Handbook on Democratic Policing, South AfricaNEW PUBLICATION: “THE POLICE THAT WE WANT”
Handbook provides indicators of democratic policing
Johannesburg, January 25—A new handbook for assessing police performance in countries undergoing democratic transition was released yesterday. The police that we want: a handbook for oversight of the police in South Africa, by David Bruce and Rachel Neild, is published by the Johannesburg-based Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation in association with the Open Society Foundation for South Africa, and the Open Society Justice Initiative.
The publication offers an outline of democratic policing—that is, the behavior and techniques appropriate to police in a democratic setting. The book includes a set of indicators designed to assess democratic policing in order to encourage transparent and objective evaluation of the priorities and progress of police reform.
Written primarily for South Africa, the handbook follows international practices in policing and police oversight and can be adapted for use in other countries by all those supporting and overseeing police reforms. The indicators are applicable even where local police use different structures, systems, or operational strategies.
Democratic policing addresses the governance and conduct of police, and the relationship between the police and other government institutions, as well as with the general public.
The police that we want identifies five areas of democratic policing and provides key measures for evaluating performance in each area. The five are: the protection of democratic political life; police governance, accountability and transparency; service delivery for safety, justice and security; proper police conduct; and the police as citizens.
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The police that we want: A handbook for oversight of the police in South Africa, by David Bruce and Rachel Neild, published by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation in association with the Open Society Foundation for South Africa and the Open Society Justice Initiative (78 pages).
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The Open Society Justice Initiative, an operational program of the Open Society Institute (OSI), pursues law reform activities grounded in the protection of human rights, and contributes to the development of legal capacity for open societies worldwide. The Justice Initiative combines litigation, legal advocacy, technical assistance, and the dissemination of knowledge to secure advances in five priority areas: national criminal justice, international justice, freedom of information and expression, equality and citizenship, and anticorruption. Its offices are in Abuja, Budapest, and New York.
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