Police Discretion
While sometimes viewed negatively by the public, discretion is critical in policing.
Discretion provides a police officer with choices to act or not to act and the ability to
determine which choice is the best one at that particular time. This is often considered
to be good judgment and is an important characteristic of a ‘good’ police officer. When
bad judgment is used, the officer is said to have abused their discretion.
While most laws appear black and white, there are some that do have a gray area and
enforcing all laws at all times would lead to drastic overcrowding of U.S. courts and
jails. Discretion allows for officers to look at variables in a given situation to determine
the best course of action.
Variables that an officer might examine would be the circumstances surrounding the
situation. These might change depending on other variables and that is why it is
important to look at each situation individually without determining a sweeping
response. The crime and suspect might also be taken into consideration, particularly if it
is a violent offense and the suspect is a repeat offender. The officer is less likely to be
lenient.
Officers use discretion in situations where they feel their presence is enough to deter
crime or wrongdoing. This is particularly effective with young people or first time
offenders. An officer may choose not to write a speeding ticket when the act of pulling
the person over is enough to change their driving habits.
Officers use the information they have at the time, their training, and their experience
to determine the most appropriate course of action to take at the time. Interestingly,
street level officers are the ones in the agency with the most amount of discretion as
the higher ups in administration are more visible to the community and potentially run
the risk of scrutiny for bad decisions.
When used appropriately, discretion can improve relationships between the police and
the community. When used inappropriately, abuse and corruption can occur. Both lead
to mistrust of the police and can severely damage the relationship between the police
and the community. Police administrators are challenged to find officers that can use
discretion while following departmental policies. At the same time, these officers should
be examining their communities to see where they can effectively make a difference
and do so by attempting to solve some of repetitive problems in the community.
Police Discretion
While sometimes viewed negatively by the public, discretion is critical in policing.
Discretion provides a police officer with choices to act or not to act and the ability to
determine which choice is the best one at that particular time. This is often considered
to be good judgment and is an important characteristic of a ‘good’ police officer. When
bad judgment is used, the officer is said to have abused their discretion.
While most laws appear black and white, there are some that do have a gray area and
enforcing all laws at all times would lead to drastic overcrowding of U.S. courts and
jails. Discretion allows for officers to look at variables in a given situation to determine
the best course of action.
Variables that an officer might examine would be the circumstances surrounding the
situation. These might change depending on other variables and that is why it is
important to look at each situation individually without determining a sweeping
response. The crime and suspect might also be taken into consideration, particularly if it
is a violent offense and the suspect is a repeat offender. The officer is less likely to be
lenient.
Officers use discretion in situations where they feel their presence is enough to deter
crime or wrongdoing. This is particularly effective with young people or first time
offenders. An officer may choose not to write a speeding ticket when the act of pulling
the person over is enough to change their driving habits.
Officers use the information they have at the time, their training, and their experience
to determine the most appropriate course of action to take at the time. Interestingly,
street level officers are the ones in the agency with the most amount of discretion as
the higher ups in administration are more visible to the community and potentially run
the risk of scrutiny for bad decisions.
When used appropriately, discretion can improve relationships between the police and
the community. When used inappropriately, abuse and corruption can occur. Both lead
to mistrust of the police and can severely damage the relationship between the police
and the community. Police administrators are challenged to find officers that can use
discretion while following departmental policies. At the same time, these officers should
be examining their communities to see where they can effectively make a difference
and do so by attempting to solve some of repetitive problems in the community.
The International Civilian Police Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina: From Democratization to NationBuilding.
Authors:
Wisler, Dominique wisler@coginta.com
Source:
Police Practice & Research. Jul2007, Vol. 8 Issue 3, p253-268. 16p.
Document Type:
Article
Subject Terms:
*DEMOCRATIZATION
*NATION building
*POLICE administration
*POLICE services
Geographic Terms:
BOSNIA & Hercegovina
Author-Supplied Keywords:
Bosnia and Herzegovina
CIVPOL
European Union Police Mission (EUPM)
International Police Task Force (IPTF)
Police Reform
Police Transition
Company/Entity:
EUROPEAN Union
Reviews & Products:
DAYTON Peace Accords (1995)
NAICS/Industry Codes:
911230 Federal police services
913130 Municipal police services
Abstract:
The agenda of the civilian police mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina evolved quite dramatically since
its creation in 1996 under the framework of Annex 11 of the Dayton Peace Accord (DPA). Under the
UN (1996-2002), the CIVPOL mission shifted from an initial programme centred on individuals - the
micro level - with projects such as training, code of conduct, recruitment, and vetting, to an internal
reorganization of all police forces of the country - the meso level - with activities centred on
democratization, depolitization, internal control, and accreditation. After the European Union took over
the CIVPOL mission on January 1, 2003, the agenda became no longer 'democratization' but macro
issues of 'nation-building' and financial sustainability. In the process, the DPA has lost its normative
and reference character and has been substituted by the logic of the Realpolitik of influence in the
region by the European Union. The paper explains this change of agenda with a set of three factors:
(1) mission cycle, (2) changing role of international actors and agency style, and (3) the local
configuration of power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Copyright of Police Practice & Research is the property of Routledge and its content may not be
copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express
written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This
abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to
the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
ISSN:
1561-4263
DOI:
10.1080/15614260701450732
Police Practice and Research,
Vol. 8, No. 3, July 2007, pp. 253–268
The International Civilian Police
Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina:
From Democratization to
Nation-Building
Dominique Wisler
830wisler@coginta.com
Dr
00000July
DominiqueWisler
2007
Police
10.1080/15614260701450732
GPPR_A_244953.sgm
1561-4263
Original
Taylor
2007
Practice
and
&
Article
Francis
(print)/1477-271X
Francis
and Ltd
Research (online)
The agenda of the civilian police mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina evolved quite dramatically since its creation in 1996 under the framework of Annex 11 of the Dayton Peace
Accord (DPA). Under the UN (1996–2002), the CIVPOL mission shifted from an initial
programme centred on individuals—the micro level—with projects such as training, code
of conduct, recruitment, and vetting, to an internal reorganization of all police forces of the
country—the meso level—with activities centred on democratization, depolitization,
internal control, and accreditation. After the European Union took over the CIVPOL
mission on January 1, 2003, the agenda became no longer ‘democratization’ but macro
issues of ‘nation-building’ and financial sustainability. In the process, the DPA has lost its
normative and reference character and has been substituted by the logic of the Realpolitik
of influence in the region by the European Union. The paper explains this change of agenda
with a set of three factors: (1) mission cycle, (2) changing role of international actors and
agency style, and (3) the local configuration of power.
Keywords: Police Reform; CIVPOL; Police Transition; International Police Task Force
(IPTF); European Union Police Mission (EUPM); Bosnia and Herzegovina
Introduction
Post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is a fascinating case of a radical mutation
of the agenda of an international civilian police mission over a period of 10 years and
Dominique Wisler, PhD in political sciences, is the founder of Coginta, a consulting company specialized in police
reform in transition countries. Until 2002, he taught political sociology at the University of Geneva and has served
in Sudan as senior advisor for the United Nations Development Programme. Correspondence to: Dr Dominique
Wisler, Senior Adviser for Policing Affairs, Rule of Law Unit, UNDP, Khartoum, Sudan. Tel: +249 9 121 74 421;
Email: wisler@coginta.com
ISSN 1561–4263 print/ISSN 1477–271X online © 2007 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/15614260701450732
The International Civilian Police Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina: From Democratization to NationBuilding.
Authors:
Wisler, Dominique wisler@coginta.com
Source:
Police Practice & Research. Jul2007, Vol. 8 Issue 3, p253-268. 16p.
