Role and Place of the Police in Security Sector Reform

AuthorGeorge Kurian
Pages66-68

Page 66

Security sector reform takes a holistic and integrated view of the dynamics and needs for human, civic, and state security within the contexts of societal change. According to the British Department for International Development, security sector reform "describes the process for developing professional and effective security structures that will allow citizens to live their lives in safety" (DFID 2002). Security sector reform is based on an analysis of the capacities and contributions of all governmental and private security-providing agencies within a society—conventionally labeled the security sector architecture. The goal of security sector reform is creating a security sector architecture that can sustain the effective protection and promotion of security (in all its dimensions) balanced against dominant normative values, including democratic politics, good governance, and accountability to civic society (Edmonds 2002). Successful security sector reform should lead to more effective, legitimate, accountable, and sustainable security systems and a sense of safety among all citizens. The normative goal at the core of security sector reform is human security, broadly defined. The practical question is how to protect citizens and communities against insecurity or threats to their security from all sources. Considering police reforms within the context of security sector reform, rather than focusing on the police alone, can cast the difficulties and opportunities for reforms in a different light.

Security sector reform arose from three practical and theoretical concerns: (1) oversight and control of the security apparatus (mainly the military) as a prerequisite for political democracy; (2) the impact of human and state insecurity on the capacity and prospects for economic and political development; and (3) concerns with notions of good governance in political systems and the concomitant notions of transparency, accountability, and integrity.

A core concern of civil-military studies has been democratic control of the armed forces and related agencies, as well as how to prevent the power of the gun from subverting the integrity and stability of political institutions. Unless the military, and other coercive agencies of the state, can be kept in their barracks and garrisons, prospects for democracy and economic development are dim.

Foreign aid and economic development agencies (e.g., the World Bank, foreign aid offices in donor countries, nongovernmental organizations interested in economic and political development) have realized that foreign aid, even if effectively utilized in the recipient countries, will not sustain economic development unless the aid is distributed equitably and unless threshold conditions of domestic security have been met (e.g., reducing the likelihood of military coups or the incidence of crime and disorder). If people believe they are not safe or they fear that what they have struggled to acquire through aid and hard work will be stolen by corrupt officials, then economic aid accomplishes little. Security and...

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