What is the role of capacity-building in police reform? This Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) report argues that police reform programmes require a thoroughly systematic approach to capacity-building as a means to desirable organisational change. A systematic capacity-building programme must be firmly connected to the general framework of a reform process. The report offers a reform strategy based on the experience of police organisations in the former Yugoslavia and other European states.
Capacity-building means a planned and systematic effort to develop or modify the knowledge, skills and character traits of police officers and support staff through a learning experience, thereby achieving effectiveness in a range of activities.
Police reform is acknowledged as a pivotal element in the development of a stable democracy. A broad framework for police reform consists of succeeding layers of policy development and policy implementation in an institution building process. In addition, institution-building processes necessitate a varying degree of capacity-building interventions at each layer of policy implementation. Reform demands that policy implementation results in tangible and often substantial changes in the way police officers do their work.
The necessary preconditions to the successful use of capacity-building in police reform include:
- the necessity of clear and obvious links between a proposed capacity-building programme and organisational objectives; and
- the necessity of reviewing and, if appropriate, effecting changes to organisational structures and staffing prior to investing in capacity-building.
A capacity-building measure involves identifying where the changes are required, as well as the exact nature of the required changes and how best to effect those changes within the practical constraints of a limited budget and available resources. This is a complex task. A systematic approach to police reform will include the following steps:
- Establish capacity-building priorities – A systematic approach to capacity-building will commence with a process of setting priorities. In a large police organisation it is neither realistic nor prudent to attempt a capacity-building programme that seeks to remedy performance failures in every area of the organisation at the same time.
- Analysing police tasks and identifying standards – A systematic approach then moves to a study of particular police ranks and functions and the way in which they link (or fail to link) with the objectives of the organisation under the Policing Plan.
- Identifying gaps in police performance – The next step in the systematic approach involves a process whereby capacity-building specialists investigate and analyse the ‘gap’ between actual and desired police performance, in terms the required knowledge, skills and character traits.
- Creating capacity-building specifications – Organisational needs will refer to a number of developmental areas: legislation, procedures, organisational structures, and capacity-building. The latter is only one possible remedy. Where capacity-building is identified as an appropriate and necessary means of achieving development, the specialist will create a capacity-building specification.
- Selecting design and delivery systems – Once a capacity-building specification has been defined, the specialist must move to the process of identifying the most appropriate and cost-effective system of achieving the learning objectives
- Evaluation – Capacity-building should be fully evaluated in order to verify whether the objectives have been met.