Document Type:
Article
Subject Terms:
*DEMOCRATIZATION
*NATION building
*POLICE administration
*POLICE services
Geographic Terms:
BOSNIA & Hercegovina
Author-Supplied Keywords:
Bosnia and Herzegovina
CIVPOL
European Union Police Mission (EUPM)
International Police Task Force (IPTF)
Police Reform
Police Transition
Company/Entity:
EUROPEAN Union
Reviews & Products:
DAYTON Peace Accords (1995)
NAICS/Industry Codes:
911230 Federal police services
913130 Municipal police services
Abstract:
The agenda of the civilian police mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina evolved quite dramatically since
its creation in 1996 under the framework of Annex 11 of the Dayton Peace Accord (DPA). Under the
UN (1996-2002), the CIVPOL mission shifted from an initial programme centred on individuals - the
micro level - with projects such as training, code of conduct, recruitment, and vetting, to an internal
reorganization of all police forces of the country - the meso level - with activities centred on
democratization, depolitization, internal control, and accreditation. After the European Union took over
the CIVPOL mission on January 1, 2003, the agenda became no longer 'democratization' but macro
issues of 'nation-building' and financial sustainability. In the process, the DPA has lost its normative
and reference character and has been substituted by the logic of the Realpolitik of influence in the
region by the European Union. The paper explains this change of agenda with a set of three factors:
(1) mission cycle, (2) changing role of international actors and agency style, and (3) the local
configuration of power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Copyright of Police Practice & Research is the property of Routledge and its content may not be
copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express
written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This
abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to
the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
ISSN:
1561-4263
DOI:
10.1080/15614260701450732
254
D. Wisler
the progressive salience of the issue of restructuring in police reform. After a decade of
monitoring, training, and coaching, the international civilian police mission instituted
by the peace agreement came to the conclusion that a complete reorganization of the
Bosnian policing system was needed. The Dayton Peace Accord (DPA) had been
inspired by a confederal constitutional model and delegated executive police authority
entirely to sub-national governmental units. This model, 10 years later, had lost all its
shine and the new consensus among the international community was that it actually
constituted the principal limit to a full-fledged democratization of the police institution, a functioning judicial system, and the building of a nation. Dayton, in other
words, had become the obstacle.
The Bosnian case is highly relevant today in the context of the changing nature of
international interventions. International interventions have evolved from more security-oriented peacekeeping operations to comprehensive peace-building missions.
Bosnia is one of the first examples of this change. The declared objective of the intervention was winning the peace rather than just ending the war, and the international
community approached the post-conflict period with a declared nation-building
agenda. It should perhaps not appear as a surprise, as we will see, that the international
civilian police mission in Bosnia felt constrained by an (initial) mandate that was still
traditional in essence. Nation/institution-building requires a much broader mandate
than classic monitoring, coaching, and training tasks, and the appropriate police staff
to deal efficiently with highly complex institutional-building issues.
The account we will undertake in this paper of the progressive change of agenda in
the international police mission in Bosnia and the reasons that eventually led to a
complete restructuring of the police forces, aims at alimenting a more practical reflection
on future international civilian police missions in peace-building operations and the
realistic expectations the international community may have in their chances of success.
After a brief presentation of the actors involved in the police reform in Bosnia after
Dayton, an analytical model for agenda change of a police mission will be developed in
a more theoretical section. Using the suggested theoretical framework and secondary
literature as well as primary data,1 the paper will identify four chronological distinct
phases in the short history of the international civilian police mission in Bosnia and
identify the main factors leading to change. In the conclusion, lessons from the case
study will be drawn to discuss the increasing relevance of the notion of restructuring in
post-conflict international police missions.
The Main Actors of the Policing Reform
The main actors of the policing reform instituted by Dayton were the local authorities
themselves, the International Civilian Police (initially the United Nations International
Police Task Force), the NATO-led troops, and the Office of the High Representative
(OHR). As we will see, their respective role, position, visibility, and even identity, in the
policing reform process changed over the years. Let us introduce each actor briefly.
During and immediately after the war the police were organized in parallel structures along ethnic lines in BiH. The Croats controlled the western part they called the
Police Practice and Research: An International Journal 255
Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosna. The Bosniak police was based in Sarajevo and
controlled central Bosnia districts (Palmer, 2004a, p. 176). The Serbian police
controlled the rest of the country and had established their headquarters in Pale. The
police forces were under the influence of the intelligence services (usually collocated in
police headquarters) and operated as tools of their respective political authorities. The
DPA created a new policing system which, however, was not entirely distinct from its
predecessor. A crucial decision made in Dayton was indeed to decentralize territorially
the power to reproduce public order. Not a single policing competency was anchored
institutionally at the national level. Instead, policing was entirely delegated to the entities and, in the case of the Federation, to its 10 cantons. In a later international arbitration, an autonomous district was created in Brcko with its own independent police
force. This created in fact 13 autonomous law enforcement agencies (LEAs) for a small
country with an estimated population of 3.5 million inhabitants: 1 single centralized
police in the Republika Srpska (RS) with headquarters in Banja Luka, the new capital
of the RS; 1 federal police at Federation level with competencies restricted to complex
and organized crimes, inter-cantonal crimes, anti-terrorism, and VIP protection; 10
cantonal police agencies with large policing competencies; 1 autonomous district
police in the 100,000 inhabitants large district of Brcko with entity-like policing
competences. Later on during the mission, as part of the police reform, new LEAs were
progressively established at the national state level: the State Border Service (border
guards) in 2000, the Court Police, an Interpol office, and, in 2004, a national judicial
police (the SIPA or State Investigation and Protection Agency). All these national agencies, with the exception of the Court Police, were integrated in the 2004 inaugurated
Ministry of Public Security at the national level.
The United Nations Mission in BiH set up the International Police Task Force
(IPTF) to implement tasks listed in Annex 11 of the Peace Accord. These tasks were
essentially monitoring and inspecting, training as well as advising the local enforcement agencies. The IPTF was expected to work in accordance with ‘internationally
recognized standards and with respect for internationally recognized human rights
and fundamental freedoms’ (Annex 11). The DPA stated that the IPTF would be
headed by a Commissioner who would report to the High Representative2 as well as
the Secretary-General of the United Nations and his Special Representative in BiH.
The IPTF created ultimately by a UN resolution was 1,721 strong, a number that was
increased later to 2,057 via several successive UN resolutions. The IPTF mission lasted
until December 31, 2002 when it was replaced by the European Union Police Mission
(EUPM).
The NATO Implementation Force (IFOR) was tasked by Dayton to implement the
military aspects of the Peace Accord contained in Annex 1A. The 60,000 strong IFOR
had a one-year mandate and was replaced in December 1996 by the follow-up NATOled troop organization, the Stabilization Force (SFOR), who maintained initially
32,000 troops in BiH. At the end of 2004, the SFOR was replaced by a 7,000 strong
European Union military force (EUFOR).
The last crucial actor for the policing reform was the High Representative who represented the Peace Implementation Council (PIC)3 and was tasked with overseeing the
256
D. Wisler
implementation and coordinating the civilian aspects of the DPA. The High Representative’s role in the implementation was significantly strengthened in December 1997
when it was asked by the PIC to exercise its ‘final authority’ in matters regarding the
implementation of Dayton.4 On January 1, 2003, the High Representative was invested
with an additional function as Special Representative of the European Union in BiH.
The International Police Agenda: A Model for Change
For the discussion of the evolution of the civilian police mission in Bosnia, it will be
useful to distinguish between three levels of intervention: the micro, the meso, and the
macro. Micro-level interventions deal with individuals. Training or monitoring, for
instance, typically deals with individual capacity. The meso level is the level of the organization. A reorganization project dealing with the internal structure of a police force
is a meso-level project. Macro-level projects deal with the redistribution of power
between agencies or levels of government. For analytical purposes we will restrict the
use of the term ‘restructuring’ to macro-level issues while the term ‘reorganization’ will
be strictly applied to designate meso-level interventions.
This distinction is helpful to distinguish between the successive phases of the
CIVPOL mission in Bosnia. We will show that after concentrating initially exclusively
on monitoring and training activities, the mission gradually moved to meso-level interventions before, in the last phase, starting on January 1, 2003 with the transfer of the
mission of EUPM, an even more significant programme commenced at the macro
level. There was, of course, nothing natural, teleological, or nicely planned in this
progressive transition from the micro to the macro for an international police mission.
Instead, we will argue that together with the internal diagnostic of the functioning of
the police forces the evolution of the agenda of the international civilian police has been
the result of a changing combination of external factors. Four external factors played a
critical role: the local political alliances, the Dayton mandate (and its changing interpretation by the relevant actors), the international configuration of power, and what
we will call the ‘mission cycle.’
