Transforming knowledge into action.

Community Policing

26-Aug-2009 |

Community policing – as a modality of law and justice service provision – seems to be increasing globally.

The interesting point though is how these systems interact with local communities – especially in ethnically heterogenous countries. Having Police officers located in communities can be useful for the provision of information both for communities and for police forces. Played well this form of interaction can be a win-win situation.

Problems occur when trust between Police and communities breaks down (or has never existed). This is a major problem – how do you build trust? This is especially the case in post-conflict situations where Police may have actively participated in violence against particular communities. While the various perpetrators of this violence may have been dealt with it nonetheless negatively impacts on the ways in which Police as a whole are viewed by the community. Little work seems to be underway in which issue though which is problematic.

Looking at a post-conflict society, one of the key issues which will underlie the success or not of community policing in Solomon Islands, for example, is going to be how the Police there are able to rebuild trust by the community in them as a group. Community policing is a start but more detail needs to go into how this activity will play out in practice. Building links with community and rebuilding trust in Police as an organisation is a vital part of the peace-building architecture. The problem is that while much positive work has occurred in this area around the world not enough of the lessons learned are being available. In the Pacific for example the Bougainville experience is a triumph of community policing and peacebuilding but does not seem to be influencing the roll-out of similar programs in Solomon Islands – which is just down the road (so to speak). Something needs to be done about this.