Community Policing in Practice: Ambitions and Realization

Governance and accountability in community policing

“…On the other hand, this assessment is not confirmed by the outcomes of a recent study of community policing in the Netherlands [34,38]. Admittedly, it shows the new managerialization of the police and changes in the political climate have had an impact on the daily work of community police officers.…”

“…A detailed study of the daily implementation of community policing [34,38] showed that this new system of governance and accountability had more impact on police work, although not always in the ways intended. Many of the police forces had translated the system internally into individual targets for police officers.…”

“…Although the meaning of this concept is not always clear [2,5,10,19], a common aim in all forms of community policing is to bridge the distance between the police and citizens, to promote citizen participation, to provide the police with more information and, as a result, to promote the effectiveness of policing strategies [38]. Thanks to developments such as citizen oversight, it is often assumed that community policing also encourages local governance and accountability of the police [15,29,30].…”

“…This paper is based on several empirical studies of community policing in the Netherlands [31,32,34]. Among them is an ethnographic study in which the daily work of community police officers was observed at six different police stations (in both urban and rural areas), for a few weeks at each station [34,38].…”

De opbrengst van de politiële netwerkfunctie binnen de gebiedsgebonden politiezorg voor de kerntaken handhaving openbare orde en opsporing

“…De netwerksamenleving heeft volgens politieonderzoekers ook gevolgen voor de politieorganisatie (Johnston & Shearing, 2003;Wood & Shearing, 2007). Onderzoekers die onderzoek hebben gedaan naar de gebiedsgebonden politiezorg constateren dat de lokale veiligheidszorg zich in toenemende mate organiseert in netwerken, dat wil zeggen een patroon van min of meer stabiele relaties van acto-ren die met elkaar afspraken maken over de aanpak van sociale overlast, onrust en criminaliteit in wijken (Johnston & Shearing 2003;Wood & Shearing 2007Crawford 1997; Hughes & Edwards 2002;Terpstra, 2010;Terpstra & Kouwenhoven, 2004). Politieonderzoekers menen dat het ontstaan van lokale veiligheidsnetwerken vraagt om een 'netwerkende' politie, dat wil zeggen een politieorganisatie die intensief samenwerkt met burgers, publieke organisaties en private bedrijven om veiligheidsdoelstellingen te verwezenlijken.…”