The local political alliances mattered since the IPTF received only a weak mandate
and, according to Annex 11 of the Dayton agreement, the enforcement of the rule of
law rested entirely upon local agencies. We will see, for instance, that a power struggle
within the nationalist party in the RS during the years 1997–98 combined with the
results of the November 1997 special elections and the 1998 general elections opened a
window of opportunity for the UN Mission to negotiate with the local authorities the
first agreement to reorganize the RS police.
The interpretation or real change in their respective mandates mattered for the type
of interventions taken by the main international actors of the security sector—the
NATO troops (IFOR/SFOR), the IPTF/EUPM, and the OHR. During the mission,
several important changes occurred. One example is the new extraordinary powers the
High Representative (HR) obtained from a meeting of the PIC which took place in
December 1997. The HR became entitled to use his full authority in matters regarding
the implementation of the Peace Accord. This unique decision allowed the HR to
Police Practice and Research: An International Journal 257
remove from public offices officials believed to be an obstacle to the implementation of
the DPA as well as to impose ‘laws’ as he considered ‘fit if Bosnia and Herzegovina’s
legislative bodies failed to do so.’5 This led to many authoritative decisions by the HR
and opened the door for a more assertive programme by the IPTF in the internal reorganization of the police forces.
The international configuration of power has been critical for the evolution of the
international civilian police agenda. While, during the IPTF mandate, the international
configuration of power was relatively stable, a new logic settled in after the European
Union decided to open the door of pre-negotiations of adhesion to BiH in 2000.
Consecutively, Dayton ceased to be the exclusive frame of reference for state reforms.
Calls for revisiting Dayton became louder and this allowed the EUPM and the OHR,
the latter newly invested with the function of Special Representative of the European
Union, to initiate a new radical police reform programme.
Finally, an equally important factor is what could be labelled as ‘mission cycle.’ The
reform agenda seems indeed to vary depending whether it is located early or late in the
mission cycle. When the IPTF, as we will see, begun to ‘accredit’ the 14 LEAs in Bosnia,
many observers believed that this move came too early and was only intended to crone
the IPTF mission with a final glorious success before the mission would be handed over
to the European Union (Palmer, 2004a). Even more to the point, we will argue that the
recent changes in agenda in the reform of the police are due in part to the search by all
international actors for an exit strategy and the general sense that the implementation
of Dayton is approaching an end. In the latest phase of the mission cycle, the notion of
financial sustainability of the police has become almost obsessive. As we will see, financial considerations have influenced considerably the current reform under way in the
public security sector in BiH.
The First Phase: The Public Order Security Gap6
In the immediate post-Dayton agreement, a number of events (elections, transfer of
authority of five Serb suburbs to the Federation side of Sarajevo, the resettlement of
Muslims to strategic locations in the Zone of Separation between the entities, the
return of refugees) were planned with a critical potential of escalation and other,
unplanned, such as roadblocks mainly at the inter-entity line but also in the Croat
controlled areas contravening Dayton, were going to challenge seriously the civilian
police force—the IPTF.
An additional risk factor was the fact that the pace of the IPTF deployment was relatively slow and that only 392 monitors were deployed in the first week of March 1996
when the transfer of the Serb suburbs was starting (the problem has been identified as
the ‘deployment gap’). The potentially escalating events scheduled, combined with the
deployment gap and the fact that the civilian police was unarmed and not entrusted with
executive powers posed an extraordinary challenge to a civilian police mission. Indeed,
the mandate received by the IPTF from Annex 11 of the DPA, prescribed a mission with
monitoring/inspection, training, and advising function only while the entire enforcement of the rule of the law stayed in the functioning police forces of the parties.
258
D. Wisler
A public order security gap arose clearly from the fact that the NATO troops, the
IFOR, received also a weak mandate. According to the International Crisis Group
(ICG), the
U.S. military wanted a crisp clean mandate which could be fulfilled within a year and could
allow them to avoid either ‘mission creep’ or involvement in any policing function. The
first phobia stemmed from the 1993 debacle in Somalia and the second from disquiet over
the otherwise successful intervention in Haiti in 1994. (ICG, 2002, p. 5)
During the first months of the mission it became clear to the IPTF that the IFOR would
interpret their mandate indeed as weak and deny being the ‘911’ for IPTF emergencies,
as put by Dziedzic and Bair (1998, p. 24).
Even if there were formal mechanisms of exchange of information between
the IFOR, the OHR, and the IPTF with the Joint Civilian Commission and a Joint
Consultative Committee, the High Representative, which under Annex 10 of Dayton
had the mandate to coordinate all civilian aspects of Dayton, had ‘no authority over the
IFOR nor could he or she interfere in the conduct of military operations or the IFOR
chain of command’ (see DPA, Annex 10).
The public order gap was narrowed down in size with the subsequent SFOR and the
routinization of the support to the IPTF. Already after a few months into the mission,
the IFOR became more supportive to the IPTF and important events such as the 1996
election were carefully planned jointly by the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE), the IPTF, and the IFOR. The elections were a crucial test for the IPTF
and the mission in general. The task of the international community was facilitated by
the fact that the nationalists were supporting the electoral process. They were looking
for a legitimization from the anticipated electoral victory.
Later on, as mentioned, support mechanisms would be routinized with the IFOR
follow-up NATO mission, the Stabilization Force (SFOR), to ensure the freedom of
movement and the dismantling of police roadblocks for instance. Roadblocks and
checkpoints were in general forbidden by the IPTF, but were nevertheless often
conducted along the inter-entity line. The SFOR provided assistance to the IPTF to
dismantle them when persuasion did not work. The SFOR also conducted regular
inspections on the special police forces in the RS confiscating illegal weapons and
equipment. Later in the mandate, the SFOR also conducted operations to search for
criminals wanted by the International Tribunal for War Crimes.
Two innovations were important during the mission to close the public order security gap. Dziedzic and Bair stress the importance of the civilian affairs specialists in the
early phase that were detached to the IPTF by the IFOR to plan contingencies, assure
the link between the two agencies, and provide the logistical support the IPTF cruelly
needed in its deployment phase.
The second linkage has been the creation on August 2, 1998 of the Multinational
Specialized Unit (MSU) within the SFOR. An innovation of the Bosnian peacekeeping
mission, the MSU consisted exclusively of police forces with armed force status
(gendarmerie, carabinieri, guardia civil, etc.), was an integral part of the SFOR, and was
conceived to take on large public order tasks. The MSU was originally deployed as
Police Practice and Research: An International Journal 259
preparation for the second national election of October 1998 and was believed to be the
best tool to bridge the public order gap identified during the first phase of the mission.
Lutterbeck (2004) mentions that the MSUs seem to have been relatively rarely used, but
they were nevertheless regarded as an important tool and, with the transfer of the SFOR
to the European Union by the end of 2004, the MSUs are still today an integral part of
the new force under the new name Integrated Police Unit. In 2005, it had staff from
Italy, Hungary, Romania, and Slovenia and was 600 personnel strong.7
The Second Phase: Democratization Phase, Confidence-Building, and Personal
Integrity
As the one-year mandate of IFOR of implementing the peace came to an end on
December 20, 1996, the follow-up NATO organization SFOR took over the implementation of the Dayton military aspects with a new emphasis on peace consolidation. The
SFOR mandate was anchored in the UN Resolution 1088 of December 12, 1996. The
number of troops was cut by almost half to 32,000. At the same time, the same UN
Resolution 1088 reinforced the mandate of the IPTF with a significant task to investigate or assist investigation on human rights abuses committed by local law enforcement personnel. This resolution, and the subsequent UN resolutions that increased the
number of IPTF personnel from an initial 1,721 to about 2,057, manifested in fact an
important change of focus of the IPTF mission after one year of mainly monitoring
activities.
The second phase did not start simultaneously in both entities. In the Federation it
was facilitated by the signing of the Bonn–Petersberg agreement between the UN
Mission and the Federation on April 25, 1996. The December 1998 Framework
Agreement allowed a similar programme to start in the RS only two years later.
During the war, the lines between the police and the military were fluid. The police
forces on all sides of the conflict had contributed to protecting cities but had also been
involved in ethnic cleansing. They had grown to an estimated 45,000 large force in the
country or 1 police officer for about 75 inhabitants. Police forces were entirely monoethnic. The Bonn–Petersberg agreement’s strategic objective was to transform the
police in the Federation into a police that the public would trust. To reach this, a
bottom-up approach was selected: training was to ensure that democratic practices
would be implemented at police patrol level. The Agreement entailed also provisions
for a significant reduction of the forces (from 32,750 to 11,500), for minority quotas
based on the 1991 census, for a single uniform for the whole police in the Federation,
for the adoption of a code of conduct, and a correlative vetting process.
