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Community Policing: National and International Models and Approaches
Abstract
Community policing has been a buzzword in Anglo-American policing for the last two decades, somewhat vague in its definition but generally considered to be a good thing. in the UK the notion of community policing conveys a consensual policing style, offering an alternative to past public order and crimefighting styles. in the US community policing represents the dominant ideology of policing as reflected in a myriad of urban schemes and funding practices, the new orthodoxy in North American policing policy-making, strategies and tactic. But it has also become a massive export to non-western societies where it has been adopted in many countries, in the face of scant evidence of its appropriateness in very different contexts and surroundings.
... As the UPF strategy document suggests, policing is viewed as a practice undertaken by the state through the UPF, and COP is flagged as a police initiative that aims at incorporating the active involvement of citizens in policing efforts ( [1], pp. [4][5]. This paper is based on research conducted in Uganda between 2018-2019 aiming at examining how the UPF is operationalising the 2017 Strategy for Community Policing. ...
... In recent years, COP has been flagged as a central model for police transformation, especially in 'developing' countries [5]. In Uganda, the new UPF Strategy for Community Policing underlines COP as a transformational approach aiming at remodelling the state policing style from an 'authoritarian top-down approach to a consensual community policing approach' ( [1], p. 1). ...
... In Uganda, the new UPF Strategy for Community Policing underlines COP as a transformational approach aiming at remodelling the state policing style from an 'authoritarian top-down approach to a consensual community policing approach' ( [1], p. 1). In several Western societies where the concept of COP has been conceived and operationalised, the history of formal state policing suggests a slow transformation of policing styles from a monopolised state approach, through empowering the police as a professional self-governing institution, towards communityoriented problem-solving policing [5,6], leading to various examples of success and failure. ...
In 2017 the Uganda Police Force (UPF) issued a Strategy for Community Policing (COP). The aim of the strategy is to provide a framework for the operationalisation of COP in the country. COP in Uganda is viewed both as a philosophy and an organisational strategy aiming at promoting new partnerships between the police and the community. This research examines how the UPF applies the COP strategy in Gulu Uganda to create new partnerships between the police and the community as part of the preparation for transforming Gulu into a city in Uganda. Anchored in qualitative research conducted in 2018–2019 in Gulu municipality, we examined COP in theory and practice. We fleshed out the different COP interventions installed by the police, observed how these applications of COP are perceived by the community and local leadership, and evaluated the extent to which these applications and perceptions contribute to creating new partnerships between the police and the public, as well as how these constitute an operationalisation of the UPF strategy for COP. There are several interventions labelled as COP in Gulu, including joint patrols, Mayumba Kumi, sensitisation activities, and partnerships with NGOs. Most of these applications are ‘old wine in new bottles’ and do not qualify as attempts to create new partnerships between the police and the public. In linkage to the mode of governance exercised by the Government of Uganda, the data collected indicates that the public at large still views the police as a corrupt, unpredictable, and a violent force that serves the interests of elites rather than a public service. As long as the police is viewed in such a way, it is difficult to create meaningful partnerships between the police and the public, and subsequently it becomes difficult to successfully apply the UPF COP strategy.
... The South African Police Service's decentralised command structures have made it possible for corruption to be institutionalised from top to bottom in South Africa [5]; Within the last decade, two national police commissioners have been sacked for corruption. In the United Kingdom, Brogden and Nihar [6] argued that the deployment of community policing officers dates back 800 years, when such an officer was called the "Tythingman" (literally one who collects tithes). They were considered to be community constables [7]. ...
... a. Importation of foreign police ideology and inability to fully transfer community policing to the South African context [12] Community policing is important because it is a key component of an export drive from Western countries like UK and USA in the development of new policing structures in transitional societies -those that might once have been described as 'Third World' (predominantly African countries and the Indian sub-continent) or (optimistically) as 'developing' and are being forced by economic and social exigencies (such as rising recorded crime rates) to construct new safety and security agencies [6,7]. The Western police consultants have been able to find a 'niche', to which the Community can be sold and resold [11] Policing brands can be exported, sold, and profited according to market demand-pull factors [20]. ...
... Community policing was poorly implemented in South Africa. The expecutation that community policing was going to be waving a magic policing model to heal the wounds of the apartheid past turned out to be wishful thinking [6,12]. The historical antecedents and racial injustices of the past governments in South Africa make it complicated for community police to grow in South Africa. ...
With the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa, new police service was needed to promote the transition to democracy. Community policing was introduced from the United Kingdom in the 1990s into South Africa as a channel to heal the wounds and injustices of the past. Over Twenty-five years down the road, community policing in South Africa has made little or no impact on the majority of South Africans who will openly admit that they do not attend their local community forums, because they simply do not trust the police because of its oppressive past. It is a widely held view by several South Africans that the Police Service simply cannot change overnight from being a very brutal force to become the protectors of citizen’s human rights. This research is a qualitative study; whereby an extensive literature review was carried, exploring the issues and concepts related to community policing. The findings are that community policing has achieved its desired results. All citizens must go back to the drawing board again to bring community policing back on track for the benefit of all citizens to whom the police serve and protect. The author argues that the bitterness and divisions of the past must put be put to one side and that all citizens must co-create a country, where all South Africans are proudly part of and allowed to make their contributions.
... According to Brogden and Nijhar (2005), four common practices in South Africa are frequently linked to improvements via the use of community policing. These techniques include foot patrol, neighborhood watch programs, and dispute resolution forums. ...
... These techniques include foot patrol, neighborhood watch programs, and dispute resolution forums. In addition, Brogden and Nijhar (2005) noted that South Africa faced a wide range of political and socioeconomic problems throughout the apartheid era. These fueled a fervent call for a more accountable and open police system from local organizations and international investors. ...
Purpose: The study's major goal was to evaluate the leadership styles and application of community policing in Kenya's Narok County. Methodology: This study used a cross-sectional survey research design, with a target population of 2169 managers and leaders of community policing in Narok County. We used stratified and straightforward random sampling techniques. In order to match the rank and file of the police, the populace was stratified. The responses from each strata were collected using simple random sampling. The intended population of 2169 people provided 139 respondents for the sample size. Quantitative primary data was gathered using questionnaires, both closed and open ended, while qualitative data was gathered utilizing FGD and interview schedules. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used in the data analysis. Results: The study discovered a favorable association between community policing implementation and transformational leadership, but a negative relationship between transactional leadership, laissez-faire leadership, and community policing implementation. Conclusion: The strategy's execution has been difficult from the beginning, and as a result, it hasn't been successfully implemented. Recommendation: The report advised Kenya's national community policing authority to take into account holding conferences, seminars, and trainings that would empower the top law enforcement officials in Narok County and foster transformational leadership.
... Community policing initiatives are often considered a key component in police reform trajectories (Oliver and Bartgis, 1998;Bayley, 2001;Brogden and Nijhar, 2005). Police reform is a broad concept that is used to refer to the various ways that police forces across the globe are 'transforming'. ...
... In the literature, community policing is used to denote a range of policing styles, such as reassurance policing, intelligenceled policing, problem-oriented policing, and community-oriented policing (see Tilley, 2003;Skogan 2003); to certain activities, such as conducting regular patrols and engaging in consultative meetings, or to specific organisational units, such as community policing forums (CPFs) that are managed by police stations (Skogan and Harnett, 1997;Makin and Marenen, 2017). On other occasions, community policing is approached as a paradigm (see Oliver and Bartgis, 1998) to refer to a more proactive (rather than reactive) approach that involves long-term objectives, habitual engagement with community members, and embeddedness within larger organizational and cultural changes (Skogan and Hartnett, 1997;Brogden and Nijhar, 2005). Due to these numerous usages and interpretations of community policing, it has developed into somewhat of a 'chameleon concept' (Fielding, 2005, p. 460). ...
In line with global trends, community policing has been a vehicle for transforming the state police in Kenya. This article analyses various community policing efforts in Kenya and argues that many of these initiatives have largely failed to act as a vehicle for transformation due to three interconnected problems of diversity, representation , and ownership. The first problem-diversity-relates to the multiplicity of definitions, manifestations, and practices of community policing, which creates uncertainty and provides space for various actors to engage with it in conflicting ways. The second problem-representation-concerns the identification and creation of the 'commu-nity': this remains to occur in a state-driven manner and is also not a straightforward concept or organizational unit, especially in a highly multi-ethnic and classed setting as Kenya. The third is ownership: community policing is not experienced or exercised as a partnership, but as a state-centric framework that should remain under the direction and ownership of the state police. We make our claim by focusing on Likoni, Mombasa and drawing from further qualitative data conducted by both authors in Kenya.
