, and a minimum of contemporary decency. The
arrogance of power is evident throughout Belgium, in the institutions and on the streets. It reaches
from the heart-rending stories of the parents of missing children, who encountered indifferent and
inefficient authorities, to the insensitivity whereby a rich urban heritage has been handed over to
property developers and to endless traffic jams. (De Volkskrant, 26 October 1996)
Most importantly, the government promised a full enquiry that would investigate
thoroughly the series of cases, establish blame and make recommendations for reform.
The Commission reported to Parliament in 1997, with a second report in 1998. The
televized proceedings attracted large audiences, with many watching recordings of the
hearings and debates on them late into the night. On 13 January 1997, more than
900,000 Walloons saw a confrontation between two of the main participants, and on 28
January, 250,000 people turned on the Dutch-language television station to see the
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questioning of the Bruges Municipal Police in relation to the case of An and Eefje.
These are substantial viewing figures in a small society with its media divided into two
separate worlds.
The Report was generally well received, but there was one central issue left
unresolved. Did Dutroux enjoy protection from the authorities and/or from high-placed
figures in Belgian society? In a country rife with conspiracy theories, and with
assumptions that inquiries were usually a cover-up, there were rumours and indications
that Dutroux had been protected and that some senior judicial and political persons were
involved (Barrez 1998). The second report of the inquiry maintained, however, that
there was no circuit of influential people directly protecting Dutroux. At a lower level
of ordinary policing, there was great laxity and considerable incompetence that effec-
tively formed a measure of protection for him while some officers were investigated and
prosecuted for aiding Dutroux in his criminal activities (probably because he passed
them information).
Then, in a near Keystone Cops farce that was actually an appalling indictment of
police security, Dutroux escaped from custody in 1998 when he was taken to the court
building to read his dossier. With his handcuffs removed, he grabbed an unloaded pistol
from one of his two guards, ran out of the building, and commandeered a car from a
passer-by. Although he was recaptured later in the day, it was a traumatic event for the
country, and the parents, and graphically symbolized police incompetence (the news
was carried by CNN and the rest of the international media). Two ministers and the
head of the Rijkswacht resigned (Knoop 1998: 92). Dutroux is in prison awaiting trail
for the offences he is suspected of committing and to serve the rest of the sentence from
his previous conviction as he both broke parole conditions and also escaped from
custody. It is a scandal in itself that his trial is not due to take place until later in 2003
(HP/De Tijd, 3 August 2001).
Proposals for Reform

