This study is concerned with the accountability of police to the citizens in their country, and the degree to which the police focus on providing assistance to those citizens. It outlines a series of 87 lessons, based on a synthesis of more than 500 books, articles and documents by observers and practitioners (a bibliography of which accompanies the article). These lessons are divided among four sections: Generic police reform; experiences with development assistance to foreign police forces; the role of civilian police in peacekeeping operations; and lessons for American management of police reform abroad.
Security is important to the development of democracy, and an important part of the character of that security will be shaped by the police. However, it should be noted that, no matter how enthusiastic foreign support for democracy and police reform is, it cannot substitute for a lack of will in the recipient nation. The article also notes that
- Police are the public manifestation of government authority, and the most dramatic contribution they can make to democracy is by becoming more responsive to the needs of individual citizens
- Improving police capability can have a counter-democratic effect if this improved capacity is still accompanied by a culture of repression
- The key to democratic police reform is enhanced accountability, transparency and a greater service-orientation, so as to increase the protection of human rights
- Police actions must be governed by law rather than the arbitrary direction of regimes
- Democracy requires that the police protect and support essential liberties enshrined in law, such as freedom of speech, association, movement, and freedom from arbitrary arrest or exile. The law must at all times be impartial.
The most important lesson for police reform is that human nature must be taken into account. Reform cannot be done at a distance by people who are not intimate with the local context. Reform is a political undertaking, and for it to succeed human interests must be accommodated, utilised, redirected or overridden. Furthermore:
- Institutional reform is a slow process, and donors must accept that there will be no quick demonstrable results ensuing from efforts to help reform foreign police forces
- Police reform programmes require a new sort of evaluation to explore whether they are producing the intended effects. This evaluation process will be long but need not be costly nor complex. It can be made through qualitative observations by experts
- These appraisals must draw upon the observations of practitioners (currently the most underused resource) as well as outside observers. It is the people who do the assistance work who best know what works and what does not
- For the US administration (at whom Chapter 6 is specifically aimed) to incorporate these lessons, American institutions must change the way they provide assistance to foreign governments and police forces, and accept that reform is a messy human process.