... The principal focus is on one particular manifestation of the export paradigm. Namely, the transfer of Community Orientated Policing (COP) models, strategies, ideas and prac- tices, since this has assumed a particularly global significance and is intertwined with all sorts of assumptions about how we 'do' democratic policing (Dixon, 2000;Van der Spuy, 2001a;2001b;Brogden, 1999;Brogden and Nijhar, 2005;Fielding, 2002;Marenin, 2000;Caparini and Marenin, 2004a;Brodeur, 1998;Murphy, this volume: ch 8). ...
... Many of these are ineffectual and irrelevant to the realities of transitional states, and in some cases do more harm than good (Murphy, 2005). A policing studies that is rooted in Western discourses seems impotent in the face of new global challenges and many of the assumptions we make about 'good' policing, citizen security, governance and so forth need considerable clarification and qualification when transposed to developing and transitional contexts (see Murphy, 2005;Brogden and Nijhar, 2005). These go way beyond COP discourse -and in fact I would be happy (along with Maurice Punch) to see the term banished from the police reform lexicon (see Punch, 2005). ...
This chapter critically examines the export of Western orientated discourses of community policing to a plethora of transitional and post-authoritarian states around the globe. It suggests that such exports are often doomed to failure and rarely take account of local political, historical and cultural context and the relations between police and wider society. The chapter is framed within perspectives drawn from the sociology of development.
... Despite the increasing attention to COP in the UN and EU, it remains the subject of definitional debates and interpretations by various actors involved in policing activities. This lack of a common, clear definition has on the one hand led to confusion about both what constitutes its approach and activities, as well as how one might measure its utility and effectiveness [25]. On the other hand, this same lack of a common definition can be said to have led to the development of a diverse set of policing systems in very different local contexts claiming to be COP, but with very different content and impact. ...
The world is increasingly interconnected—insecurity in one country can both directly and indirectly affect the security of people, countries and regions that are far away. Therefore, when conflict erupts in one part of the world, the international community responds in various ways to mitigate its effects, both locally and internationally. Whether it be through the provision of police, military and/or civilian personnel, humanitarian assistance, or post-conflict development assistance, the international community has repeatedly attempted to mitigate the effects of conflict, as well as to contribute to reforms which might lead to the prevention of local and global insecurity in the future.
... These reports highlight the critical importance of community-oriented practice. and additional, nation-specific studies [17][18][19][20]. ...
UN peacekeepers face new conditions of conflict today, which call for expanded peacekeeping strategies. Among these new conditions is the increasing localization of violent conflict, especially among extra-state forces that are mobilized by ideological and religious passions. Responding to such challenges, the UN and its multinational partners attend increasingly to regional and local settings of intergroup tension and conflict. Among the consequences are greater emphasis on relations between UN peacekeeping and local police forces and on community policing. In this essay, we argue that these new peacekeeping directions are promising but lack one key dimension: attention to unique behavioral features of local, religion-on-religion conflict. Because such conflict plays an increasing role in location-specific tension and violence, it is increasingly important for peacekeepers to learn how to identify and analyze these unique features in real time and then reshape peacekeeping strategies accordingly. To illustrate how it is possible to do so, we introduce a detailed case study of successful community policing of religion-on-religion conflict: Muslim-Hindu intergroup conflict in Madhya Pradesh India.
... Bu bağlamda, yapısal, stratejik ve operasyonel dönüşümü ve aynı zamanda, toplumsal hareketlere ve protestolara yönelik kontrol ve müdahalelerinde polisin, daha militarize hâle gelmesi önemli bir tartışma ve araştırma alanı olmaya devam etmektedir (Geary, 1985;Della Porta & Reiter, 1998;Fernandez, 2008;Bonner & Dammert, 2021). Genel itibariyle Batılı demokratik ülkelerde, ideal olarak, güvenliği sağlanan toplulukla polisi bir araya getiren, topluluk üyeleri ve güvenlik güçleri arasında suçu azaltmak ve ayrıca protestolar sırasında kamu düzenini sağlamak için diyaloğu, paylaşımı ve işbirliğini güçlendiren ve sonuçta polisin verimliliğini ve toplum nezdinde güvenilirliğini arttıran topluluk-destekli polislik modelinin (community policing) benimsenmesi ve uygulanması öngörülmektedir (Cheurprakobkit, 2002;Brogden & Nijhar, 2005;Saskia vd., 2017). 1970'li yıllardan itibaren terörizm, organize suç ve toplumsal mobilizasyonların artması, bu modelin uygulanmasını zorlaştırırken (Murray, 2006), bu gelişmeler karşısında ise bilhassa çevik kuvvet polisi nezdinde daha militarize bir mantaliteyi, kültürü, örgütlenmeyi ve taktikleri ön plana çıkmıştır (Kraska, 2007;Kappeler & Gaines, 2011, ss.490-491;Della Porta & Tarrow, 2012;Balko, 2013). ...
Nisan 2021’de, Kolombiya’da, Covid-19 salgınının etkilerini hafifletmek amacıyla açıklanan sağlık sistemi reformu ve vergi düzenlemesi binlerce kişinin protestolara başlamasına neden olmuştur. Protestolar karşısında, hükümet, önce polis daha sonra ulusal ordu birliklerini kamusal düzeni sağlamak üzere görevlendirmiştir. Ancak, sivil vatandaşların güvenlik güçleri tarafından hedef alınması sorunu protestolar sırasında da gözlemlenmiş ve gösterilerin daha da büyümesine neden olmuştur. Bu bağlamda, bu çalışma, Kolombiya’da süregiden protesto eylemlerinin ortaya çıkışını, artarak devam etmesini ve bunların nedenlerini incelemektedir. Buna göre, çalışmada, Kolombiya’da güvenlik güçlerinin, en başta sivilleri hedef alan kronikleşmiş aşırı şiddet eylemlerinin, hem söz konusu protestoların ortaya çıkmasını tetiklediğini hem de daha çok eylemcinin hükümet karşıtı protestolara katılmalarına neden olduğunu savunulmaktadır. Çalışmada, Kolombiya’da polis teşkilatının paramiliterleşmesinin protestolar ve toplum nezdindeki sonuçları tartışılmaktadır. 2021 Protestoları, bu çalışmada, Kolombiya medyasında yer alan haberlere ve uluslararası örgütlerin gözlemlerine dayanan kaynaklar üzerinden tarihsel bağlamına konumlandırılmakta ve devam eden protesto ve şiddet eylemlerinin muhtemel seyrine dair bir analiz ortaya konulmaktadır. Bu şekilde, Latin Amerika’da yaygın olan toplumsal hareketler kültürünün, mevcut Kolombiya siyasetinin anlaşılmasına ve aynı zamanda siyasal şiddet literatürüne bu şekilde katkı sunulmaktadır.
... Since Tom Tyler's (1990) ground-breaking presentation on the legitimacy of legal institutions, there has been a renaissance of interest in the field of criminology and criminal justice, with specific reference to the importance of police legitimacy in engendering public law-abiding attitudes (Tankebe, 2008(Tankebe, , 2014Bottoms, 2002). Such interest might have stemmed from the realisation that, in modern democracies, an orthodox deterrence approach to public compliance with the law and general cooperation with legal authorities has not been effective (Brogden & Nijhar, 2005;Sunshine & Tyler, 2003). Therefore, without completely jettisoning the deterrence model, many countries have embraced community policing as a viable alternative to securing public cooperation with the police and compliance with legal authorities. ...
... Community policing is a central idea in police management and academic scholarship. Coined in the 1990s, it has since figured prominently in police reform efforts worldwide (Brogden and Nijhar, 2005;Johnson and Roth, 2003;Shilston, 2015). Its broad scope and ambitious goals are captured in the definition below: ...
Community policing promises to foster collaboration between police and citizens, strengthen social cohesion, and address the root causes of crime and disorder. In order to understand why it often fails to achieve this, we argue that scholars should recognize community–police meetings as sites of dynamic, multi-scalar political contestation and pay closer attention to the not-so-hidden partisan struggles that shape them. Our empirical analysis focuses on Buenos Aires, Argentina. Based on ethnographic observation of 30 community–police meetings and interviews with 50 politicians, police officers, activists, and everyday citizens, we explain how higher-order partisan contests influenced the dynamics and outcomes of local meetings. We show how these meetings exacerbated social schisms, reified ideological differences between competing parties, and galvanized support for the City Government’s “law and order” policies. Our results suggest that local participation sometimes reinforces the punitive approaches to urban problems that community policing originally aimed to transcend.