The Commission and the government responded with proposals for reform. There was
no doubt that the segmentation and rivalry between the different police services played
a significant role in the collective failure, and that the treatment of the parents was
lamentably deficient. The Commission used sharp phrases in their analysis and, most
unusually, it named names. In reporting to Parliament a member of the Commission
“confirmed that the girls would probably still be alive if Belgium possessed an efficient
police and justice apparatus” (De Volkskrant, 16 April 1997). Comments were replete
with words like “unprofessional”, “shameful”, “stupid” and “below standard” (e.g.,
“frustration, rivalry and incompetence have for years paralysed the palaces of justice
and the police barracks”), and the government itself was accused of “incompetence”,
“inefficiency”, “arrogance” and “lack of transparency”.
The major recommendation was the integration of the police into one organization.
In addition, a series of changes related to improving the efficiency of investigations
were recommended that included enhancing pro-active police work and regulating
special investigatory units. Furthermore, there should be an external audit to examine
the efficiency and resources of the investigatory branches with the aim of strengthening
policy, creating a more effective organization, more clearly defining responsibilities,
improving the quality of investigating magistrates (through selection, training, refresher
courses and institutional support with more personnel and modern equipment), and
restructuring the relationship between the police and courts. This would require
considerable changes in legislation.
An important proposal was the one related to the treatment of victims. The reception
of victims and relatives was to become a priority; they were to be allowed greater
access to the crime dossier by right: it was even suggested that they be involved in
the investigation up to the prosecution. The government had already promised the
setting up of an agency for missing children along the lines of the American National
Center for Missing and Abused Children and the British National Missing Persons
Helpline.
These were far-reaching proposals that are still being implemented and debated.
When the second report was presented, Prime Minister Dehaene apologized to the
victims’ families for the failures in the police and justice systems and stated that their
reform could be considered as a mark of respect to the parents (De Volkskrant, 20
February 1998).
Analysis
In essence, the horrific story of the Dutroux affair represents a severe case of system
failure. The sociological and organizational questions relate to how is it possible that a
system can fail so dramatically. What processes and mechanisms lead to incompetence,
evasion of responsibility, lack of professionalism and ineffectiveness?
The explanations must start with Belgian society and politics, where many influential
positions are given to political appointees with scant regard for levels of competence.
In addition, the factional interests in delicate coalition politics, where compromise is
sought to avoid conflict, can lead to political interference in the judicial process. It is
considered too damaging politically to pursue embarrassing revelations and hence cases
get shifted, magistrates are moved, commissions engage in cover-up tactics, and
proposed reforms simply do not materialize.
The fragmentation and rivalry between the police forces has long been a source of
critical comment. The position of the Rijkswacht as a large national force with a
military tradition, and a feeling of superiority over the local forces, was particularly
fraught. The Commission spoke of the “war” between the police forces with duplication
of efforts, non-communication, non-cooperation, and even deliberately failing to pass
on vital information.
There appears to have been a “culture of the inept” where professional norms were
not applied, where non-performance was not sanctioned, and where mediocrity could
flourish. The infrastructural support in terms of equipment was often quite inadequate
and this also held true for the magistracy where people complained of pressure of work
and of the courts being “snowed under” with cases.
The style of operating was highly bureaucratic, formal and judicial with an emphasis
on a reactive style, reliance on ploughing through formal dossiers prior to sittings and
on confining matters to the geographic boundaries of the court region. The inquisitorial
system places considerable emphasis on preparing the case beforehand so that court
proceedings are relatively short and devoid of histrionics. Policemen rarely appear in
court to give a verbal account because a crime-statement/“proces verbaal” signed by
them is taken as a sworn statement. This formal document has considerable significance
and at times the Dutroux case revolves around the absence of this document which
effectively diminishes the impact of information. Again this reveals the predominantly
184 M. PUNCH
judicial frame of mind geared to this legal document. Investigating Magistrates often
did not take action because information was verbal and not written.
This leads to two further elements. First, is the growth of “informal information” via
the fax machine that somehow escapes formal channels – by treating it as collegial
interchange, rather than a “proces verbaal”, it can be kept out of the formal dossier.
Second is the existence of an “operational code” (or informal system) whereby people
bend the rules to their own advantage. For instance, police officers were required to
report information but could keep tips informal, and in a sense personal, by claiming
that they did not want to jeopardize the identity of the informant. Furthermore, they
were formally led by an investigating magistrate, but by feeding him or her verbal
information they could keep more control over the case, particularly if it went nowhere
(should it begin to roll then they could always upgrade it but first they could see where
it was going while keeping matters within their own “tribe”). The Rijkswacht seemed
especially to monopolize information and to keep it from colleagues and (quite
illegally) from magistrates.
Lines of responsibility were not clearly drawn. It is tempting to believe this was
deliberate, then everyone could mess around and could evade blame, but probably it
was more a result of laxity and segmentation. It was not clear who was responsible to
whom and who should do what. Two agencies were supposed to report the disappear-
ance of Julie and Melissa to Interpol, but when Belgian officials visited Interpol later
and raised the case neither agency had done this. There are not only more than 600 law
enforcement agencies in a country of 10 million people, but there are also three largely
autonomous regions leading to segmented thinking based on linguistic, political and
judicial boundaries.
Some people spoke of a “totally diseased situation” and yet there were “good” people
working in a “bad” system. An effective leader could overcome structural and cultural
differences by firm control of a situation; it was not inherently impossible, and
Conerrotte and Boulet at Neufchateau displayed competence and resolution. At times
they succeeded despite the system and despite the “war of the judges” between Luik and
Neufchateau. There were police officers who reacted alertly and swiftly, but only to see
their efforts disappear into a vacuum. Yet the major impression is of rivalry, incom-
petence, slowness, sloth, the evasion of responsibility, sloppiness, lack of professional-
ism, technical inadequacy and lack of urgency. The work of the Commission was a
damning indictment of a system and of individual failures within that malfunctioning
system. In the cases of the missing children, the system failed abysmally.
Case Summary
This part of the article examined in some detail a major scandal involving the police and
justice system in Belgium where one can speak of “system failure”. The origins of this
non-performance have to be traced to the structure and culture of Belgian society and
to the impact of these on how the institutions of state function in that society. A number
of profound factors at the macro-level then influence how people operate at the
micro-level. This implies a substantial burden for reformers who have difficulty in
changing matters piecemeal when the origins of the problem lie deep in the way things
routinely get done. There have been other failures of police and justice in Belgium, but
the Dutroux case had all the ingredients of a national drama that touched everyone.
Young children had died because of deficiencies in the system. This touched off
immense public sympathy and outrage. A key issue was that missing children were
simply not a priority, that parents were not taken seriously and that there was little
expertise in this area (the Rijkswacht had only set up a Missing Persons Department in
1993). A whole series of blunders resulted from not understanding how to operate in
these cases so that time was wasted, searches were inadequate and leads were not
followed up.
In the last resort, the chairperson of the Commission spoke of the “Belgian Disease”
and said that a conspiracy could be more easily tackled because reformers and
policy-makers could focus sharply on the conspirators; but here the inadequacies were
deeply rooted within the system which was a much tougher nut to crack. The political
battle to reform the system has begun, but most commentators are sceptical.
To date no one has formally been sanctioned for their role in the Dutroux affair. A
number of people have resigned, quoting various reasons for their decisions, and some
officers came under investigation, but most are still at their posts and the Minister of
Justice, who released Dutroux early despite a majority of negative opinions, is a senior
judge at the European Court of Justice. A sister of another missing child, who was
found murdered after four years in which the police conducted a most incompetent
investigation, voiced the thoughts of many when she said of the authorities: “I hope that
they will never sleep peacefully. I hope that their consciences will continue to trouble
them for the rest of their life” (De Volkskrant, 10 March 1997). For this was not about
graft, “kick-backs”, “tuning up” suspects or stealing cocaine from crooks, but about
massive institutional failure; and the consequences were appalling and police incom-
petence proved deadly.
THE MISCARRIAGES OF JUSTICE IN BRITAIN