The core issue of this phase was the vetting process of the police forces. The UN
Mission created a certification following a three-stage process: the first stage was the
registration of all personnel with law enforcement power; the second stage was the
screening of this personnel who were to fulfil a number of conditions to be provisionally authorized; provisionally authorized personnel were issued a UN Mission ID card
which they were required to wear on duty; the last stage for final authorization was to
meet a number of standards to qualify to serve in a democratic police force.
260
D. Wisler
This process of increasing the quality of the authorized officers and removing inappropriate personnel was accompanied by numerous training courses organized by the
IPTF and other agencies with bilateral programmes. Despite the fact that the IPTF
created a function of donor aid coordinator, bilateral programmes, including those of
the Council of Europe, were however mostly uncoordinated. Moreover, while a database was created to register authorized personnel, this database was not used to register
the courses that each police officer attended. Still in 2003, no such database existed. A
survey conducted by the police academy of Sarajevo at the occasion of a crash training
course introducing the new penal code in 2004 gave rather disappointing results: about
50% of all officers in the Federation had less than a month overall of training, while
only 10% had received a basic police academy training.8
The Third Phase: The Democratization of the Police Organizations
During this phase that started in 1999 and lasted until the end of the IPTF mission
on December 31, 2002, the emphasis of the democratic reform shifted from the individual level to the organizational level and included this time also the RS. Two events
were of critical importance to explain the ability of the IPTF to start the reform in
the RS, on the one hand, and the shift of emphasis of its core programme, on the
other hand.
In the RS, the internal political struggle within the nationalist party SDS between
1997 and 1998 offered an opportunity for the UN Mission to overcome the years-long
resistance to cooperation with the IPTF and broke an agreement with the moderate
wing of the party on December 9, 1998. The so-called Framework Agreement was
similar to the April 1996 agreement negotiated with the Federation.9 The access to the
Presidency of the RS by Biljana Plavsic opened a conflict with the hard-liners. Plavsic
was supported by the international community and, after special elections were held in
November 1997 to replace the dissolved parliament of the RS, Plavsic was able to
constitute a thin majority government and Dodik, who was regarded as a moderate by
the international community, became prime minister in January 1998. This led the
international community and the financial institutions to release the funding to the RS
that was held back under the conditionality clause and, importantly for the police
reform, led to the Framework Agreement with the RS in December 1998.
The second event of crucial importance for this new phase was the change in power
configuration at the High Representative level. The High Representative’s function in
the implementation of the DPA was indeed significantly strengthened by the Peace
Implementation Conference held in Bonn on December 9 and 10, 1997, in which the
Peace Implementation Council welcomed the High Representative’s intention to use his
final authority in theatre regarding interpretation of the Agreement on the civilian
implementation of the Peace Settlement in order to facilitate the resolution of any difficulties ‘by making binding decisions, as he judges necessary.’ This new authority was
significant for exercising sufficient pressure on the local authorities to adopt far-reaching
reforms and it set the basis for the start of an important reorganization of the police forces
along the lines of democratic best practices.
Police Practice and Research: An International Journal 261
In January 1999, the IPTF published a strategy document clarifying what it meant by
democratic policing. The strategy contained three axes: (1) more post-communist,
post-paramilitary restructuring; (2) more rigorous training, selection, certification,
and de-certification procedures; and (3) more democratization by establishing depoliticized, impartial, accountable, and multinational police forces dedicated to the principles of community policing (ICG, 2002, p. 7). While, during this phase, there was a
continuation of the training efforts and the certification process,10 the emphasis of this
phase lay in a reorganization of the police force in order to adjust them to the principles
of democratic policing. The centre of gravity of the programmes shifted from the individual level of integrity to the organizational level of integrity. The reform efforts that
were at the forefront of the stage during this period were mainly concerned with internal reorganization of the LEAs even though some projects were clearly also restructuring projects, the most important of them being the establishment of the national State
Border Police imposed by a decision of the High Representative.
The change of focus of the IPTF was reflected in the creation of positions of senior
co-locators in the Ministries of Interior at entity, canton, and Public Security Center
levels in 1999 (Palmer, 2004b, p. 4) and reinforced in 2001 with the new ‘manage the
managers’ project. The central piece of the democratization programme at organizational level was the so-called ‘police commissioner project.’ The idea was to create a
position of police chief, or police commissioner, within the police organograms which
would be responsible for all operational aspects of the police while the role of the
Minister of Interior would be confined to policy-making processes. To ensure this
depolitization process, a mechanism of selection of the commissioners for a four-year
period was set up that marginalized the influence of the Minister of Interior. The police
commissioner project targeted obviously the nationalists who traditionally ‘owned’ the
Ministry of Interior, and exercised considerable influence in operational aspects of the
police. Accessorily, the project served in the canton of Mostar to integrate into a single
chain of command the police which were still operating under separate ethnic lines of
command.11
A second important project was the complete reorganization of the forces and their
formalization in books of rules. The project was conducted mainly by an American
contractor to the US government (ICITAP). All LEAs were reorganized according to
one basic scheme and books of rules were issued for each agency specifying and
describing the terms of references of all police functions, the number of staff in the various functions as well as the ranks of the personnel in each function.
The third significant project was meant to crone the IPTF efforts as the mission was
closing. The intention was to send a signal to the public that significant progress had
been made towards the democratization of the police forces. Therefore, the IPTF
launched an accreditation programme of the 14 LEAs. The recommendations for
improvement and the final accreditation were issued within one year for 12 areas of
policing. The audit team, composed by organizational and financial specialists, began
its work with the District of Brcko. The 14 LEAs were audited individually.
At the end of this democratization wave initiated by the IPTF, many successes had
been scored and their impact was palpable. The level of street crimes and burglaries in
262
D. Wisler
BiH was low in regional comparison; there was a relatively high level of subjective security; even though there were cases of ethnic riots, these cases remained the exception.
The Property Law, a fundamental law for refugee return, had been enacted and, in
2003, was nearly completed and its responsibility transferred to the local governments.
Refugees started to return at a high pace in 2000 and in subsequent years. According
to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in 2004, over
1 million externally and internally displaced persons had returned to their original
place of residence. Certainly, the democratization of the police had contributed to these
successes.
The Fourth Phase: State-Building and Financial Sustainability under European
Union Influence
Despite all these achievements, when the European Union Police Mission (EUPM)
took over the police mission on January 1, 2003, there were still many weaknesses in
the police organizations and the policing system itself became increasingly under scrutiny. The May 23/24, 2000 meeting in Brussels of the PIC had been the first to call for
structural reforms with a clear state-building agenda.12 This ‘national’ agenda, as well
as the search for an exit strategy by the international community, prompted the new
EUPM to bring the sustainability issue and the state-building reforms to the top of its
agenda. Even more important, Dayton no longer constituted the main source of power
of the OHR, but Brussels and the EU did. Indeed, the HR became double hutted High
Representative of the PIC and Special Representative of the EU in BiH. The second hut
opened the door to a new era of realpolitik in Bosnia by the EU and a departure from
the ‘Daytonism’ that was predominant during the first three phases.
Stated in general terms, a major weakness that was obvious after the departure of
the IPTF was the strong underdevelopment of all so-called support processes of the
police forces. While the capacity-building cooperation programmes had focused
during many years on strengthening the operative police functions (traffic police,
community policing, criminal investigation, public order, crowd control, etc.), almost
nothing had been done to rehabilitate and develop the support functions of the police.
Little or nothing had been done in areas such as policy-planning, budgeting, and
human resources (carrier plans, selection, etc.). Training had been the exception, with
a large investment by the IPTF and the donor community. Police academies had been
entirely remodelled; courses had been adapted to international good practices.
However, typically, training for managers and other support functions had not been
promoted by the IPTF.
These weaknesses were recognized during the preparation phase of the EUPM
mission. Consequently and building on the successful co-locator programme of the
preceding phases, the planning mission decided to collocate at senior management
levels EUPM police advisors. Various kinds of specialists—such as financial officers—
were also co-located within the respective functions of the Ministries of Interior. An
investment in these support processes had the potential to bring major productivity
gains and, therefore, contribute directly to the financial sustainability of the police in
Police Practice and Research: An International Journal 263
BiH. As we will argue below, the issue of the financial viability of the police forces in
BiH became progressively more salient during this phase as the European Union
searched actively for an exit strategy.