... Bayley & Shearing (1996) described community policing as a new organising paradigm, a revolution in police work, or even a new orthodoxy. 19 Brogden & Nijhar (2005) called it a buzzword that comes in all shapes and sizes. 20 Overall, the literature shows that it is very difficult to find or establish a common definition of community policing, as techniques come from a multitude of policing models and best practices are not concise. ...
This article presents a review of keywords available in the literature focusing on policing models, with the aim of evaluating how authors and KeyWords Plus classify these models. The literature shows that even though several policing models have been published since the 1970s, there is no common categorisation of the different approaches. This, however, would help unifying the area. A strong relationship between third-party policing, problem-orientedpolicing, community policing, evidence-based policing,and hot spot policing models was also identified, meaning that usually two or more of these approaches were used in conjunction. The analysis of the keywords showed that three main policing models exist today: community policing, predictive policing and evidence-based policing.
... Some scholars describe community policing as a farce created by the police authorities to hide their atrocities in the name of collaborating with the public/community members. Critics of the community policing intitiative see it as a failed project citing several reasons namely; community members are rarely involved in the development of solutions to their problems but are consistently too dependent on police officers in solving their problems (Somerville, 2009); only a small number of community members actively partake in community forums; it is seen as a public relations (PR) stunt by the police that cannot 'solve crime' but which seeks to assure the community that it is 'doing something' (Brogden and Nijhar, 2005); some community policing initiatives ignore and even exacerbate conflict and social disorder (Boostrom, 2000); and they choose to care less for poor and underprivileged communities where crime is high and support for the police is lowest (Brogden and Nijhar, 2005, pp. 61-2). ...
The concept of community policing was adopted by the Malawi government as a vehicle to facilitate police and the public engagement in fighting crimes. Considering that community policing has existed for over a decade in Malawi, this study was carried out to holistically uncover challenges associated with public involvement in community policing activities with the purpose to provide empirically backed strategies for the efficient implementation of the concept.
The study employed a case study approach. Purposive sampling was used on one hand to select the research site – Central Regions of Malawi and to select the police officers working as Community Policing Coordinators and members of the communities working in Community Police Forums. Quota sampling was used to select police officers and members of the community from each district. Finally, convenient sampling was used to select police officers and members within the quotas of each district. Focus group discussions were conducted with 16 Community Police Forums; interviews were conducted with 16 Community Policing Coordinators; a questionnaire was used to collect data from 144 community members and 200 police officers.
Results show that the community members are not satisfied with police officers in the way they implement the community policing because the police do not offer the public enough protection from criminals and that the police mostly treat the community badly. The community members were involved in the implementation of the community policing mainly because of worsening crimes in the community, personal fear of the crimes, need to be recognised by the police and the desire to benefit from the rewards from Non-Governmental Organisations in form of food. The factors that challenged the implementation of community policing include lack of knowledge on community policing on the part of police officers; lack of recognition of community policing; corrupt practices; lack of confidentiality; poor working relationship; and lack of resources.
The concept of community policing continues to receive unprecedented attention in police reforms. Much as there is evidence of growing literature on this concept, little is known in Malawi where this study was conducted. In light of this, the study provides valuable literature which might be necessary for global academics and particularly in community policing in Malawi with practical implications on re-designing and continued implementation of community policing in Malawi and perhaps other developing countries.
... In our study, we take information sharing 1 to refer to the exchange of personal information and valuable knowledge between the police and community members. This includes the identification of local policing issues through consultation with the public, the collection of information from residents on criminal events and antisocial behaviour and reporting back to the public on progress (Brogden and Nijhar, 2005;Trojanowizc and Bucqueroux, 1990). Community policing broadly refers to a policing style that prioritises a problem-solving and collaborative approach with members of the public. ...
The literature on the importance of procedural justice in policing is extensive. Using the context of information sharing in community policing, this paper argues that interactional, procedural and distributive justice are salient in interactions between the police and the public, both online and face-to-face. Structured interviews ( n = 161) were conducted with members of young minority groups and intermediaries (who work with minorities and police agencies) across nine countries in Europe. Our analysis of barriers and facilitators to sharing information with the police highlights processes of interactional, procedural and distributive justice in building public confidence. We highlight theoretical and practical implications of relevance to policing internationally. Our findings show that demonstrating aspects of interactional justice (attitude and behaviour, accessibility and communication, personal contact and relationships); procedural justice (responsiveness and efficiency, data protection and security); and distributive justice (outcomes and effectiveness, equity in distribution of policing services) have a role in building public confidence and facilitating information sharing with police online and face-to-face. We conclude that in addition to micro-level interactions, meso-level social processes (e.g. community policing models and data protection and security procedures) can be useful in enhancing public confidence.
... Policing is now being widely offered by institutions other than the state, most notably by private companies and by communities on a volunteer basis. Moreover, during the first two decades, we have experienced a strong drive to reshape police management in new directions, such as community policing (Brogden & Nijhar, 2005;van Eijk, Steen, and Verschuere, 2017;Terpstra, 2008;Karlovic & Sucic, 2017), problem-oriented policing (Reising, 2010;Cordner, 2014), strengthening municipal policing (Donnelly, 2013;Maillard & Zagrodzki, 2017), pluralizing of policing (Bayley & Shearing, 1996) and, last but not least, volunteer engagement (Uhnoo & Löfstrand, 2018;Longstaff et al., 2015). The Polish policing system provides a very particular case study of a system that, until very recently, has been largely reform resistant. ...
In many countries, the police, as a part of public administration, have witnessed many changes during the last few years. This article explores the process of the reform of the Polish police force, which took place between 2015 and 2017. Doing so examines in detail the process of implementing an IT tool – The National Security Threat Map – by paying particular attention to the mechanism of engaging external stakeholders. This study is conceptual but empirically focused. The paper posits that, despite the hierarchical nature of the police administration structure, it is possible to build an engagement of external stakeholders.
... They reproduce, albeit in a new way, the old problems of inequality, dependence and subordination, that frequently articulate the relations between central and peripheral countries. Some of them have been the object of specific investigation, like the transfers of techniques and practices of 'crime prevention', especially 'situational prevention' and 'evidence-led prevention' (Blaustein, 2016;Sozzo, 2011a;Steinberg, 2011), of the model of 'community policing' and other policy imperatives to 'democratize' police institutions and practices (Brogden and Ellison, 2013;Brogden and Nijhar, 2005;Ellison, 2007;Ellison and Pino, 2012), of the plea bargaining within criminal justice reforms that seek to adopt an accusatory model (Langer, 2004(Langer, , 2007(Langer, , 2021, of practices of migration and penal control (Bosworth, 2017), or of 'supermax prisons' (Macauly, 2013). ...
In the last years there has been a growing effort from different theoretical perspectives to interrogate critically the impact of colonialism in the past and present of institutions and practices of crime control, both at the central and peripheral contexts, as well as in the production of knowledge in the criminological field. In this feature piece we examine this debate. We offer a critical account of key themes and problems that emerge from the intimate relationship between colonialism and punishment that directly challenge the persistent neglect of these dimensions in mainstream criminological scholarship. We aim to foreground the relevance of this relationship to contemporary enquiries. We highlight that decolonization did not dismantle the colonial roots of the cultural, social and political mechanisms informing contemporary punishment. They are still very much part of criminal justice practice and are thus also central to criminological knowledge productions.
... To date, few criminologists have analysed and conceptualized the meeting point between transnational and local criminal justice in the context of international state-building, and those who have done so have focused in particular on police reform and training (Blaustein, 2015;Bowling and Sheptycki, 2012;Brogden and Nijhar, 2005;Ellison and Pino, 2012;Goldsmith and Sheptycki, 2007;Pino and Wiatrowski, 2006). Importantly, these scholars have brought attention to the fact that the 'one size fits all' crime control and policing models exported and transplanted embody Global North notions of 'democracy', 'rights' and 'stateness' which do not take into account the local 'history, politics, culture, legal norms, the existence of a functioning state infrastructure and the presence of elite groups who are normatively committed to democratization' (Ellison and Pino, 2012: 56). ...
Outside of criminology, dominant conceptions of postcolonial statehood in the Global South as 'fragile' or 'failed' have long been criticized. In criminology, however, the theoretical outcomes of this critique have been scarce. In this article we therefore ask how ideals and practices of transnational criminal justice are informed by and productive of specific (Global North) conceptions of statehood. Exploring encounters between transnational and local criminal justice in the context of international state-building in Mali and Liberia, we observe frictions in which statehood divergences and global hierarchies become apparent. Through penal aid, we argue, a particular kind of penal statehood is produced wherein the options of how to perform penality are increasingly limited by the embeddedness in global power asymmetries.