Every country in the world envies our police. (Home Secretary Brooke in the House of Commons,
1963)
The British criminal justice system has traditionally presented itself to the outside world
as highly accountable and professional (Mark 1977: 56). The “miscarriages of justice”
concerned alleged IRA (Irish Republican Army) terrorist suspects who were imprisoned
for up to sixteen years on false confessions and dubious evidence before being released.
In the hierarchy of evilness associated with police deviance and crime – raping a
suspect, severe mishandling of a prisoner, planting evidence, stealing drugs and
recycling them – illegal deprivation of freedom for many years ranks high. The
importance of these cases is that they displayed that it was not just the police who bent
the rules, but also other members of the criminal justice fraternity who colluded in
various ways in sustaining the convictions (Justice Report 1989).
In the early 1970s, the IRA began a bombing campaign on the British mainland.
There were explosions particularly in and around the Midlands and London. In
Birmingham in November 1973, two explosions took place in pubs frequented largely
by young people that resulted in 21 deaths. In addition, a bus with army personnel and
their families on board was blown up with 12 fatalities, and a bombing in a pub in
Guildford frequented by army personnel had left several people dead in October 1974.
There was also a bombing in Woolwich.
The indiscriminate nature of the bombings, ostensibly geared toward military person-
nel but committed without warning and in public places leading to a high number of
civilian casualties, led to a national outrage. There was clearly unprecedented pressure
186 M. PUNCH
on the police to secure arrests and gain convictions. Later, the doubts about the
convictions focused on: the “Birmingham Six” (for two explosions in Birmingham);
the “Guildford Four” (for two explosions – one in Guildford and one in Woolwich); and
Judith Ward (for several explosions, including the one on the army bus).
Following the explosions a number of suspects were arrested. They were assaulted by
the police, intimidated with further threats of severe violence, assaulted by fellow
prisoners on being remanded into custody, and relentlessly questioned and bullied into
answering. Some confessed and some allegedly confessed. A confession was then
considered a vital piece of evidence within the British legal system where a jury tended
to be convinced by a confession; it was seen as a trump card in the hands of the
prosecution. There was also forensic evidence that seemed to support the cases. At the
trials, all the suspects received long prison sentences of life imprisonment.
Within a few years, doubts arose about the convictions, and families, friends,
politicians and people in public life began to take up the causes of those incarcerated.
In Britain, there is no automatic right of appeal against the decision and/or sentence, as
in some continental European jurisdictions, and the appeal process has to go through the
Home Office and Home Secretary. For almost twenty years, there was a Conservative
government in office in Britain and a Conservative Home Secretary was most unlikely
to be open to an appeal on behalf of convicted terrorists. (However, it is also doubtful
that a Labour Home Secretary would have been sympathetic to an appeal.) On a number
of occasions, then, requests for appeals were rejected. When the cases did go to the
Appeal Court in 1977 the convictions were upheld. Even when a group of IRA terrorists
were arrested for another offence, and admitted involvement in the Guildford and
Woolwich bombings, this did not alter the judicial belief in the validity of the original
trial and conviction. This gave rise to an appeal but the appeal judges stated “we
are sure that there has been a cunning and skilful attempt to deceive the Court by
putting forward false evidence” (quoted in Royakkers 1997: 133). The appeal was
turned down.
Nevertheless, the campaigners persisted. They included the Labour Member of
Parliament, Chris Mullin, who dedicated himself to helping the Birmingham Six in
particular. His book (Mullin 1990) and a television documentary were vital in attracting
media attention and in pushing the appeal process. Eventually the cases were success-
fully appealed and several factors emerged. First, all of the suspects were physically
and/or mentally pressurized using lack of sleep, persistent questioning and threats. They
all confessed or signed confessions that they had supposedly made. These confessions
were fabricated by the investigating officers. Judith Ward, for instance, was not a
mentally strong person, had a background of psychiatric problems, and was prepared to
confess to almost anything. Second, important information was withheld from the
courts (e.g. on Ward’s mental record). Third, the forensic evidence, particularly in
relation to the handling of explosives, proved highly questionable. Tests which were
said to prove that there were traces of explosives on the hands of suspects were found
to be most unreliable as similar results could be had from a number of household
products (also from handling playing cards – and the Birmingham suspects had been
playing cards just prior to their arrest). Fourth, the appeal procedure which is meant to
be judicial, is also clearly political given that the Home Secretary has the final say.
Furthermore, it emerged that the judiciary had immense difficulty in comprehending
that their colleagues might have made a mistake. Judges in Britain are assumed to be
infallible.
Eventually ten of the eleven people concerned in these three particular cases were
released, granted compensation and tried to pick up their lives (the eleventh had already
died in prison). The impact of the cases was immense and helped to sponsor a Royal
Commission (see Royal Commission on Criminal Justice 1993). A Royal Commission
in Britain is a device to examine a major societal problem and to suggest reform and
legislation. The Commission members come from different political party backgrounds
and diverse interest groups, they invite evidence and sponsor research, and they propose
change. Of course, there is an art to setting up commissions – they can be used to delay
matters, the assignment can be loaded in a specific direction, the composition of
members can be slanted to shape an outcome, and so on – but generally they are seen
as a serious attempt to investigate and tackle a pressing problem.
In all of this series of cases there was no graft, no external corruptor and no money
changed hands; rather this was a case where intense pressure distorted processes and
provided rationalizations. The key to this case is the concept of “noble cause”
corruption; the cases were extreme and the police were under prolonged pressure to get
convictions; the detectives had convinced themselves of the suspects’ guilt and felt the
ends justified the means. As these were “political” crimes, the Special Branch of the
police was involved; its investigation of political offences and the secrecy surrounding
its activities makes it more susceptible to governmental pressure, less answerable in
practice to the formal force hierarchy and more autonomous from conventional detec-
tive work. Furthermore, this was a response to a sustained terrorist campaign that had
led to many lives being lost, including women and children, and to innocent people
being maimed or injured. Rather than for gain or gratification it was deviance ostensibly
“for the organization”, and it could be turned almost into a moral obligation; “society”
needed a conviction and the officer concerned was providing it not for personal gain but
for “idealistic” reasons.
One can perhaps understand the strength of the motivation to get convictions in these
extreme cases. As a sort of “snowball” effect, however, other cases began to emerge
into the limelight. These were of low-level, vulnerable suspects who had been pressur-
ized into a confession. Yet these suspects had nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism
(Walker and Starmer 1999). This raised two fundamental issues. One was the psycho-
logical propensity of some people to confess to crimes that they did not commit; and,
indeed, the whole social-psychological context of suspects under police interrogation
(Ofshe and Leo 1997). The other was the way the police officers/detectives went about
“constructing” a case. In other words, the techniques that were routinely used to
intimidate suspects, to manipulate witnesses, to reformulate statements, to present
material to senior officers and prosecutors, to impress juries, and to withhold evidence
that might weaken one’s case or work in the defendant’s favour (Manning 1977). In this
light, the “miscarriages of justice” uncovered three fundamental features of the system.
Deviance to Secure Convictions

