Frontline police provide the key interface between the security sector and the population. Police forces that engage with the communities they are responsible for can more easily identify problems caused by insecurity and, in this way, recommend changes to policy and practice that may increase the levels of security provision.

Overall, a general trend has also emerged in which some European nations have dispensed with paramilitary-style policing and moved towards fundamentally democratic community policing models. Community policing presupposes structured and prolonged interaction with citizens, a process requiring a high standard of training and sustained engagement.

Resources

Senior Police Adviser to the OSCE Secretary General, Guidebook on Democratic Policing, (OSCE: 2008).

Anneke Osse, Understanding Policing, (Amnesty International: 2006).

Handbook on Human Rights and Policing. OHCHR. Human Rights and Law Enforcement, A Manual on Human Rights Training for the Police, (UN New York and Geneva 1997).