... Local Polri representative at province level, Polisi Daerah (Polda) Bali, has responded to the conflict by a variety of actions intended to resolve the dispute and create peace among ormas. The actions have been discussed widely as part of conventional policing tasks in which law enforcement is the core of the strategies (Anjaya, 2020;Braga, 2015;Brogden and Nijhar, 2005;Coquilhat, 2008;Dobrin, 2006;Eck, 2006). The general procedure of the actions, however, has considering the root of the cause of the conflict with relatively a linear perspective without taking into account the complexities of the sources of the problem (Anjaya, 2020: p.83). ...
The link between sustainability and policing has not been widely discussed and systematically analyzed in conflict resolution to gain long term goals of post-conflict recovery and reconciliation. A fairly large cross-disciplinary literature has developed and proposed a multi-dimensional notion of sustainability in organizational performance including public services and law-enforcement activities. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework to bridge sustainability practices and policing activities in the background of Balinese mass organization conflict. A conceptual literature review is adopted to customize diverse connections of sustainability, policing, and hence conflict. The results of the research show that the policing activities may place a stronger focus on conflict resolution by developing sustainable conflict transformation when there are regular conflict potential and a dynamic changing environment. The primary conclusion of this paper is that the relationships between sustainability practices and policing activities rely on divergent factors, including social dynamics, culture, organizational structure, and institutional landscapes.
... Uzimajući u obzir sve karakteristike japanskog modela primene strategije policije u zajednici, delimo stavove autora koji smatraju da je to prototip njene uspešne primene (Brogden & Nijhar, 2005, navedeno u Kocak, 2018, te da kao takav može poslužiti kao uzor po kome se mogu ravnati druge države koje su se odlučile za njenu primenu. ...
Community policing is the strategy of policing that is applied in countries around the world, and through time, it became the most popular way of approach to police work. The goal of this strategy is reflected in creating a better and safer life of citizens, which is achieved through the teamwork of the police and the local community. Based on the analysis of the content of foreign scientific and professional literature, and official publications of the Japanese police, the author presents the specifics of the implementation of community policing strategy in Japan, in order to point to examples of good police practice, given that this is an official approach to policing in the Republic of Serbia. In addition to a review of the basic settings of this strategy, the organizational, programmatic, strategic and philosophical level of the so-called the koban - model of police work, the paper is presenting the obstacles that stand in the way of achieving the goals of this strategy and how the Japanese police overcome them. Finally, the author concludes that the practice of the Japanese police is a prototype of successful policing in the community, but that it is conditioned by the specifics of Japanese society, and as such can hardly be implemented in societies that do not share the same characteristics.
... The criminological literature that has explored the Northern export of crime control models to the Global South (or East) have almost exclusively focused on policing models and/or police reform, mostly in the context of post-conflict reconstruction (Ellison and Pino, 2012;Bowling and Sheptycki 2012;Blaustein, 2015;Goldsmith and Scheptycki, 2007;Pino and Wiatrowski, 2006;Brogden and Nijhar, 2005). These scholars have observed that security sector reform (SSR), police reform and the flow of crime control models and police expertise from the Global North to developing, post-authoritarian and transitional states has become a global industry comprising enormous sums of money, although evidence of efficacy is scarce (Ellison and Pino 2012: 2, 70). ...
This thesis investigates how Western crime control policies and models are exported to the Global South, and what the power implications are herein. More specifically, it explores crime control as European Union (EU) external policy, and the role of internal security issues in the EU’s relations with the Sahel region of West Africa. Travelling crime control is studied through various stages of empirical exploration and levels of analysis.
Empirically, the most central contributions of this thesis are broadly threefold. First, the thesis constitutes the first mapping of EU aid to crime control and internal security across regions and over a period of 15 years. Second, based on fieldwork and interviews in Senegal, Mali, Niger and Brussels, it provides in-depth empirical knowledge about the micro-politics and practices of the EU’s export of its crime control models to West Africa. Third, it empirically documents the meeting point between European crime control models and Sahelian social realities, including resistance to Eurocentric forms of control.
In terms of theory, the thesis makes contributions across Criminology and International Relations (IR): encompassing analyses of the constitutive as well as structural forms of power implicated in the EU’s export of crime control and border security to West Africa and the wider southern neighbourhood. In so doing, it simultaneously advances transnational criminological theory on the relationship between crime control/penal power and state/sovereignty.
... Furthermore, it is not immune to change. Th e proportion of women offi cers has increased substantially in recent decades, and shift s toward soft er forms of community and proximity policing have gained ground (Brogden and Nijhar 2005). Despite substantial changes in operational policing and its management, however, research on police culture across diff erent countries and contexts continues to fi nd that it is pervaded by hegemonic masculinity (e.g., Brown 2007;Franklin 2007;Gripp and Zaluar 2017;Prokos and Padavic 2002;Sirimarco 2013). ...
The Police “Pacification” Unit (Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora—UPP) program in Rio de Janeiro pledged to pacify both militarized police officers and the communities they patrolled: favelas occupied by armed drug traffickers. While the UPPs promoted a softer approach, police practices remained permeated with logics of violence. In understanding why, this article examines how an enduring “warrior ethos” influences the occupational culture of the police. I frame this warrior ethos by reference to notions of masculinity and honor both in the police culture and in the favela, and approach the warrior as a masculine performance. This masculinities perspective on the ways in which policing activities are framed and enacted provides important insights into why it was so difficult to change police attitudes and practices.
... Community Oriented Policing (COP) is a popular policing concept in the U.S. and other global Western societies that approaches crime prevention by utilizing problem solving and improved community and police relations as a strategy (Gill et al., 2014). It is a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies to support the systematic use of partnerships and problemsolving techniques (Brogden & Nijhar, 2013). COP is grounded in procedural justice and is intended to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as crime, social disorder, fear of violence, and fear of crime (Tyler et al., 2015). ...
The following study used self- report data from a sample of police investigators of Sub-Sahara African nations to identify interviewing/interrogation techniques used in the region and capture
the opinions of the techniques used. The literature review provides an overview of the current state of democratic policing in Sub-Saharan African nations, the global interview and interrogation literature, and the gap in literature that exist in relation to the topic from a cultural
and international psychology perspective. A concurrent nested mixed-methods design was utilized in response to the research questions. Results indicate the interview techniques reported used by investigators in Sub-Sahara Africa nations are similar to those reported used in the
United States and other parts of the world, and the issue of obtaining false confessions and false information should be explored further. Also, opinions related to the effectiveness and attitudes
concomitant to bounded authority influences the interviewer's decision to choose a confrontational or non-confrontational method.
... Hence, public confidence in the police seems to portend something more significant that outweighs the stereotype issue of fear of crime victimisation or neighbourhood crime level. Such understanding form part of the rationale for the adoption, and propagation of community policing approach, in different parts of the world (Sunshine & Tyler, 2003;Brogden & Nijhar, 2005;Bello & Olutola, 2016). That is, when police-public relationship is cordial, the question of public confidence in the police becomes secondary. ...
This empirical study explores police corruption, and measure whether public experience of police corruption predict confidence in the police. Police legitimacy is often built on public confidence, but when the actions of the police are fraught with corruption, the confidence reposed on it by the public will be eroded. Studies have also demonstrated that public experience of police corruption undermine the ethos and image of the police. While this assertion holds true, scarcely has any study test the creditability of such assumption. Therefore, it is imperative to assess in detail, the extent of such claim, and the major determinant of public loss of confidence in the police. Using a sample of 482 participants from a cross-sectional survey, the study measures whether public experience of police corruption has any effect on any of the three dimensions of public confidence in the South African Police Service. This current study corroborates and somewhat challenge previous assertions on the extent of relationship between the police and the public in South Africa. The implications of the findings for policing in South Africa are discussed.
... COP is thus now widely recognized as a relevant approach to policing and restoring trust in police/community relations even in post-conflict contexts. Despite decades of research on COP, however, there remains a lack of consensus on both its definition and practice (See for example [24,[36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43]). Thus, COP is understood and implemented differently in different contexts across the globe. ...