Some police officers routinely deviated from rules and regulations in order to secure
convictions – in effect, to achieve formal organizational goals. We cannot know if these
practices were engaged in universally, but in certain units at certain times the oper-
ational code was to construct a working practice of manipulation, intimidation and
falsehood (at one stage the entire Regional Crime Squad of the West Midlands Police
was disbanded because of persistent complaints about its methods; see Walker &
188 M. PUNCH
Starmer 1999; Royakkers 1997: 143). These practices were not related simply to the
qualities of individuals, but to the organizational context, the institutional dilemmas and
the pressures to get the work done. At this level, we are talking about the daily working
habits of some detectives motivated to achieve results by recourse to rule-bending.
Collusion
Ostensibly there are checks and balances within the system that are designed to filter
out these “excesses of enthusiasm” (or is it perhaps also laziness in getting easy
convictions in a culture of cutting corners?). What raised the miscarriages of justice to
the system level was the collusion of other actors in the system – supervisory officers
who did not intervene when violence occurred, senior officers who signed “dodgy”
statements, forensic specialists who went to work uncritically (and even unprofession-
ally), prosecutors who did not probe sensitive area’s in the material given to them,
judges who turned a blind eye to discrepancies in evidence and the Home Office which
forestalled an appeal for so long (Walker and Starmer 1999).
Everyone concerned retains an individual responsibility and can be held accountable

for it, but they all worked in a social context with in-built assumptions about how cases
are constructed and which devalued too many critical questions that might embarrass
other actors in the system. As the cases moved up the hierarchy of the criminal justice
system – from investigation, to prosecution, and on to trail – it was almost as if the
“system” invested more and more in the presumption that these were the real terrorists.
This made it increasingly difficult to raise doubts from within the system. It was, then,
the system that failed; and Rose (1996: 310) even speaks of “system collapse”:
Yet in the old regime’s defeat lay an unprecedented opportunity for renewal and reform. Criminal
justice wasn’t working, but the time had come to ask why, and to put it right. This chance has not been
taken, and the failure to do so is turning crisis into collapse. At the heart of this process is a failure
of analysis. … It follows that the crisis cannot be resolved by legislative tinkering: by lurches in the
direction of either due process or crime control. It requires a radical reappraisal of both the system’s
institutional structures and its underlying philosophy.
The System Investigates Itself

