Quality, Trust and Authority from the Perspective of Community Policing
| Date | 01 November 2001 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X0107400402 |
| Published date | 01 November 2001 |
| Author | A.H. van der Zijl,M.S. de Vries |
| Subject Matter | Article |
DR M.S. DE VRIES AND A.H. VAN DER ZIJL, MA
Dutch Police Academy
QUALITY, TRUST AND AUTHORITY
FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF
COMMUNITY
POLICING
1. Introduction
This article examines the quality of the Dutch police service and its
relationship with the appreciation and trust of the citizen. During the
last decade, several internal and external initiatives have been devel-
oped to improve the quality of the Dutch police. On the one hand,
internal processes and procedures were standardised and results and
effects measured in order to guarantee the quality of police work. There
was an internal change from 'quantity-oriented thinking' to 'quality-
oriented thinking', a change that is illustrated by the development of a
quality model for the Dutch police. On the other hand, it became clear
that the concept of police quality is closely connected with the opinions
of citizens concerning the police. The new concept of community
policing was thus introduced to improve the relationship between the
police and citizens by integrating the police into society. As will be
shown in this article, the implementation of community policing thus
has far-reaching consequences for the relationship between police and
citizen and for the concept of police quality.
This relationship and the impact of community policing on public
perceptions are closely connected with the issue of police authority.
Therefore, the research especially focuses on the appreciation of
customers and society, in this article defined as citizens, with the
functioning of the police. It describes the interaction between external
criteria and appreciation on the one hand and a specific development in
the field of policy and strategy, the implementation of community
policing and the management of this process on the other.
These concepts and the internal organisational consequences of
community-oriented police work are explored in the sections that
follow to answer three questions:
1. What developments are identified by evaluating the quality of
the Dutch police service?
2. What are the implications of community policing for the cit-
izen's perceptions of the police and subsequently for police
authority?
3. What are the consequences of community policing for the
internal organisation of the police?
In section 2 we describe the concept of police quality and its develop-
ment during previous decades, focusing on the external aspect of the
The Police Journal, Volume 74 (2001) 279
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