The world is increasingly interconnected - insecurity in one country can both directly and indirectly affect the security of people, countries and regions that are far away. Therefore, when conflict erupts in one part of the world, the international community responds in various ways to mitigate its effects, both locally and internationally. Whether it be through the provision of police, military and/or civilian personnel, humanitarian assistance, or post-conflict development assistance, the international community has repeatedly attempted to mitigate the effects of conflict, as well as to contribute to reforms which might lead to the prevention of local and global insecurity in the future. This Special Issue is dedicated to exploring community-oriented policing (COP) and police reform in a series of post-conflict contexts: Kosovo, Guatemala, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Kenya. The papers are based on mixed-methods research conducted under the EU-funded project ‘Community-Oriented Policing and Post-Conflict Police Reform’ (ICT4COP 2015-2020). In this project, and in the papers in this special issue, we explore how police reform in volatile contexts has taken place, and whether a focus on COP approaches rather than militarized approaches might be more effective in building trust, preventing violence and ensuring human security.
... In response to the challenging environment, police agencies, in recent years have adopted a number of different approaches to improve the delivery of their core services. The most common approaches adopted have been Community Oriented Policing (Thurman & Zhao, 2004), Problem Oriented Policing (Brogden & Nijhar, 2005), Intelligence-led Policing (Carter, 2011;Ratcliffe, 2016) and Hotspot Policing (Braga & Weisburd, 2010). However, adopting these approaches has not made any fundamental change to the way that police agencies relate to their communities or carry out their business to the extent that, for example, Compstat (see Willis et al., 2007) or the United Kingdom National Intelligence Model (Maguire & John, 2006) have. ...
In 2009, the New Zealand Police implemented a comprehensive program called Policing Excellence, which by 2011 became Prevention First. This strategy was designed to place victims of crime and the prevention of crime at the foreground of their service delivery, with view that in the longer-term crime would decrease. This article reviews the influence of the strategy on crime in New Zealand for the period 2009 to 2018 and finds that although the strategy has initially successful, in later years the strategy has not been successful. The review also finds that the effectiveness of the New Zealand Police has decreased significantly during this period and argues for a more balanced strategy that includes an improved form of response to increase public satisfaction with the organization’s service delivery.
... One of the motivations for introducing community policing in different parts of the world, including South Africa, is to create a confluence point where the police can collaborate with people in communities in order to help them solve their crime problems (Cordner, 2010;Brogden & Nijhar, 2005). Researchers have argued that for such a relationship to be sustained, public trust in the police institution is fundamental (Jackson & Bradford, 2010;Tyler, 2005;Sunshine & Tyler, 2003) and that such a partnership will also engender effective policing (Murphy & Cherney, 2012;Tankebe, 2010). ...
─ Public trust in the police is an important indicator of effective policing in a democratic system. While this assertion holds true for most police research, hardly any prior studies in this field explored university students' perceptions of the police. In light of this gap, the study on which this paper is based sought to elucidate students' perceptions of the South African Police Service. A quantitative approach was adopted and a sample of 682 (n=682) participants was drawn at one of the largest universities in South Africa for a cross-sectional survey of students' perceptions. The specific goal was to assess whether students' trust in the police was shaped by their perceptions of the Police Service in general, and police officers' behaviour in particular. The findings indicated that students generally had an unfavourable disposition towards the police and that this disposition affected their trust in police officials. The findings also suggested that male students' perceptions of the police differed a great deal from those of female students. In general, it was found that university students viewed the police as unfair and corrupt and that these negative perceptions consistently engendered mistrust in the police. These findings corroborate broader assertions that the relationship between the police and the public in South Africa is poor and that police brutality, corruption, and a range of other police misconducts erode public trust in the South African Police Service. It was concluded that, if students' perceptions have to be changed, the contributory factors to police misconduct must be addressed as a matter of urgency. Moreover, programs that will aid and
... We knew from Nelken's observations and our knowledge of policing in Europe that ideas of 'local' policing, whether framed as formal administrative systems of organization or as agendas around public participation and responsiveness to 'community demands', did not travel easily. They could be controversial, if they were part of the conversation at all (for example, Brogden and Nijhar, 2005). For that reason, as we began to share ideas with colleagues from throughout the Policing Working Group, we quickly gravitated towards 'local' as a useful point of orientation precisely because there is no commonly held universal truth about the local in policing in Europe. ...
... It has since become a popular policing approach, not only in the USA, but also in European countries (most notably the UK), Australia and in some transitional or "failed" states (e.g. post-apartheid South Africa) (Brogden and Nijhar, 2005;Gill et al., 2014). However, there has been considerable contention about the fundamental components of COP and what types of outcomes its adoption can deliver. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether community-oriented policing (COP) influences rates of police use of force across communities, and whether the impact of COP varies according to the level of violent crime in communities.
Design/methodology/approach
A range of data sources including police use of force reports, online surveys of Officers-in-Charge and recorded crime data was used to examine the association between formal and informal community consultation and the frequency of police use of force, across 64 socially challenged communities in Australia.
Findings
Poisson multilevel modelling indicated no overall association between informal or formal community engagement and rates of police use of force. However, significant interaction terms for both informal and formal community consultation with violent crime rates indicated that higher levels of informal and formal community consultation were associated with lower rates of police use of force in communities with higher levels of violent crime. This relationship was not evident in low violent crime areas.
Research limitations/implications
Communities were purposively sampled to have a high propensity for police use of force, on the basis that they had high rates of violent crime, or high levels of socio-economic disadvantage, or both. This research should be replicated with a representative sample of communities.
Practical implications
The findings extend the potential benefits of COP to reducing the use of coercive policing tactics in high violent crime communities.
Originality/value
This study finds that COP can reduce the frequency of violent encounters between police and community members in high violent crime communities.
This policy note explores the characteristics of community-based armed groups (CBAGs) unique to the Kenyan context through a comparison of local CBAGs with other nonstate armed groups, particularly violent extremist organizations (VEOs). In doing so, it introduces the concept of territoriality-the degree to which government and security agents are able to monopolize political, social, and security control of spaces. Both CBAGs and VEOs are most likely to thrive in Kenya under conditions of semi-territoriality, where state authority sometimes shifts fluidly from strong to weak depending on capacity or interest. To combat the rise of VEOs community-oriented policing and strengthening relations between civil society and the police through the Police Reforms Working Group Kenya (PRWGK) to monitor and evaluate the police service are recommended. Community-oriented strategies to map CBAGs and VEOs through clan structures is also recommended. FAST FACTS → Conceptualizing the operation of violent extremist organizations (VEOs) and community based armed groups (CBAGs) in Kenya requires an understanding of terri-toriality, or the psychological or physical control of space by an individual or a group. → The fluid nature of territoriality is a key element that enables the survival of VEOs and CBAGs. → Kenya's government policies are based on traditional strategies of power centralization. Such kinetic national and county action plans on CVE are rooted in high securitization and lack an understanding of the dynamic operations of extremist groups. "Understanding territoriality and how the VEOs and CBAGs take advantage of its fluidity should be a crucial asset in informing preventive CVE policy and research."
Over ten years of Boko Haram terrorism in Nigeria has placed the Islamist Jihadist sect as the most notorious and intractable insurgent group that has ever featured in the country. They have irrepressibly posed great threats to national security by destructively attacking organisations, both local and international, and laying serious foundations for engrained underdevelopment of the Nigerian state. This study adopts a qualitative methodological approach of in-depth interviews to examine the phenomenon and suggest a community policing approach—among other preventive policy recommendations—as a new paradigm shift in counterterrorism strategy to resolve the crisis in Nigeria, as well as prevent future occurrence of such menace in this part of sub-Saharan Africa.KeywordsBoko HaramCommunity policingConflict resolutionTerrorismThe Nigerian state
The study assesses the religious paradox of Amotekun as a typology of community policing outfit in the SouthWestern States of Nigeria. Amotekun was created by the state governments out of a perceived failure of the Nigerian government to provide security and protection through the regular police force in the southwestern states which are prone to serious insecurity challenges due to their populations' outburst, economic realities and peculiar social environments. Second, the study addresses the dispute about the name and biblical (or religious) source for Amotekun which suggests a heightened religious sensitivity and debates leading to motivation for a viable area of intellectual research. The study is based on a critical historical review of extant literature, participant observation and personal interviews. The paper argues that it would not be easy to deny the irreligious and religiousness and Africanness of Amotekun as a typology of a community policing outfit.
The study assesses the religious paradox of Amotekun as a typology of community policing outfit in the South-Western States of Nigeria. Amotekun was created by the state governments out of a perceived failure of the Nigerian government to provide security and protection through the regular police force in the south-western states which are prone to serious insecurity challenges due to their populations’ outburst, economic realities and peculiar social environments. Second, the study addresses the dispute about the name and biblical (or religious) source for Amotekun which suggests a heightened religious sensitivity and debates leading to motivation for a viable area of intellectual research. The study is based on a critical historical review of extant literature, participant observation and personal interviews. The paper argues that it would not be easy to deny the irreligious and religiousness and Africanness of Amotekun as a typology of a community policing outfit.
