Community Policing as a Philosophy: The Case of Pol-Der (Polis Derneği, Police Association) in Turkey

Abstract

The police are different from the military and other security institutions as they hold stronger ties with society. This relationship has kept its significance throughout the history of police all around the world. Particularly starting with the 1970s, a new philosophy of policing termed ‘community policing’ or ‘community-oriented policing’ was born in consolidated Western democracies. Since the 1990s, this model has become a central model for police transformation, predominantly in developing countries. Later, this philosophy was imported to unconsolidated democracies of the Third World. This paper contends that Turkey is a compelling case for police studies as, a Turkish police association called Pol-Der was established in the 1970s and the members of Pol-Der, by declaring their ambition to become community’s police, brought forward the idea of community policing in a relatively early period of time. Despite the fact that previous research on Pol-Der discussed the political–ideological character of the organization, Pol-Der’s emphasis on community policing as a philosophy demonstrated an ambitious—but a failed—initiative to create a paradigmatic shift for policing models in Turkey.