Police Reform in the Netherlands: A Dance Between National Steering and Local Performing

German Policy Studies › Vol. 5 Nbr. 2, April 2009

Author: Cachet, Lex

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Summary

The Dutch police system has been under pressure during the last decades. Critical debates focused on police' dealing with the growing (perceived) insecurity, the administrative problems of size and efficiency, the core tasks of the police, the distribution of power over the police and it's accountability. These issues have become even more relevant since integrated local safety policies have been developed to tackle public safety problems by the police together with more and different partners, within government or even outside of it. At the same time the national government wants to direct its local and regional partners more, while holding on to local performance. The aim of this article is to show the developments of the last decades that have influenced the (re)organization of the police and the way they are steered and democratically controlled. Police forces are now closely cooperating with other actors in rather complex safety networks, steered by local government and concentrating on their core tasks, leaving more tasks to other actors than in the past. Finding sensible balances between centrally organized tasks and variants of steering (direction), and more local organization and steering (discretion) will be crucial for the future of the public police.

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Extract

Police Reform in the Netherlands: A Dance Between National Steering and Local Performing

1 Introduction

Since the Second World War the Dutch police system has been the subject of many debates, finally resulting in a new Police Act in 1993. However, the debate did not stop and has even intensified since 2005. The debates on how to organize, steer and control the police had technical, political and administrative dimensions. Elements of (perceived) insecurity have created a growing and maybe sometimes unreasonable pressure on police performance the last couple of years (Boutellier 2002, Terpstra and Van der Vijver 2006). The managerial/administrative problems of size and efficiency together with the rising public demand on performance made the government, politicians and the police search for answers, one of them being police reform. The Dutch police reform has been a constant and precarious balancing of power and authority; a balance between the distribution of power and authority within and around the police, between actors, or from one actor to another. What autonomy is to be given to partners, what freedom and control is required in decision-making, what level of discretion do partners get in decisions and more importantly in actions, who is responsible or can be hold accountable? These questions have become even more relevant the last decade, due to integrated local safety policies having been developed in which several different elements of safety issues are tackled by more and different partners. The police reform is about give and take, it is about empowerment and disempowerment (Savage 2007), or in other terms it is about direction and discretion. Government has "a special role within society to regulate actions of public interest" (Schnabel 2001: 17). She directs partners what (safety) issues to tackle and how, i.e. she sets the course how to reach desired social outcomes. Governments cannot handle everything themselves and they have to rely upon other actors, sectors and other governmental layers, and these should be involved in the policy formation and/or implementation (e.g. network management). By defining regulations the government can provide elbowroom - also policy freedom - to partners, or she can put limitations to their freedom. This discretion can be necessary for proper policy execution. All in all, discretion has to do with 'how' the government goes about her business.

The debates about the reform have been about the national government wanting to direct its local and regional partners more, while at the same time holding on to local performance. This leads us to our research qu...

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