This study examined the implementation of community policing in Hong Kong with reference from the evolution of the police youth club: Junior Police Call (JPC) programme which targetted the student population. The JPC was established in the 1970s and widely regarded as a very successful community policing initiative of the Royal Hong Kong Police (RHKP) to re-legitimise itself after the territory-wide social confrontation in 1966 and 1967. We analysed the reflection from JPC administrators and participants in a police district with a large school children population, to explore the strategy adopted by the police authorities to practice this community policing programme uncommon in colonial policing. Our study found the police strategically resocialized the youth with the collaboration with schoolteachers and local elites. However, the successful creation of ‘good citizens’ was still overshadowed by her concern for the emergence of social consciousness that might delegitimize the colonial governance.
This handbook, which was developed for SaferSpaces by the Safety and Violence Initiative (at the University of Cape Town), was undertaken with the objective of identifying evidence, lessons and challenges that have relevance for safety and security policy realisation in South
Africa.
What are the conditions underlying successful implementation of participatory security mechanisms? Drawing on the case of Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl and from the notion of social embeddedness , we argue that participatory security reforms that aim to include citizens in defining security priorities allow for better adoption of reforms in practice. Local level reforms are not implemented in a social vacuum but rather in pre-existing social networks that are key to their adoption in practice by citizens. However, not all social networks are equal, nor do they operate in the same manner. In ‘Neza’, it is through existing clientelistic networks and socially embedded local brokers that the redes vecinales were implemented and adopted by citizens, leading to varied reform adoption patterns at the very local level.
Jarich Kéresdedjian, Criminology, University Ghent Abstract of Master's Thesis, Submitted 17 August 2020 Neighborhood policing : back to the basics thanks to the support from private security.
This report summarises the research evidence that has underpinned the development of national guidelines on neighbourhood policing. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Service (2016) recommended that the College of Policing develop these guidelines, following concerns it had raised about the continued erosion of local policing and the need for many forces to take urgent action to maintain a proactive and preventative approach to policing. The guidelines were developed by a committee of practitioners, subject matter experts and academics, drawing on the best available evidence (see College 2017). The main sources of evidence the College Guideline Committee considered were the findings of two rapid evidence assessments (REAs), which sought to answer the following questions:
REA1 – what constitutes effective neighbourhood policing?
REA2 – what acts as a facilitator or barrier to successful implementation of
neighbourhood policing?
Crime continues to be a serious problem in South Africa, as the country ranks 3 rd on the global crime index as at 2016. The damaging impact of crime on the safety and security of communities, peace and stability in the country as well as its effect on the country's reputation among potential international tourists and investors, and how all these affect the general quality of life of ordinary citizens need no emphasis. Crime solutions that work and are cost effective remain elusive. However, due to its success in reducing crime rates in different parts of the world since its introduction in the United States of America during the 1970s, community policing is now a standard ideological and policy model guiding mission statements, goals, and reform programs of most policing agencies across the world. Regardless of its enviable status in the practicing of policing, more than twenty (20) years after the attainment of democracy, the question beckons whether the inception of community policing and particularly community policing forums is an effective strategy within the South African communities to combat and prevent crime. This paper draws from the work of a PhD thesis, submitted at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. The primary objective of this paper is to explore the challenges of CPFs in combating crime in two dissimilar residential locations in Durban.A qualitative research approach was adopted, the findings collected through focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews with a total number of fifty-five (55) participants comprising of South African Police Service (SAPS) and CPFs representatives, political leaders and ordinary members of the two communities suggest limited knowledge of and affinity to CPFs by community members. This owes partly to lack of communication, resources, trust, as well as political interference and SAPS organisational culture, which affect the functioning of these CPFs. Together, these findings suggest that more effort is needed from both the community and the police for an effective functioning of the CPFs.
This article analyzes the significant role played by community safety structures in Msinga Local Municipality. The motivation behind this study was based on safety within the selected community, considering the increase in violent crimes there. It is rooted in the National Developmental Plan (NDP) of attempting to build safer communities by 2030, by building community participation in community safety. In ensuring that the aim of this study was achieved, a mixed method research design was used, which assisted the researcher to focus on both contesting the existence of community safety structures and exploring their significance in Msinga Local Municipality. Overall, the finding of this study revealed that community safety structures play a vital role in preventing crime within Msinga Local Municipality.
This study tries to offer the most comprehensive analysis of the theories and research evidence base for body‐worn cameras (BWCs) and closed-circuit television systems (CCTV). The perspective of such analysis would be to evaluate the possible implementation of these technologies in Spain. The impact of cameras on officers’ and citizens’ behavior and perceptions, criminal investigations, and police organizations are studied, as well as their political implications and costs of implementation. Although officers, citizens and police leaders are generally supportive of these technologies, we don’t have a great body of scientific-based evidence that compensates the real costs of implementation that come along, in terms of effectiveness. There should be a growth in the number and thoroughness of the studies related to the impact of these technologies in more aspects of police work, in order to be able to correctly evaluate the convenience of their implementation. Nevertheless, this implementation is considered positive, and some recommendations are made in order to successfully apply the studied technologies.
En este trabajo se trata de ofrecer un análisis comprensivo de la mayoría de teorías y estudios que se han realizado hasta la fecha en lo referente a las conocidas como bodycams (o body‐worn cameras/BWC) y los sistemas CCTV (closed-circuit television) desde una perspectiva de aplicación para las fuerzas y cuerpos de seguridad en España. Se trata el impacto de estas tecnologías en el comportamiento y percepción de los agentes, ciudadanos, investigaciones penales y organización policial, así como sus implicaciones políticas y costes asociados. Aunque existe un apoyo general entre los agentes, ciudadanos y cúpula policial para su aplicación, no existe un gran cuerpo de evidencias científicas que fundamente el coste que verdaderamente conlleva la adopción de estas tecnologías en términos de efectividad. Debería incrementarse el número y profundidad de los estudios sobre el impacto de estas tecnologías en más aspectos del trabajo policial para poder evaluar de forma adecuada la conveniencia de su aplicación. Pese a ello, se considera positiva su aplicación y se hacen recomendaciones para que se realice con éxito.
Community policing has been a popular paradigm for local anti-crime activities in Africa since the 1990s and spread rapidly across the continent. Humanitarian agencies have increasingly embraced versions of the framework to administer refugee camps and ostensibly foster security, protection and peaceful co-existence among residents. This article demonstrates that the deployment of community policing in Kakuma camp in north-western Kenya has been far more contested. Aid organisations and Kenyan authorities have competed in determining the orientation and implementation of community policing at a time when the government was intensifying both securitisation of refugees and counter-terrorism measures. Kakuma‘s Community Peace and Protection Teams (CPPTs) were therefore torn between humanitarian conceptions of localised refugee protection and more illiberal forms of security work which bound them closer to the Kenyan state. The permanent negotiation between these parallel ‘technologies of government' was reflected in contestations over uniforms, trainings and everyday practices. Powerful institutions attempted to script refugee conduct and thus discipline the camp's pluralistic social networks and forms of counter-organisation embedded in a ‘deep community’. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, the article illustrates that governing refugees through community policing blurs the lines between humanitarian protection, domesticating local systems of governance, and expanding the security state.
Objectives
This article examines the influence of social context on punishment decisions. To this end, we present a theoretical framework to identify outcomes that can occur when police and probation officers work in schools.
Method
The proposed framework draws on organizational theory as well as scholarship on school discipline and punishment and the effects of placing officers in schools. It also draws from insights gathered from site visits, interviews, and focus groups conducted as part of a process evaluation of a school-based delinquency prevention program. We then present data from interviews and focus groups with 41 school-based safety staff to examine the plausibility of the hypothesized framework.
Results
We find that officers’ goals interact with the goals of school-based actors to influence punishment-related outcomes. We also find that officers are not always the more punitive force in the schools and that placing officers in schools may have positive as well as negative effects for youth.
Conclusions
The findings suggest that current accounts of officers in schools are incomplete. Dynamic interactions may occur within organizational partnerships and should be considered when seeking to understand punishment decisions not only in schools but also in other settings.