The managerial weaknesses of the police were important but ‘fixable.’ They did not
point towards a fundamental flaw in the police reform. It can be debated whether they
could or should have surfaced earlier in the CIVPOL mission. However, the IPTF left
Bosnia having untouched a number of more structural problems in the police reform
that were to become central for the new EUPM. These ‘non-fixable’ problems were
closely associated with the confederal political system instituted by the Dayton agreement. Given the history of political patronage of the police, the international community started to worry about the willingness and readiness of the local police to cooperate
with the newly instituted Chamber on organized crime at entity level and the domestic
trial capacity for war crimes. The lack of independence of the police and their continuous domination by the nationalists alimented the fears of ‘empty benches’ in the
pessimist camp. Furthermore, after almost a decade of reform, the police forces in the
country were still a long way from being financially sustainable. They were extraordinarily expensive, consuming almost 10% of the public budget in 2003. It was soon diagnosed, as we will argue below, that the confederal model of policing ethic divided
Bosnia was creating competition rather than collaboration, implying duplication, inefficiency, and raising the cost of a system in an already financially weak country. Let us
review in more detail these two non-fixable problems.
The limit to the police commissioner project or, more generally, to the democratic
model of policing, lay partly in the confederal constitution. The ‘territorialization’ of
policing instituted by Dayton started to constitute a fundamental obstacle to an independent and professional police in a political context dominated by nationalism.
In 2002, the nationalists made significant electoral gains and became the dominant
party in their respective ethnic groups. Despite the vigilance and the constant pressures
exercised by the IPTF and the EUPM, there was ample evidence that local police
commissioners could not always resist political influence.13 Reporting on Bosnia, the
International Crisis Group noted that ‘the apparent incompetence of the police is often
a strategy to mask the influence of well-connected individuals and nationalist agendas.’14 What has put significant additional pressure to strengthen the independence of
police was the creation in 2004 of the State Court with Special Panels dealing with organized crime, economic crime, and corruption as well as the plans to create a state-level
domestic capacity for prosecuting war crimes.15
As an attempt to avoid empty benches in these courts and given the demonstrated
lack of enthusiasm of the local police to arrest war criminals, a partial measure taken
by the OHR had been to strengthen the State Information Police Agency (SIPA). It had
quickly become clear to the initiators of the SIPA project that without judicial competencies and power to arrest this institution was toothless. The SIPA was later renamed
State Investigative Protection Agency and its target strength increased to 1,500 officers.
The intentions of this project were clearly to de-territorialize the police investigative
and enforcement capacity in matters relevant to the highest courts, thus bypassing
local police allegedly under control by the nationalists. This equated to an implicit
264
D. Wisler
recognition of the failure of the confederal model. The SIPA project was the first clear
sign of recognition by the OHR that policing in Bosnia could not be territorialized, or
at least not entirely territorialized, and the first step of a fundamental change of
approach to the police reform.
In addition to that, the very fragmented policing structure in BiH was affecting negatively the performance of the fight against serious and organized crime. In BiH, the
fight against crime is indeed performed by 15 different agencies, while criminal investigation tasks and competencies are distributed in cascade to five administrative or
governmental levels. The efficiency of the criminal investigation is further impeded by
the fact that there are no single police databases and criminal investigation staff are
operating with very little training and poor salaries. In 2004–2005, there were several
ongoing projects with the potential to improve the situation at a technical level.
National databases were established for passports, residency permits, and driving
licences. National police databases, allowing searches for vehicles and persons, are
currently being built as well as the necessary electronic communication network across
police agencies. All these projects which aim at ‘integrating from below’ the crimefighting process in Bosnia are no guarantee however that the relevant data is filed into
these databases or that enforcement will take place when perceived vital interests are at
stake in the respective territorial units of BiH.
The other independent issue that influenced the agenda change of the EUPM was the
diagnosed lack of financial sustainability of the police forces in Bosnia. The issue of the
financial viability of the Bosnian state had moved to the centre of the agenda of donors
and financial institutions as they looked for an exit strategy after a decade of assistance.
The financial viability of the police forces was immediately a prime concern of the
EUPM whose initial mandate was for three years only. The financial viability of the
Bosnian state was also adopted by the OHR as a priority. In 2002, the mission statement
of the OHR read: ‘To ensure that Bosnia and Herzegovina is a peaceful, viable state on
course to European integration.’16 Additional pressures for a viable state in Bosnia
came from the EU who opened the doors for a European future to Bosnia in its meeting
of Feira in June 2000. By 2002, virtually all financial institutions and international organizations had indeed set the goal of financial viability as the primary objective for the
Bosnian state for the coming years.
In 2002, the BiH state was clearly not viable. The state budget accounted for 47% of
the Gross Domestic Product—a high figure in regional comparison. The police forces
concurred to this high spending situation by consuming 9.2% of the public budget (all
levels of government aggregated). Again, in international comparison, this share is
extremely high. Taking the year 2003 as benchmark, in relative terms, it equates to
three times the corresponding figure in Slovenia and about five times the European
average. Relevant to explain this high spending situation are certainly, as mentioned
earlier, a general lack of productivity of the police institution itself, but also the consequence of competition (rather than collaboration) between territorial police agencies
in the ethnically divided Bosnia and the lack of trust between the former enemies.
A structural problem was that the quasi totality of the police budget was consumed
by salaries (80%) and operating costs. There was little room in the already very high
Police Practice and Research: An International Journal 265
police budget for investment in the necessary technology to increase the performance
of the police. Without heavy restructuring programmes and a drastic reduction of
police officers, no significant investment could be undertaken which, in turn, affected
negatively police productivity. The autonomy of the cantons and entity in procurement
issues created situations that were unacceptable in a precarious financial context and
detrimental to the performance of the police. Individual cantons purchased communication material or developed computer applications for instance in an uncoordinated
manner which resulted in incompatibility or lack of interoperability of databases at the
national level. Competition rather than cooperation was the rule.
Competition can also explain why cantons in Bosnia in 2002 were still maintaining
large police forces with numbers that could not be justified by the reality of crime.
Typically, on average in Bosnia, rural cantons have a higher police density than urban
cantons. In several rural cantons,17 the police consumed in 2002 as much as 20% of
the cantonal budget while in others they consumed less than 10%. More generally,
there were still too many police in BiH in 2002. The ratio was 1 authorized officer for
about 220 inhabitants or 1 officer for 150 if the police support process staff were
included in the calculation. The ratio recommended by the United Nations is 1 officer
for 450 inhabitants.
The prospect of empty benches in higher courts, the patronage system established at
the local policing level, the high-spending situation, and the pattern of competition
between territorial police agencies in the confederal policing system prompted the High
Representative to initiate a fundamental review of the policing structure in the country.
On July 2, 2004, he set up a Police Restructuring Commission (PRC) with the mission
to propose ‘a single structure of policing for Bosnia and Herzegovina under the overall
political oversight of a ministry or ministries in the Council of Ministers.’ The PRC was
guided by 12 principles in its work; most prominently among these principles appeared
four goals: efficiency, sustainability, multiculturalism, and accountability. The preliminary results of the PRC were made public on December 15, 2004. The new model
proposed was a single structure model with two administrative levels of policing bearing close similarities with the Belgian model: services such as the SIPA, the State Border
Service, and central support services were organized at the central national level while
regional police forces under the supervision of a national directorate would serve associations of municipalities (regions) that would cut across the borders of former entities
and cantons.18
Such a proposal was obviously no longer compatible with the negotiated Annex 11
of Dayton and represented a bold attempt to nationalize the police. To advance such
an agenda, the OHR could no longer rely on his Bonn power as the proposal challenged
the territorialization principle of Dayton. This time, the OHR had to rely entirely on
his new position as special representative of the European Union. To exert the necessary leverage, the adoption of the new policing model by the respective parliaments of
Bosnia was quickly made a condition to advance in the pre-negotiation of adhesion to
the European Union. After interminable delays and the determined resistance of the
Bosnian Serb nationalists, the OHR won the battle when the new police reform was
adopted by the parliament of the RS on October 5, 2005.
