NCJ Number
79881
Journal
Tijdschrift voor criminologie Volume: 22 Dated: (May/June 1980) Pages: 121-138
Date Published
1980
Length
18 pages
Annotation
The study discusses central themes of the recent Dutch police report on transformation of the police through politicization and integration.
Abstract
The report has set as goal expanding the police function to include the creation of conditions for social development, e.g., emancipation of deprived groups and foreign workers. To obtain this goal, the police must gain the required political skills, and the police organization must be restructured to accommodate communication. The writers of the report wish to develop a functional legitimacy of the police, which would lead to increased specialization of the police, broader political powers of the police, and less control of the police over their own organization. A second goal for the police is integration into the community through on-the-street patrols. The report writers favor a police organization which plays a power role itself and is completely loyal to the existing government. However, there is an inherent conflict in the ideals of integration into the local community on one hand and complete loyalty to the central government on the other. The new course of police problemsolving is removal of the problem causes. In a welfare state, however, resolution of all problems is illusory, as the number of problems is endless and a choice is required. Shortcomings of the report on police in transition are the paradoxical view of police organization, the fiction that the transition is an all-or-nothing proposition, and the isolated conditions under which the report was written. The report needs to devote more attention to areas of reality like the problems of rules and organization brought about by the rapid growth of technology, the relatively high level of public respect for police officers since the Second World War, police activities for keeping order with and without force, and the conflict between dominant computer thinking and the work of the police officer on the street. Tables and notes are supplied.