In Maputo city, post-war liberalisation implied new police reforms based on the rule of law, but it also led to rising crime and an unequal distribution of public security provision that favours the inner-city over the poorer peripheries. This article explores how this spatial bordering of the city affected the configuration of police authority in an underprioritised inner-city periphery. Based on ethnography, I show how police officers struggle to perform their duty and assert authority through what I refer to as institutional–jurisdictional ‘bordering practices’. Central here is the borders that separate law from popular justice and civilians from the police as a state authority with the de jure monopoly on violence and law enforcement. The officers themselves continuously deborder their own distinct authority by resolving crimes informally and by relying on civilians. Yet, this co-exists with efforts to re-border their authority through displays of state power and threats of legal processes. These (de/re)bordering practices, I argue, reflect the provisional authority of the police. The officers constantly face conflicting demands: between the new rule of law restrictions and popular preferences for immediate justice, which are both informed by historical legacies of popular justice and by the spatial bordering of the city that produces the inner-city periphery as unsafe and uncertain spaces.
This paper studies the nature of the relation between police integrity and community policing, an issue unexplored by prior studies. A sample of 871 South African police officers participated in a police integrity survey that evaluated perspectives on the seriousness of various forms of police misconduct, assessed whether misconduct violates official rules, and inquired about their willingness to report such behavior. In addition, the respondents described their experience with, and attitudes toward, community policing. About one-half of the respondents reported working in community policing, while the rest performed more traditional policing roles. Our multivariate models show that police officers’ experience in, and education about, community policing are rarely related to their views about police misconduct. On the other hand, all three measures of police integrity in our study (perceptions of misconduct seriousness, recognition of behavior as rule-violating, and willingness to report misconduct) are strongly related with having a strong desire to be involved in community policing.
Virtually a decade of Boko Haram terrorism in Nigeria has described the Islamist Jihadist as the most notorious and intractable insurgent group that has ever featured in the country, because they have irrepressibly posed great threats to national security by destructively attacking organizations, both local and international, and laying viable foundation for immanent underdevelopment of the Nigerian state. The study adopted a qualitative methodological approach of one-on-one semi-structured in-depth interviews to examine the phenomenon within a functionalist and ethno methodologist frame work. The findings suggest community policing approach , among other preventive policy recommendations, as a new paradigm shift in counterterrorism strategy to resolve the crisis in Nigeria, as well as, prevent future occurrence of such menace in this part of sub-Saharan Africa.
Scholarship on international police reform and Women, Peace and Security (WPS) has flourished in the last decade and the potential for engagement across these two bodies of literature is promising. Given the increased use of police personnel in international peace missions and emphasis on gender mainstreaming policies, the need for assessing the impact of these two trends has never been greater. Thus, this paper seeks to bridge gaps between the mainstream policing scholarship and feminist scholars focused on post-conflict peacebuilding police reforms. We explore how feminist scholars can engage with policing literature’s technocratic language and ‘in the field’ experience as well as how policing scholars can interact with feminist scholars to transform traditional approaches to security in the context of the WPS Agenda. We demonstrate the benefits of increased dialogue and interaction by highlighting the common and diverging challenges in both fields in three areas: the design, implementation, and evaluation. Finally, to illustrate the dynamic intersection of these areas of study and practice, we examine the transnational policing efforts to gender mainstream the Liberian National Police (LNP) in the context of the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL).
In deeply divided societies such as Northern Ireland the question of police reform cannot be divorced from broader political issues. This article looks at the connections between police reform and the political process, in the particular context of the recommendations of the Patten Report, which put forward a framework for a fundamental reform of policing in Northern Ireland. The problems encountered during the subsequent reform process – both political and institutional – are discussed. It is argued that the model of a decentralized and democratically accountable police service, based on the core principle of community policing, although not fully realized, offers a model for policing in societies which are becoming increasingly multi-ethnic.
Summarises and discusses findings of roundtable discussions on the opinions of the citizens of two Belgian (Flemish) cities about the policing and security policy in their cities. Citizens question the organisational and cultural readiness of their local police forces for the full-scale development of community policing. In practice, problem-oriented policing tends to dominate, whereby it is the police who define the problems to be tackled. Despite decentralisation of policy and participation procedures, the public complains about the lack of citizen democracy in government. Problems of transparency and participation are related to the plethora of projects and initiatives which have been launched by different authorities at different policy levels. Finally, the consensual vision of community policing is discussed since geographically decentralised policing and the encouragement of community involvement will logically confront the police with ever diverging socio-economic and cultural interests in the neighbourhood.
British government strategies of conflict management in Northern Ireland placed a heavy emphasis on police professionalism, which was itself connected to a broader set of initiatives to frame public understandings of the conflict in particular ways. In this paper we argue that as part of this process, a specific language of policing has been deployed in Northern Ireland in an effort to enhance the legitimacy of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). The two central elements of this are ‘consent’ and ‘service’. Using interview and historical data, we outline the various ways in which these concepts are utilised to support claims that the force operates with widespread community support, and has at its core a commitment to service provision. We suggest that these tenets are part of a broader discursive strategy to complement material practices of policing in Northern Ireland. While they articulate a highly positive image of the RUC, they provide limited scope for understanding and responding to criticism of current policing structures and arrangements.
This paper explores the slow pace of change within police organizations. It examines some possible reasons for this slowness, and suggests that new policies and legislation do not automatically bring about desired transformation within the police. The paper argues that effective police transformation may require a more radical challenge of established police culture. Such a challenge, it is argued, may be generated by‘dissident’ police groupings which defy existing police practice and frameworks. The paper explores two such groupings that emerged within the South African Police Service in the eighties and nineties. One of these organizations takes the form of a trade union, and organizes rank and file members. The other takes the form of a black management network, and is concerned with organizing black police in a management function. The paper explores the reasons for their genesis, the challenges they have posed, and makes some comments on the impact they have had on the police management and dominant police culture. The paper concludes by comparing these two South African dissident police groupings with similar groupings in the United States and Britain.
In this in-depth examination of community policing in Seattle, William T. Lyons, Jr. explores the complex issues associated with the establishment and operation of community policing, an increasingly popular method for organizing law enforcement in this country. Stories about community policing appeal to a nostalgic vision of traditional community life. Community policing carries with it the image of a safe community in which individual citizens and businesses are protected by police they know and who know them and their needs. However, it also carries an image of community based in partnerships that exclude the least advantaged, strengthen the police, and are limited to targeting those disorders feared by more powerful parts of the community and most amenable to intervention by professional law enforcement agencies. The author argues that the politics of community policing are found in the construction of competing and deeply contested stories about community and the police in environments characterized by power inbalances. Community policing, according to the author, colonizes community life, increasing the capacity of the police department to shield itself from criticism, while manifesting the potential for more democratic forms of social control as evidenced by police attention to individual rights and to impartial law enforcement. This book will be of interest to sociologists and political scientists interested in the study of community power and local politics as well as criminologists interested in the study of police.
This paper considers the nature and impact of the organizational memories that form the core of the Royal Ulster Constabulary's (RUC) official discourse. As the ongoing Northern Ireland peace process developed, the issue of police reform moved to the forefront of the political agenda. Reform proponents who drew on historical controversies to press for specific changes were frequently dismissed by the RUC as hatemongers who were locked in the past. While the force maintained that its focus was on the future rather than on the past, the RUC's collective identity is itself heavily reliant on specific constructions of history. This is most evident in the RUC's active celebration of the themes of sacrifice and bravery, community support, and accountability. These organizational memories underpin the force's criticism of proposals for radical reform and its denigration of reform proponents. While these memories function to legitimize the RUC in the eyes of its supporters, they also undermine the development of institutional reflexivity central to processes of political transition and conflict resolution.
This article explores the functions of community, an important institution of social control in China. The specific control functions are grounded in a unique macro-control system, which is totally different from that typical of Western Countries. Policing strategies depends strongly on mass participation. Informal social control is particularly significant as it appears to play a more important role in controlling and preventing crime in Chinese society than in the Western world. Also, this article discusses strength and weakness of the Chinese approach to control of crime.
Reviews the rise of community-oriented policing (CP) in the USA. Analyses data from a survey of police chiefs across the USA which investigated the extent of organizational change and CP implementation. Explores the extent of current CP training and identifies some facilitators and impediments to its implementation, e.g., education; training; middle-management resistance; maintenance of adequate response time to calls for service while pursuing CP goals. Calls for further study on strategies for balancing the outcomes of a traditional approach against the expected benefits of CP; identification of agencies which have achieved this balance; comparison of employees' value orientation over time. Notes that successful CP requires a change in officers' values.