There is no external agency in Britain that can investigate deviance within the police;
the police conduct investigations themselves. First of all, the police force concerned
begins an internal investigation; then the Home Secretary can ask another police force
to conduct an external investigation if the case becomes major or if there is dissatis-
faction with the original internal inquiry. On a number of occasions, these external
investigations have been conducted in a vigorous and highly professional manner and
have lead to the unearthing of serious deviance. Yet there always remains a doubt when
an agency investigates itself and where there is no truly independent institution that can
conduct what needs to be seen as totally impartial inquiries (Chris Mullin MP perceives
this point to be pivotal, in an interview with Royakkers 1997: 256; McConville and
Bridges 1994).
Again this was not a case of classic corruption and bribery; rather it illustrates that
intense external pressure can distort and undermine the checks and balances designed
to ensure due process. Some informal police practices traditionally employed in
“making” cases by illicit means were reinforced by the rationalization of noble-cause
that provided an ideological justification for deviance. Furthermore, the prosecution and
judicial systems went along with the tainted versions presented to them, effectively
colluded in the deviance and proved highly resistant to admitting the chance of error.
The system was so programmed to maintaining guilt that it proved constitutionally
incapable of contemplating error; as a result, several innocent people were deprived of
their liberty for many years.
THE “IRT” CASE
In comparison with many of the major scandals elsewhere, the “IRT” affair may appear
somewhat tame. Yet it attracted enormous publicity in the Netherlands and has had a
powerful impact on the image and the functioning of the criminal justice system. It
focused on police responses to the growth of organized crime and, in particular, the
drugs trade (Sheptycki 2000). The strategic position of the country and ease of access
have long made the Netherlands a major centre for the import and distribution of drugs,
and a stamping ground for foreign criminal gangs (Dutch Report 1994). There were two
types of police – a national police force and municipal police (the latter with over 100
forces, some of them very small) – and policing was largely locally focused with few
national or regional specialized squads (Jones 1995; Punch 1997). In the early 1990s,
there was a political response to the growing concern about the threat of organized
crime that led to sudden attention to the measures needed to tackle the international
gangs operating in the country. This coincided with a major reorganization of the police
(Punch et al. 1998).
In 1994, the Dutch Police completed a reorganization whereby the two separate
forces were integrated into 25 regional forces and one central force. Faced by
increasingly sophisticated, international organized crime, a number of “inter-regional”
crime squads (“IRTs”) had already been formed in anticipation of the reorganization to
tackle the larger investigations that went beyond regional boundaries (Klerks 1995).
One of these was the IRT for North-Holland/Utrecht that drew on personnel from six
forces and was based in Amsterdam. This IRT was disbanded in 1994 with a great deal
of bad blood between the forces involved, and between the Amsterdam Police and the
Public Prosecution Service in particular. Rumours surfaced about “dubious” methods of
investigation and, most unusually for the Netherlands, one police chief spoke publicly
of “corruption”. The turmoil resulted in the first of several commissions of enquiry the
Wieringa Report (Wieringa Commission 1994). This report brought to the surface much
friction, tension, squabbling and rivalry between the chiefs involved, members of their
forces, and particularly between police and prosecutors. Amid all this the key question
was had the IRT used “unacceptable” methods in tackling organized crime? Wierenga
stated in his report that the method employed was acceptable; but the part of his report
detailing with this was confidential and this initially confused the issue as all the
evidence was not publicly available.
The “method” in question was promoted by two industrious detectives in the IRT
squad. They formed what was known as a “golden couple”, were widely respected and
had been rewarded for their earlier efforts. They believed in high-level infiltration
within the drug trade, of providing the active infiltrator with a company as front, and,
above all, in the method of “controlled delivery”. To establish the credentials of their
agent, they permitted him to import large quantities of drugs. The idea was to let the
containers full of drugs pass through Customs, follow them to their destination, and
190 M. PUNCH
then establish who was at the top of the criminal organization (Langendoen and
Vierboom 1998; Besse and Kuys 1997). Although they personally promoted this
method in the Dutch context, it was also the case that there had been a longstanding
relationship with the American Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) which, since the
1970s had enthusiastically endeavoured to teach European police forces new tricks of
the trade including “buy-and-bust” operations. Given the central position of the
Netherlands in the distribution of drugs, the DEA had been particularly active there.
Generally, these activities are clouded in secrecy and it is not known if the DEA played
an active role in this case but, given that it involved cocaine from South America, the
DEA was probably hovering closely in the background. In the end, DEA officers
pleaded diplomatic immunity and refused to testify before the commission (Punch
1985; Nadelmann 1993, 1995).
This creative idea had a major stumbling block; it was bending Dutch law to the
limits if not actually breaking it. It is difficult to trace the intricacies of what went on
in this case, but some of the elements were: manipulating evidence that went to
authorities and the courts; not fully informing senior officers; throwing up a veil of
secrecy around the activities of the IRT; generating illicit funds to set up the infiltrator