266
D. Wisler
An Agenda for Police Reforms in Peace-Building Missions: From Training to
Restructuring
One of the main lessons of the Bosnian case is the key relevance of restructuring in a
peace-building police mission. The impact of initiatives conducted by the IPTF at the
micro and the meso levels proved insufficient to cope adequately with the politics of
patronage of the police, the recurrent cases of lack of cooperation between territorial
police agencies, and the increasingly salient issue of financial sustainability of the
costly confederal police system. A full-fledged democratization and the development
of a viable, affordable, police institution in Bosnia necessitated, in the view of the
international community, a more radical approach involving the complete restructuring of the police. International reformers advocated a significant de-territorialization of the police, the decoupling between entity politics and policing, and the
rationalization of the system. A consensus was eventually reached over the relevance
of a federal model (Belgium) to replace the unsuccessful Dayton confederal policing
system.
Bosnia is a radical case of restructuring as the reform involved revisiting the peace
agreement. More successful peace agreements should not diminish the need for
restructuring however. One current example is the Sudan. The double institutional
transition to democracy and federalism implied by the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement (CPA) (January 2005) in Sudan creates indeed a system whose complexity
and newness for the local police authorities would call in principle for a strong capacity-building and international expertise to support the implementation of the CPA
policing provisions. In addition, peace agreements leave ample room for conflicts over
institutional interpretations and low key mediation by a police mission to reach a
consensus between the parties can prove useful. The relevance of institution-building
is acknowledged by the Security Council Resolution 1590 instituting the United
Nations Mission in Sudan as it explicitly mentions ‘restructuring’ as one of the key
tasks of its international police section.
Restructuring is a new, non-classical task, of international civilian police missions.
Traditionally, civilian police missions have focused on micro-level activities such as
training, monitoring, and vetting. What has changed, as was already alluded to in the
introduction, is the nature of the international interventions themselves. Originally
limited to peacekeeping, they involve today a peace-building or a nation-building
agenda. ‘Consolidate the peace,’ as framed in the Secretary-General report An agenda
for peace (1992), requires expert knowledge in facilitating institution-building in a
post-conflict national context, including police law expertise, skills in police systems,
and knowledge of accountability mechanisms, to name only a few. There are signs—as
we have seen with the Sudan—that restructuring is already becoming a key component
in the mandate of the most recent civilian police missions. To cope with these new
tasks, police missions might have to change their human resource profile as well. A
third of the personnel of the current UN police mission in Sudan are officers who have
served in executive positions. Many of the skills required in institution-building
however are not ‘policing’ expertise per se and the current requirement of a police
Police Practice and Research: An International Journal 267
background for participating in a United Nations police mission might be a handicap
in view of the changing nature of these missions themselves.
A further lesson from the Bosnian case is that the agenda of the international civilian
police is highly dependent on a number of enabling and constraining factors. What was
possible at one stage for the civilian police mission in Bosnia was often not feasible in
the previous stage. While the necessity for reform at the macro level might have been
recognized early, the agenda of the civilian police mission was constrained by the
Dayton legal framework which gave only little leverage for pushing for a radical institutional reform agenda. It was only when the OHR obtained new competencies from
the Bonn conference and, above all, a new advantageous bargaining position as special
representative of the European Union that the agenda of the international police
mission could move decisively towards the harder restructuring issues. The limits to
the restructuring efforts of international civilian police missions will always be the
mandate itself and, depending on the mandate, the cooperation disposition of the local
governments. Missions conducted under Chapter VI of the United Nations Charter
will not all benefit from the unique international configuration of power that made the
radical reform possible in Bosnia and international civilian police missions, such as the
mission in Sudan, might find themselves in positions similar, or even weaker, to that of
the IPTF in Bosnia prior to the engagement of the European Union. While restructuring is a key to the democratization process, international police missions might have
little bargaining power to fulfil their new restructuring mandate.
Notes
[1] Having been a regular consultant to the police academies of BiH between 2000 and 2004 and
as a member of an assessment team mandated in 2004–2005 by the European Commission
to audit the police system in BiH, the author had a privileged access to the police in BiH
and conducted numerous formal and informal interviews with local police authorities, the
International Police Task Force, and the European Union Police Mission that have informed
the substance of the paper.
[2] Article 2, paragraph 4 of Annex 11. During the IPTF period, however, it seems that the
Commissioner ‘reported’ to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) and
‘worked closely’ with the HR.
[3] The PIC is a group of 55 countries and international organizations that ‘sponsor and direct
the peace implementation process’ and the High Representative is nominated by the steering
board of the PIC.
[4] See the conclusions of the Bonn conference of the PIC (http://www.ohr.int/pic/default.
asp?content_id=5182).
[5] See the OHR description of its mandate (http://www.ohr.int/ohr-info/gen-info/#pic).
[6] This section is based mainly on the account by Dziedzic and Bair (1998).
[7] http://www.nato.int/sfor/factsheet/msu/t040809a.htm
[8] These are unofficial figures from the survey.
[9] This paragraph is partially based on the account of the ICG report ‘The Wages of Sins’ (ICG,
2001, p. 9).
[10] By the end of 1997, the provisional certification process was finished for the Bosniak police in
the Federation; beginning in 1998 it started with the Croatian side (ICG, 2002, p. 6) and in
1999 in the RS.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
268
D. Wisler
[11] Another project along this line was the physical separation of the intelligence services from the
police as the two agencies used to share the same premises.
[12] See ESI paper ‘Turning Point. The Brussels PIC Declaration and a State-Building Agenda for
Bosnia and Herzegovina,’ June 7, 2000.
[13] In addition, the organizational reform of the police and the Ministry of Interior led by the
IPTF failed to put the support services under the police commissioner authority. Instead, they
remained under the direct authority of the Ministers of Interior.
[14] ‘Policing the Police in Bosnia’ (ICG, 2002, p. 2).
[15] See the programme ‘state-level criminal justice institutions’ of the 2004 Implementation Plan
of the OHR. The War Crime Chamber was expected to hear cases as soon as January 2005 and
to be composed by local and international judges (see: ‘War Crime Chamber Project,’ OHR
publications, November 2004).
[16] OHR Mission Implementation Plan 2003–2004.
[17] Livno, Gorazde, Orasje, see Final Report (2004, p. 87).
[18] Bosnia and Herzegovina Police Restructuring Commission, Executive Summary, December
15, 2004.
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
References
Dziedzic, M. J., & Blair, A. (1998). Bosnia and the International Police Task Force. In R. Okley, M.
Dziedzic, & E. M. Goldberg (Eds.), Policing the new world disorder: Peace operations and public
security (pp. 253–314). Washington, DC: National Defense University Press.
Final Report. (2004, July 11–26). Functional review of the BH police forces. Sarajevo: Ministry of
Justice of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
International Crisis Group (ICG). (2001, October 8). The wages of sin: Confronting Bosnia’s
Republika Srpska. Balkans Report, 118. Brussels.
International Crisis Group (ICG). (2002, May 10). Policing the police in Bosnia: A further reform
agenda. Balkans Report, 130. Brussels.
Lutterbeck, D. (2004). Between police and military. The new security agenda and the rise of
gendarmeries. Cooperation and Conflict: Journal of the Nordic International Association, 39(1),
45–68.
Palmer, K. L. (2004a). Police reforms in Bosnia-Herzegovina: External pressure and internal resistance. In M. Caparini & O. Marenin (Eds.), Transforming police in Central and Eastern Europe.
Process and progress (pp. 169–193). Münster: LIT.
Palmer, K. L. (2004b). Transfer of mandate and institutional reforms: Policing and educational
reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina. GSC Quarterly, 11, 1–7.
The Three Eras of Policing
Policing has progressed through different eras over its history. The three eras of
policing often discussed are the Political Era (1840-1930), the Reform Era (1930-1980),
and the Community Era (1980-present). However, some do argue that there is a fourth
era and that we have moved out of the Community Era and into the Homeland Security
Era. These eras actually represent paradigm shifts and each has their own strengths
and weaknesses.
The Political Era was really the start of police departments and had some initial ties to
concepts seen in community policing; such as foot patrol that encouraged closer ties to
the community. Officers also lived in the communities they served. Unfortunately these
police officer positions were often rewarded to those that supported politicians and
therefore these political appointees had a vested interest in politics. Some often did
whatever they needed to do to keep the politician that appointed them in power.