The export of policing models from the West has a long history. Current export processes are dominated by the transfer of community policing (COP) models from Anglo-American jurisdictions to societies currently regarded as undergoing a transitional process. The latter are frequently characterized by rising recorded crime rates and a delegitimation of their own police institutions. Consequently, COP appears to offer a welcome respite, especially when encouraged not just by policing missionaries from the West and donor cash but also by a variety of nongovernmental organizations that see COP effectiveness as a human rights resolution to police abuse. Using secondary data from a range of failed and transitional societies, this article challenges the motives, processes, and consequences of the export of such a Western policing model. The end result, from the preliminary evidence, seems to be one of deepening social schism in the country of import. COP is irrelevant to many such societies.
This article identifies, describes, and analyzes the changes within the Prague Police during the post-Communist period. The Prague Police are the primary law enforcement entity in the capital, which is the largest city in the Czech Republic, one of two countries that constituted the fonner state of Czechoslovakia. The article focuses on the movement of the Prague Police toward a democratic policing organizational structure, stressing the successes and failures that they have encountered. Interviews with 12 key informants, supplemented by media accounts and a variety of other sources, are utilized to explore the unique experiences encountered by that agency. Results indicate that a great deal has been accomplished by the Prague Police in their efforts to move toward what is commonly defined as a democratic style of policing.
While all regimes of social control require normalisation, this need is particularly acute in deeply divided societies where the maintenance of social order is a highly contested activity. In the aftermath of a protracted conflict, as the boundaries of ‘normality’ are blurred, disputes over the nature of ‘normal policing’ reflect broader conflicts over the competing visions of normality which shape the emerging social order. This paper considers the visions of normality articulated in Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) discourse within the broad context of the ongoing peace process in Northern Ireland. As the conflict appeared to draw to a close following the 1994 paramilitary ceasefires and related political developments, the RUC’s role came under intense scrutiny. The visions of normality privileged in RUC discourse functioned to ensure the force’s organisational survival and institutional outlook by consolidating its role within the emerging social and political orders of Northern Ireland. In this context, the articulation of normal policing is synonymous with policing the boundaries of that normality.
There exists a large and growing international exchange network for policing ideologies, technologies and skills. Transnational policing programs seek to promote more effective global crime control, help develop and sustain demographic policing reforms, and support the stability of the emerging new political and economic world order. Existing transnational policing programs and emerging international regimes of democratic policing are sketched. The likelihood of successful reforms are assessed considering existing policy and standards of democratic policing.
Presents data from two surveys and arguments in favour of a restructuring of the police service, in general, and police training in particular. Contends that to keep up with an ever-changing world, the police has to become more versatile itself, without losing sight of its core functions: protection and security provision. These objectives can only be achieved by a police force that cooperates intensively with the people, i.e. relies on a community-oriented approach to policing, and one whose members have been provided throughout their training with problem-solving skills and techniques and have developed a high degree of self-motivation. Suggests that in the current social and economic climate there is an urgent need for such reforms, best achieved through international cooperation.
In 1990 the Bureau of Justice Assistance awarded grants to eight urban and suburban police departments for the purpose of establishing innovative neighborhood-oriented drug demand reduction projects. The projects varied in design and implementation, but all encountered the same implementation problems. The most perplexing of these problems was the inability of the police departments to organize and maintain active community involvement in their projects. The research examines the reasons for the inability of police departments to establish effective partnerships with community residents. The results of this analysis suggest that despite the apparent popularity of the community policing approach, community residents may not want closer interaction with the police nor the responsibility for maintaining social control.
Dutch policing has followed the three generations of community policing identified elsewhere. The paper outlines the three waves, arguing that progressive Dutch society has influenced policing styles, giving Dutch policing a strong social orientation. The material draws on action research projects from the 1970s and 1980s and current innovations with special attention to developments in Amsterdam and Utrecht in which the authors are involved as researchers or consultants. Following models from the USA there is a tendency to run hard and soft features of policing together. Contemporary community policing has then both a problem-solving and a crime-control rhetoric. New-style community beat officers are better integrated into the organisation and are strongly involved in crime prevention. Difficulties arise in areas that are not conventional communities, such as inner cities, with a diverse public, an accumulation of social problems side-by-side with “entertainment”, and a potential for public order disturbances. Policing in The Netherlands has changed significantly in recent years to an emphasis on problem solving, partnerships with other agencies, crime prevention, fostering self-reliance among citizens, and sponsoring the return of early social control mechanisms in public life – in schools, transport and with “town patrols” on the streets. Police have taken others on board and have relinquished their monopoly on safety and crime.
Why have multi-agency or “partnership” approaches to crime prevention and community safety been reported internationally with unfavorable results? Can groups and individuals from disparate government and non-government sectors work together to reduce or prevent crime? This article will address these and other questions by using developments in Belgium as its case study. In 1992, Belgium launched its “safety and crime prevention contracts”, a series of locally based crime prevention initiatives which have attempted to contract federal, regional and local governments to a range of social and police oriented crime prevention endeavors. Traces the development of the Belgian crime prevention contracts and examines the difficulties experienced with “multi-agency crime prevention” and suggests that much of the political rhetoric in Belgium calling for local, community and intersectorial “partnerships” has, like several other countries including England and Wales, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, lacked clear practical expression. However, some promising initiatives indicate that this prevention approach may be capable of producing effective crime prevention and community safety outcomes. Further research is needed to describe these initiatives and analyze the conditions under which they are developed.
Anglo-American community policing has been implemented in Finland since 1996 but there has been a long tradition of the community policing style, called the village police, since the 1960s. The police enjoy a great deal of public confidence, the welfare society has been stable, with no significant social divisions and rather low crime, and therefore there have been no urgent needs or pressures for policing reform. Both the adoption and the implementation of the community policing strategy have been a part of wider public sector modernization, including the service orientation, improved efficiency and responsibility. This paper is based on two process evaluation studies; “The implementation of community policing in Finland – a management of change approach” (2000) and “Local security networks and safety planning – a case of Tampere” (2001). The implementation process has been one of learning by doing. There was a shift in thinking and practice in 1999 when community policing was seen more as a dynamic development process and means rather than a model and a goal, as before. Community policing policy in Finland prioritizes strategic partnerships, networks and local safety planning, and it is re-named as local policing or local security management. A process evaluation of local networking and safety planning (Tampere) shows that several factors contribute to the successful process of partnership formation, networking and collaboration.
Although community policing is still in its formative stages in the USA, much of the research has been directed to programmes being implemented in large cities where high levels of crime and fear are part of the social fabric. Research on community policing in small cities and towns is still in the preliminary stage. To meet this challenge, the present paper reviews data from a survey of 82 police departments in cities and towns having less than 200,000 inhabitants. Emphasis is directed to the kinds of community policing strategies employed by the departments and the opportunities for community residents to participate in the decision-making processes relating to community policing. Data reveal that the transition of police departments from a traditional reactive philosophy to one of community policing is an evolving process. Structured strategies that provide resident input into community policing are likely to occur as the programmes evolve over time, and generally follow changes in police deployment and the establishment of working relation-ships with community agencies, both public and private.
The globalisation of policing is not anew phenomenon. The British colonial police are a much older example of that process. But in recent years, policing has come to be `sold' to `transitional' and to `failed'
state in a cumulative fashion. The most obvious export by the West in the present day is that of Community-Oriented Policing. However, much of that export drive has been accompanied by a failure of the salespeople to recognize that community policing
only works in societies with particular histories and in particular social context. The paper examined the implantation of
community policing in South Africa and its failure to take root. An appropriate lesson is drawn.
Our public security work … is not to have matters monopolized by the professional state agencies. It is to be handled by the mass… The mass line principle … is to transform public security work to be the work of the whole people…Minister of Public Security Lui Ruixing (1994)It is only a slight exaggeration to say that if American crime prevention is a device by which citizens assist the police, in China it is seen as a method by which police provide back-up services for citizens…Professor Dorothy Bracey (1984)
This paper builds upon my experience of teaching criminology at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad, where it emerged
over an eight-year period that the issues which were most salient in that context might not be covered at all in western criminology
texts, and that the theoretical presumptions of western criminology were as likely to be misleading, or at best to miss the
point, as to be helpful. An analysis of these difficulties revealed the twin failings in western criminology of orientalism,
which romanticizes the other, and occidentalism, which denies the possibility of difference, or seeks to explain it away.
The deep presumptions of western theories may be harmful for non-western consumers of them. Meanwhile, western criminology
inhibits its own theoretical development by limiting its theorization of difference to resistance. Consideration of an issue
relevant to but located outside criminology, that of violence against women and children, reveals the possibility of an interactive
globalization in which people living in different societies may more constructively learn from each other.