and finance parts of the investigation; misleading the Customs authorities; forming an
alliance with “innovative” prosecutors; and allowing the import of large amounts of
drugs. A senior officer in another squad (the “Sinis-team”: a squad in The Hague for
tackling organized crime) summarized this new approach as follows:
Creative thinking is the key phrase. You must not allow yourself to be tied to the law books: Nothing
is too extreme for us. We have to be exhaustively concerned with the search for alternatives. (Quoted
in Naeyé 1995: 11)
This “sting”-type operation depended on a lot of variables to make it work; a central
one was that the drugs would not reach the market. Unfortunately, the surveillance of
the containers was not perfect, so some of the drugs did get on the market and the
infiltrator kept some of the proceeds of this illegal operation (roughly 100 metric tonnes
or roughly 98 tons). In effect, the Dutch government had become one of the largest
importers of drugs into the Netherlands.
The context for this case has to be seen in the light of a Dutch criminal justice system
that was trying to fight organized crime while the legal rules and procedures remained,
in the eyes of the more “gung-ho” officers who put opportunism before legality,
antiquated and restrictive. Various proactive methods were forbidden under Dutch law,
which does not have conspiracy laws while the courts traditionally were tough on
entrapment. What was happening now was that a new generation of creative police
officers and innovative prosecutors were engaging in rule bending and, importantly, the
courts were not proving overly inquisitive.
In other words, segments of the system were innovating and the checks and balances
were being stymied, side-stepped or overlooked. Naeyé (1995: 30) states that the focus
on covering up creative investigative methods and protecting sources of information has
become so prominent that “investigators operate within a legal grey area of unwritten
law where everything seems to be permissible”.
An insight into what this meant for operational police work was given by an
investigation into a detective team in South-Limburg. In the Netherlands, there is an
external agency for investigating crimes by public officials: the State Detectives
(“Rijksrecherche”). Its officers looked into 42 incidents of dubious methods relating to
13 detectives who were accused of fabricating crime reports that stated that criminals
were observed when in fact the observations were fictitious and had not taken place. In
one case, the signatures of detectives had been falsified. A female infiltrator dropped off
a consignment of drugs in Germany and drove back into the Netherlands while being
shadowed by Dutch and German police officers. The official report states that the
“unknown courier escaped” but this was false. The team was illegally breaking into
property. One of the detectives was described as a “highly motivated policeman” who,
because of his devotion to work, “had completely lost the ability to draw the line”. He
had taken special training in Germany as “key specialist” (meaning, in effect, he was
an expert at breaking into property). Under Dutch law, it is forbidden to break into
property in order to investigate possible criminal activity or search for stolen property
unless formal permission has been given and a formal report is made up afterwards. In
order to avoid this, detectives had begun to practice so-called “keyhole” operations that
involved breaking into property and not reporting it. They did not ask for permission
and they did not report it. Generally, this went well with the squad, but once in 1993,
the door to a garage was forced opened to see if there was a stolen car inside; then the
door could not be shut properly. The detectives then made an anonymous telephone call
to the local police station that a break-in was in progress and the police sent several
cars. What the detectives did not know was that the telephone box was being tapped for
another investigation. When the local colleagues found out who was phoning “there was
quite a punch-up afterwards” (De Volkskrant, 15 November 1997).
In brief, this insight into how police in a specialized unit were operating indicates that
they were breaking the law, failing to report incidents, fabricating incidents, distorting
the truth, carrying out illegal break-ins, and falsifying signatures. At least eleven
potential criminal acts were involved in this behaviour by detectives (no one was
prosecuted). Although this material only came to light later after the IRT affair, it was
indicative of the “Wild West” behaviour of some police officers who were determined
to book results in their personal “war on” crime (De Volkskrant, 15 November 1997).
It was precisely this sort of activity that had given rise to the discussion on police
methods of investigating organized crime.
The debate was amplified by the scandal surrounding the IRT affair. This in turn led
to critical questioning in Parliament where a working party was set up to look into the
matter (with Maarten van Traa, MP in the chair); this was followed by a full
parliamentary commission of enquiry (also with Van Traa chairing it). In particular, the
full enquiry attracted immense attention for anyone who was anybody in criminal
justice testified (under oath, in public and before the television cameras) to the
commission about police methods. Some witnesses tried to plead secrecy, appeared in
disguise (and had their voices distorted), and some were made to feel distinctly
uncomfortable in the glare of publicity and under the critical questioning of the
commission. Before the full enquiry started, there had been public fights between police
chiefs, battles between police and prosecutors, and two ministers had been forced to
resign together. It is rare for ministers to resign in the Netherlands and unprecedented
that two would resign in unison; but they had not adequately informed parliament on
the IRT affair and felt obliged to go (this was more a result of different viewpoints
between the two ministers, and a clumsy response to parliamentary pressure, than any
specific blame for involvement in “dirty tricks” or their cover-up). This already made
it an untypical Dutch scandal.
