Continuity and change in Scandinavian police reforms
| Date | 01 December 2019 |
| Published date | 01 December 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1461355719889461 |
| Subject Matter | Special issue: Change and Continuity in the Police |
Special issue: Change and Continuity in the Police
Continuity and change in Scandinavian
police reforms
Lars Holmberg
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Abstract
The paper provides an overview of recent police reforms in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, including what is known
about the results of those reforms. The reform pro cesses in the three countries are quite similar. The number of
individual police districts is drastically reduced, strong centralized management is introduced, and reforms are
expected to yield additional manpower though rationalization. To date, however, the results do not live up to
expectations; reforms are hard realize in the expected time, resources are scarce, local policing is hard to maintain,
and police performance and efficiency do not seem to increase. The paper offers two related explanations for the lack of
results. First, all three reforms place emphasis on centralizing police management, regardless of the problems they are
expected to solve. Second, a staple of Scandinavian police reforms is the quest for viability; police districts must be large
enough to handle all eventualities. Even though the concept of viability has changed over the past 50 years, it is still at the
core of reform plans. The paper concludes with a discussion about the possibility of ever achieving police viability.
Keywords
Police reform, Scandinavia, change, police performance
Introduction
In recent years, many police forces in Western Europe have
undergone reforms that have typically meant centraliza-
tion, rationalization, cost effectiveness, more uniform ser-
vice delivery and management through performance goals
(Terpstra and Fyfe, 2013). Some of these, for example, the
Danish (Balvig and Holmberg, 2013a), Dutch (Terpstra and
Fyfe, 2015), Finnish (Vuorensyrja¨, 2018) and Scottish
reforms (Fyfe and Scott, 2013) have been evaluated by
independent researchers. Others, for example, the Belgian
(Devroe and Ponsaers, 2013), Norwegian (Difi, 2017,
2018, 2019) and Swedish reforms (Statskontoret, 2016,
2017, 2018) have been subjected to some type of govern-
mental evaluation.
The initial, often very optimistic, goals of reform – a
more efficient, better managed, more customer-oriented
and better performing police force attuned to the problems
of organized and transnational crime – are quite similar in
the different countries. Actual results, however, are often
less promising. In general, plans for reform seem to under-
estimate the time and resources needed for implementation.
In countries such as Sweden and Norway, where reforms
are recent, evaluations point to the need for a prolonged
implementation period (Difi, 2019, Sta tskontoret, 2018),
and in Scotland and the Netherlands (Terpstra and Fyfe,
2019), reforms are not yet implemented completely. In
Denmark, where the reform was implemented in 2010, not
all of the expected results have been achieved, as we return
to below.
This paper aims to describe what has happened with
police reform in Scandinavia during the last 20 years. In
line with the overall topic of this Special Issue, the question
is to what extent the reforms undertaken in Scandinavia –
one in Denmark, two in Norway and two in Sweden – have
actually changed police organizations and operations, and
to what extent the aims of the reforms have been accom-
plished. The first part of the paper outlines the history of
police reforms in the three countries, including what is
known about their effects. The second part elaborates on
Corresponding author:
Lars Holmberg, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Karen Blixens
Plads 16, 2300 Copenhagen, Denmark.
Email: lars.holmberg@jur.ku.dk
International Journalof
Police Science & Management
2019, Vol. 21(4) 206–217
ªThe Author(s) 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1461355719889461
journals.sagepub.com/home/psm
To continue reading
Request your trial