3. ‘One for All and All for One’: Fostering Accountability in Community Policing

The accountability of the police is imperative if the use of their powers is to be seen as legitimate. This chapter will critically examine the concept of police accountability and its application to Community Policing in Europe. It will examine current police oversight systems in Europe in order to assess the extent to which the police are directly accountable to communities. Community policing is defined in this chapter as local policing arrangements whereby, at municipality, commune or neighbourhood level, the police work in partnership with civilian community representatives and other public agencies (such as social services, youth work, schools and businesses), in a shared responsibility to address crime prevention, public order, safety and security problems. The chapter advocates what is essentially a participatory governance and accountability approach where local Community Policing initiatives are managed by the representatives of the agencies constituting the Community Policing partnership. In this framework, the burden of the success or failure of Community Policing will be borne not only by the police alone but the communities also.