The Van Traa Commission (1996) had high visibility and a profound impact. The
public sittings were televized and all the senior players – ministers, policy-makers,
192 M. PUNCH
academics, prosecutors, senior police officers and detectives – were placed under the
spotlights. There emerged a picture of senior officials who were not in control of their
organizations, of rivalry and disputes among leading figures, and of specialized crime
squads that bent and broke the rules and colluded with criminal informants to allow
substantial shipments of drugs to enter the market (and consequently markets in other
countries including the United Kingdom; see Sheptycki 1999). A parliamentary com-
mission of enquiry is a powerful and rarely used instrument for investigating govern-
ment-related issues in the Netherlands. Generally, it is linked to political affairs,
debacles and scandals of considerable public importance. Under the forceful chairper-
son, Maarten van Traa, the Commission became daily news and powerfully reinforced
the public feeling that there were serious defects within the criminal justice world. For
quite a time afterwards, there were reverberations related to spin-off investigations,
possible criminal prosecutions, police chiefs being moved around (as it was virtually
impossible to fire them given their security of employment), and new legislation in the
area of police methods of investigating organized crime. With regard to the later, the
emphasis was on central guidelines for pro-active policing and particularly strengthen-
ing the role of the public prosecutor who was to ensure that police activities were
properly supervized and documented for judicial scrutiny (with a new law to cover
police powers related to “special investigations”; this was the “Wet Bijzondere Op-
sporingsbevoegdheden” 1998).
The cumulative impacts of these reports, amplified by the accompanying media
coverage, meant that the criminal justice system had been publicly placed under the
microscope. Van Traa, for instance, wrote of a crisis at three levels. First, in terms of
standards, there was confusion about what was acceptable and what was not in
investigations. Second, there were problems organizationally of coordination between
the many agencies involved in the investigation and prosecution of offences. Third, with
regard to authority, there existed friction between the police and the PPO (Public
Prosecutor’s Office); this proved disruptive and led to disputes about who was really in
charge of investigations. The two detectives at the centre of the controversial method
were prosecuted for perjury, several police chiefs either retired early or were moved to
other forces, a Procurator General (one of the top five officials of the Public Prosecution
Office) resigned, and there was new legislation on methods used in investigating
organized crime. In effect, the police had bent and broken rules, some prosecutors had
gone along with them, and some judges had not probed as vigorously as they could
have done.
“Innovative” police methods had contaminated other segments of the system. Senior
officers had failed, public prosecutors had failed, checks and balances did not work or
were side-stepped, judges failed to do their work adequately and ministers failed to
inform parliament properly. Dubious working practices in specialized squads had
implicated others in the system and brought about a major scandal in criminal justice.
The system had failed. This multiple failure was echoed in the conclusion of the Van
Traa Commission (1996: 433). It stated, for instance, that, until the commotion around
the IRT affair, police chiefs did not display any particular interest in investigating
methods and in the work of “CID” units (i.e., Criminal Intelligence Division squads; see
Klerks 1995). In addition, the Ministry of Justice was not well informed in this area and
Parliament never imposed any form of control over these activities. In other words,
new-style police work had simply not been managed adequately. There was something
of a moral panic about organized crime and political pressure to do something about it;
this led to new-style units with high autonomy and secrecy, which were set up at the
inter-regional level at the exact moment that the entire system was going through a
major overhaul. Most chiefs paid little attention to these squads. They were unlike
traditional units in that the focus was primarily on collecting information in order to
reach high up the criminal organization; this meant that a great deal of time and effort
was expended before moving to the operational phase (Naeyé 1995). This also meant
that there was a large psychological investment in a case that, for many reasons, might
prove fruitless. Faced by external pressure for results and internal pressure to justify
their existence, there was a tendency to “innovate” and bend rules. The motivation was
something of a variation of noble-cause in that these were elite units seeking no direct
personal gain but striving for results. The “golden couple” at the heart of the IRT case,
for instance, were earlier praised and rewarded for their efforts and were seen as highly
motivated if not ideal officers. With new challenges, new organizational forms, low
supervision, and probably with a bit of help from their DEA friends, the innovators
could have a field day.
An unintended conspiracy of factors, then, gave rule-benders the opportunity and
they grabbed the chance with enthusiasm. However, their individual motivation has to
be placed in the specific context of policing in the Netherlands in the early 1990s with
external and internal pressure for results, the setting up new units outside of the
traditional hierarchy and force control structure, a willingness to push the rules to the
extreme among some prosecutors, and a measure of lenience among the judiciary.
Nearly all the actors protested in various ways that they were innocent and were simply
motivated to catch crooks. The “golden-couple” at the centre of the affair presented
themselves as dedicated officers who put work, and their informants, before everything
– including their families (Langendoen and Vierboom 1998). Yet the institutional,
managerial and political failure to manage the processes – and to protect the checks and
