ABSTRACT
As both violent and property crimes have declined (the latter dramatically in rural areas), functionalist perspectives have some explanatory purchase
Theories of Crime, Modernization, and Development 345 Methodology and Results 347
Official Crime Reports 347 Newspaper Crime Reports 349 Crime Victim Surveys 349 Fear of Crime 352 Public Perceptions of Police 352 Corruption 353
Discussion 354 Rule of Law and the Cambodian State 355
Conclusion 358 References 358
but do not account for the high levels of corruption, organized criminal activities (e.g., Global Witness, 2007), and consumer fraud that are still evident. Indeed, predatory crime by elites remains a significant and unresolved legacy of the transition to an “illiberal democracy” (Peou, 2000, 2006) and regime continuities with the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) and State of Cambodia (SOC). The potential emergence of a “shadow” state and kleptocracy in the context of the rapid development of a market economy is also a significant constraint on the legitimacy of policing institutions. As the special representative of the UN Secretary General for Human Rights in Cambodia, Yash Ghai (2007) concluded in a recent report:
The concepts of police and policing are not indigenous to Khmer, and the idea of the police is relatively novel. Official rates of crime are remarkably low and are not simply the result of underreporting and underrecording. Traditional concepts of order and authority are contextualized in patron-client relationships within a communitarian society governed by the ideals of Buddhist conduct. Peacekeeping and crime prevention are not usually externalized as activities of agencies such as the police, but remain, at least in rural areas, in the domain of village and commune chiefs. Social order and peacekeeping function through social gossip, natural surveillance, reciprocal relations based on kin and village, and longstanding practices of mediation and reparation. Only the most serious criminal matters gravitate to district and provincial centers, and therefore to outside scrutiny.