As a result of police officers doing whatever they needed to do to keep politicians in
power, police corruption was high. The Wickersham Commission was formed and
changes were sought. A new era began.
The Reform Era brought about change and an emphasis was placed on police
accountability. In order to be accountable, police officers had to be trained. August
Vollmer, the father of American Policing, helped the University of California at Berkeley
develop a program for police officers. Police began using radios and car patrols and
were viewed in a more professional manner.
Unfortunately the modernization of policing led to some negative effects. Relations with
the community often were not positive as an ‘Us versus Them’ mentality had formed.
Social movements became more common and public support dwindled. In an effort to
gain public support, agencies began experimenting with involving the community.
The Community Era encouraged officers to be engaging with citizens and provided
street level officers with discretion on how to tackle problems. Crime prevention
became a buzz word and departments began to see the effects of partnerships within
the community. Police administrators became concerned about ways to be proactive
rather than just reactive to crime.
Understanding the three eras of policing is important in understand the beginnings and
significance of community policing. We must examine the past to understand the
present and the future of policing.
Community Policing in a Changing World: A Case Study of
Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Authors: Vejnovic, Dusko
Lalic, Velibor lalicv@teol.net
Source: Police Practice & Research. Sep2005, Vol. 6 Issue 4, p363-373. 11p.
Document Type: Article
Subject Terms: *COMMUNITY policing
*POLICE
*CRIMINAL justice personnel
*CRIME
*DRUG traffic
*POLICE-community relations
Geographic Terms: BOSNIA & Hercegovina
Author-Supplied Civil Control of the Police
Keywords: Community Policing
Police Reform
Police–Community Cooperation
Police—Community Cooperation
NAICS/Industry 913130 Municipal police services
Codes: 912130 Provincial police services
911230 Federal police services
922120 Police Protection
Abstract: This paper presents a case study in the transition from authoritarian to
community policing in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). In this case, reform was
organized in compliance with internationally recognized standards through the
United Nations Mission in BiH. The European Police Mission continues with
the same role in oversight and assistance. Significant progress has occurred
by this means. The process entailed staff reduction, demilitarization,
depoliticization, new selection and training standards, appointment by merit,
gender and ethnic representation, establishment of state border control to
prevent trafficking in human beings and illegal commodities, and a focus on
fighting against organized crime. However, democratization and transparency
of the law enforcement agencies cannot be achieved without the effective
control of the parliament and the more active role of the non governmental
sector. Further challenges remain in obtaining the cooperation of the
community and police, building mutual thrust, and developing
problem oriented police work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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(Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
ISSN: 1561-4263
DOI: 10.1080/15614260500293994
Police Practice and Research,
Vol. 6, No. 4, September 2005, pp. 363–373
Community Policing in a Changing
World: A Case Study of Bosnia and
Herzegovina
Dusko Vejnovic & Velibor Lalic
This paper presents a case study in the transition from authoritarian to community policing in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). In this case, reform was organized in compliance
with internationally recognized standards through the United Nations Mission in BiH.
The European Police Mission continues with the same role in oversight and assistance.
Significant progress has occurred by this means. The process entailed staff reduction,
demilitarization, depoliticization, new selection and training standards, appointment by
merit, gender and ethnic representation, establishment of state border control to prevent
trafficking in human beings and illegal commodities, and a focus on fighting against organized crime. However, democratization and transparency of the law enforcement agencies
cannot be achieved without the effective control of the parliament and the more active role
of the non-governmental sector. Further challenges remain in obtaining the cooperation of
the community and police, building mutual thrust, and developing problem-oriented
police work.
40lalicv@teol.net
University
VeliborLalic
00000September
Centre
for
2005
Geostrategic
StudiesBanja LukaBosnia and Herzegovina
Police
10.1080/15614260500293994
GPPR129382.sgm
1561-4263
Original
Taylor
62005
Practice
and
&
Article
Francis
(print)/1477-271X
Francis
and
Ltd
Ltd
Research
(online)
Keywords: Police Reform; Civil Control of the Police; Community Policing;
Police–Community Cooperation
Introduction
In 1991, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) was one of the six republics of the Communist
controlled Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In April 1992, BiH was internationally
recognized as an independent country and became a member of the United Nations.
Civil war broke out in Yugoslavia in 1992. It ended with the signing of the Dayton Peace
Correspondence to: Velibor Lalic, Braće Jugovića Street 45, 78000 Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Email:
lalicv@teol.net
ISSN 1561–4263 print/ISSN 1477–271X online/05/040363–11 © 2005 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/15614260500293994
364
D. Vejnovic & V. Lalic
Agreement, in December 1995. The Dayton Peace Agreement established BiH as a state
comprised of two entities, the Federation of BiH and Republika Srpska. The Agreement
includes the State Constitution, which establishes the equal rights of the three constituent ethnic peoples: Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats. The Office of the High Representative
(OHR) is the chief civilian peace implementation agency in BiH, with a mandate to
oversee the implementation of the Agreement. The High Representative has the final
authority to interpret its civilian aspects (The General Framework Agreement for Peace
in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1995, Article V of Annex 10).
Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country in transition from centralized authoritarian
government and civil war. This is a large-scale process of social reconstruction. It
includes the reform of the police, along with ongoing reforms of the economy, political
system, and reform of the military. The reform of the police includes the construction
of modern police forces that will be capable of carrying out police duties in compliance
with internationally recognized standards. The theme of this paper is therefore the
democratization process of the BiH police in the post-conflict period. The first aspect
refers to supervision and reconstruction of the BiH police force by the international
community. The second aspect explains the oversight of the BiH police force by the
parliament and the role of civil society as the political and social requirements for the
successful implementation of the community policing concept in BiH. Establishment
of effective oversight of the police, as well as other segments of the security sector, has
crucial importance for building democracy. The third aspect explains some perspectives
of community policing in BiH as an integral part of the police reform—ENLARGE.
Background
The need for fundamental reconstruction of the BiH police on democratic principles
was imposed by the historical heritage of communist dictatorship and civil war. The
war function of the police throughout BiH was indistinguishable to that of the military function. Police forces were often little more than ‘soldiers with police badges
sewn on to their uniforms, or in fact organized paramilitary units,’ and police were
frequently involved in flagrant human rights violations during the conflict. A 1996
claimed that there were more than 45,000 police personnel, most of whom were
trained as soldiers only (International Crisis Group, 2002). Post-conflict police
reform is intended to concentrate on strengthening the management capacity of the
police to implement change and foster understanding of what it means to be a police
officer in a democratic society, clearly distinguishable from the military (King, Dorn,
& Hodes, 2002). Reconstruction of the police and military after the war was the priority of the international community. That was necessary in order to create the right
conditions for sustainable peace and stability. The civil war in BiH involved major
demographic changes due to ‘ethnic cleansing’ and migrations. Consequently, the
return process of refuges must be followed with adequate national representation of
police staff within the BiH police force. During the war, many officers joined the
police without even basic police training or had minimal training in public policing.
The reconstruction of the post-war BiH police force includes staff reduction, training
Police Practice and Research: An International Journal 365
of currently serving officers, organizational restructuring, police and criminal justice
cooperation, institution building, and inter-police force cooperation. There is a big
challenge for BiH to build a democratic society. In order to reach that objective it is
necessary to make thorough reform of the security sector, whose most important
element is the police force.
Activities of the International Community in Reconstruction of the BiH Police Force
The political and legal underpinnings of police reform in BiH followed from the
signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement. UN Security Council Resolution 1035
(December 21, 1995) articulated the mandate for the International Police Task Force
(IPTF). However, the real basis for the IPTF originated in the Dayton Peace Agreement. For example, Annex 11 states that responsibility for maintaining a ‘safe and
secure environment for all persons’ rests with the signatories themselves. To assist in
discharging their public security obligations, the parties requested that the IPTF
perform the following functions:
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Monitor and inspect judicial and law enforcement activities, including conducting
joint patrols with local police forces.
Advise and train law enforcement personnel; analyze the public security threat and
offer advice to government authorities on how to organize their police forces most
effectively.
Facilitate law enforcement improvement and respond to requests of the parties, as
much as possible.