balances – surrounding these developments elicited the largest scandal in the Dutch
criminal justice system since the Second World War (Punch 1985).
CONCLUSION
This article has focused on three scandals in three European societies. The theme relates
to the discrepancy between the myth system and the operational code. The friction
between the criminal law and criminal procedure and the messy reality of police work
leads to various adaptations by police officers. Under certain circumstances, this
becomes more than simple “creativity” and escalates into serious if not systemic
rule-bending and rule-breaking. If, on exposure, there is a scandal, then this opens up
a window into normally concealed practices. The issue is: Are we witnessing a few
ambitious, or lazy or devious, police officers committing acts confined to the police
arena or are we talking of methods that implicate other actors in other segments of the
system? In a number of cases in America and Australia, for instance, corruption was
widespread and whole sections, or even entire departments, were effected (Newburn
1999: Wood Commission 1997). The material on Eastern Europe indicates that prob-
lems of deviance, accountability and abuse of rights by the police are deeply ingrained
and even supported by public opinion in the face of rising crime (Kover 1999). One can
imagine similar findings from parts of Africa, South America and Asia, except we have
very little research from those areas to go on (Huggins 1997; Chevigny 1995). The
standard literature is dominated by North America, and this tends to focus on major
194 M. PUNCH
scandals related to extensive graft in large cities and more recently on excessive
violence following the cases of Rodney King in Los Angeles and of Louima and Diallo
in New York (Skolnick 2000).
Most of Western Europe does not follow these patterns and deviance tends to be
related to inadequate functioning and non-performance (in the Lawrence case in the
United Kingdom, this in turn was linked to “institutionalized racism”; see Macpherson
Report 1999); and also to result-oriented or “process” corruption in specialized units. Of
particular interest is the extent to which a scandal implicates wider elements of the
system; for when there is “system failure” of the sort analysed above, this often fosters
a cycle of “scandal and reform” (Sherman 1978). Scandal leads to a realignment of
power in the organization and if this is successful then there is a genuine reform. How
successful the reform is can only be judged over time and the rhetoric of reform may
lead to a “crusade” (Reisman’s (1979) term for unsuccessful reform). In all three cases
(Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands), the scandals were of such a magnitude that they
elicited major enquiries and wide-ranging proposals for reform. In order to restore
confidence and legitimacy there has to be substantial change (or the appearance of it),
and it requires time to judge whether or not this has been effective. However, the more
“systemic” the deviance, the more profound and far-reaching the changes have to be.
In Belgium, for instance, the scandal is of such proportions that it requires change at the
societal and political level; effectively in how society itself is structured and run; and
by definition that demands fundamental reform. Given the federal structure of the state,
politics fraught with linguistic nationalism and the fact that the groundswell for reform
following the scandal has largely evaporated, it seems most unlikely that such funda-
mental changes will occur. In Britain, the Royal Commission was a serious effort and
yet the problems in the system are such that it almost appears as if its efforts were
merely incremental and that the system requires almost permanent scrutiny (Rose
1996). In the Netherlands, there was a major scandal (by Dutch standards), but
proposals were confined to one segment of the system and it is difficult to perceive any
major reform-altering attitudes and behaviour in that area (as a recent report seems to
confirm; Kalsbeek Commission 1999). This could be called an example of “scandal
without reform”.
In effect, reform may be necessary at several levels: societal, institutional, organiza-
tional, senior leadership, procedures and audits, front-line supervision and everyday
working practices. Research on corruption, control, accountability and integrity in
policing can be conducted at the individual, group, organizational, system or societal
levels, yet in some ways they are interrelated. Each case can be placed in a rich
institutional and societal context that militates against easy generalizations from one
society and that calls for cross-cultural and cross-national research of the sort presented
in the seminar for which the orignal version of this article was prepared.
This article, for instance, has posed the issue of “system failure”. It argues that
deviance in the apparatus of formal social control may become systematic, whereupon
it is no longer possible to speak of “rotten apples” which conveys a model of individual
rule-bending by weak or bad people predisposed to deviance. Here the emphasis has
been on how systems can become the contexts for widespread and “institutionalized”
rule-bending and illegality. It is less matter of bad people and more an issue of bad
systems. When that happens it is more appropriate, I would maintain, to speak of
“rotten orchards” as a metaphor of wider “system failure”.
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Rotten Orchards: "Pestilence", Police

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ROTTEN ORCHARDS: “PESTILENCE”, POLICE

(Received: April 2001)

BELGIUM AND THE DUTROUX CASE

Brussels (the latter, to complicate matters, is the predominantly French-speaking capital

Police Forces: Divide and Rule?

Rijkswacht is essentially a military force, it always seeks to impose a military solution”

The Dutroux Dossier

Dutroux stole a lorry on 25 September 1995. Inspector Zicot of the Investigating

Proposals for Reform

THE MISCARRIAGES OF JUSTICE IN BRITAIN

Deviance to Secure Convictions

Everyone concerned retains an individual responsibility and can be held accountable

The System Investigates Itself

THE “IRT” CASE

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