In response to the Dayton Peace Agreement, IPTF developed a three-point plan,
which was concentrated on the following:
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Restructuring a post-communist and post-paramilitary police force.
Reforming the police through training, selection, certification, and de-certification
procedures.
Democratizing the police forces by establishing a de-politicized, impartial, accountable police force.
A multi-ethnic police force, that abides by the principles of community policing.
The UN Mission to BiH, during its mandate, accomplished a great deal in establishing a peace building process, the creation of the conditions for sustainable peace, and
the reconstruction of the police forces in compliance with international standards.
These accomplishments include the following (UN Security Council, 2002, pp. 1–5).
Personnel Reform
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Reduced regular police forces from 40,000 wartime personnel in 1996 to under
18,000 provisionally authorized police officers currently serving in BiH.
Established a Law Enforcement Personnel Registry to conduct checks on background, housing status, and educational qualifications. Provisional authorization has
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been withdrawn from 142 police for offenses, including wartime acts (29), dereliction
of duty, violation of laws, or unbecoming conduct. They are not eligible to serve again
in any police force in BiH.
Administered compulsory basic training courses in Human Dignity, Transitional
Training, Community Policing, and Traffic Awareness for every currently serving
police officer and a Management course for supervisors. Other specialized training
courses include drug control, organized crime, crowd control, firearms, computers,
and senior management.
Trained more than 1,163 cadets, including 409 females, at the two police academies
in Sarajevo and Banja Luka that the UN Mission in BiH helped establish.
Established a fully multi-ethnic police service in Brcko District.
Assisted the introduction of a disciplinary code to enhance professionalism and
accountability for police in the State Border Service (SBS). Similar efforts are
currently underway in all the remaining law enforcement agencies in BiH.
Streamlined minority police recruitment and voluntary redeployment procedures.
A Refresher Program has been implemented for former serving police officers. An
Inter-entity Agreement on terms and conditions for voluntary redeployment of
minority police officers was negotiated in May 2000 and implemented. (Minority
police representation is 6% in the Federation and 5% in the Republika Srpska.)
Facilitated and deployed some 702 minority police through the academies.
Refresher training courses have produced 76 graduates, with many deployed to
middle and senior management ranks. A total of 164 officers voluntarily redeployed
to their pre-war locations, including the first senior Serb as Chief of Police in Drvar
and a Bosniac as Deputy Chief in Srebrenica.
Organizational Restructuring
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In partnership with local police forces, commenced implementation of the Systems
Analysis project designed to assess and accredit those law enforcement agencies that
meet clear criteria for democratic police institutions. Local police ‘Change Management Teams’ to guide the restructuring process have been established and on-site
assessments have been conducted in seven out of 12 law enforcement agencies in the
Federation, majority areas of the Republika Srpska, and the SBS. The Brcko District
police has instituted all necessary changes and has been accredited as the first police
institution in BiH to meet democratic law enforcement standards.
Initiated establishment of non-political Police Commissioner positions to ensure
that career professionals lead police forces. Ad-interim Commissioners have been
appointed in eight cantons and ad-interim Directors of Police have been appointed
in each entity in the Ministry of Interior.
Inaugurated the Mostar ‘One City, One Police.’ Mostar had been divided administratively between Muslim and Catholic sectors. The project created one jurisdiction
with a multi-ethnic police force.
Enhanced anti-trafficking efforts of UNMIBH since March 1999 by creating the
Special Trafficking Operations Project (STOP) in July 2001, which has since
Police Practice and Research: An International Journal 367
conducted over 400 operations against bars and brothels. Some 1,442 women and
girls had been interviewed and offered assistance with repatriation. Three safe
houses for trafficking victims have been established in coordination with the
International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Police and Criminal Justice Cooperation
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The Judicial System Assessment Program (1999–2001) completed 14 comprehensive
reports on the criminal, civil, and administrative procedures of the BiH court system
and made recommendations for legislative, structural, and political reform. The
Criminal Justice Advisory Unit (CJAU) has cooperated with other organizations on
criminal justice reform measures, in particular the BiH State Criminal Code and
Criminal Procedure Codes, and the related entity codes.
The CJAU is training police in improving investigative reports and is preparing
training in the new Criminal Justice Code.
Investigated or assisted with local investigations of over 13,000 cases of alleged
human rights abuses by law enforcement personnel, of which 11,000 cases have been
resolved.
Institution Building and Inter-police Force Cooperation
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Negotiated the Presidential Decisions in February 2000 for the establishment of the
multi-ethnic BiH SBS, with deployments of the first units in June 2000. The SBS now
controls 88% of the State’s borders through 17 Border Service units and four out of
six regional Field Offices (1,750 SBS officers deployed), including three international
airports in Sarajevo, Banja Luka, and Mostar.
Established the Ministerial Consultative Meeting on Police Matters (MCMPM) and
the Joint Entity Task Force (JTF) for inter-entity police cooperation. Three operations
have been conducted targeting illegal migration, trafficking in human beings, and
stolen vehicles.
Brokered the Regional Cooperative Law Enforcement Arrangement (Croatia, BiH,
FRY-Serbia/Montenegro) that established a Committee of Ministers and a Regional
Task Force to combat on a regional basis organized crime, illegal migration, and
international terrorism (post-September 11). Negotiated agreement with Hungary
in June 2002 to become a member of these bodies. Initiated the regional operation
‘Common Purpose’ against organized crime, including surveillance of known/
suspected terrorism affiliated groups.
Facilitated consensus on the establishment of a State Information and Protection
Agency (SIPA).
Promoted and supported the establishment of the National Bureau of Interpol in
Sarajevo.
Supported a Court Police program to secure judicial personnel and property and to
set up a witness protection program. Court police are deployed in 75% of the
Federation.
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BiH Participation in UN Peacekeeping
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Supported training and deployment to East Timor of two BiH multi-ethnic police
contingents and two multi-ethnic BiH Military Observer teams to Ethiopia and
Eritrea. Coordinated the establishment, training, and equipping of a composite
(multi-ethnic) BiH transport unit for UN peace operations.
European Union Police Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina
On January 1, 2003 the European Union Police Mission (EUPM) replaced the UN’s
IPTF. The EUPM is tasked with monitoring and training BiH police, and, as such,
represents the Union’s debut in foreign operations. The EUPM is viewed by the
European Union as a key test for its fledgling rapid reaction force, intended for peacekeeping and humanitarian missions both within and outside of Europe. The Mission
carries out the supervision and training of Bosnian police forces. Areas covered in
training will include investigating terrorism, corruption, organized crime, drugs, and
human trafficking. The EUPM is responsible for the Border Police as well as the
recently established Central Security Ministry and Information Agency. Within the
context of the EU policy for the Western Balkans, and in particular the Stabilization
and Association Process, border control management and customs regulations must be
harmonized with EU standards by the end of the EUPM’s mandate in 2005.
Political Requirements for the Successful Implementation of Community Policing
in BiH
The processes of demilitarization, de-politicization, and democratization of BiH police
forces represent the key elements in the creation of public trust in the police. There is
no universally accepted model for successful implementation of the ‘community
policing’ concept. It is important to observe the all-political, economical, and cultural
features of the BiH. In this regard, structural reform of the police takes crucial places,
as well as establishment of mechanisms for successful control of the police. In order to
achieve transparency and accountability of the police, the parliamentary control of the
police takes the essential place. Beside that, the non-government sector also plays an
important role. Cooperation between community and police, building of mutual trust,
problem-oriented policing, and crime prevention represent the foundations of
successful community policing.
Civil control of the police also represents an important issue in the democratization
of the BiH political, particularly due to the fact that BiH is a post-conflict area and a
country in transition. It is widely accepted that a democratic and civil control of the
security forces represents the key interest in conflict prevention, peace building, and
providing sustainable social and economic development. In the absence of parliamentary control over the security sector (police services), there is a risk of misinterpretation
of the mission of the security services that might act like a state within the state. They
may obstruct democratization and even increase the possibility of conflict. Effective
Police Practice and Research: An International Journal 369
parliamentary control represents the pillar of democracy in preventing autocratic rule.
Democratic control results from a consolidated political system, which is the essential
political objective in BiH. A state without parliamentary oversight of the security sector
should, at least, be perceived as an unfinished democracy or a democracy in creation.
One of the most important controlling mechanisms of the executive is the budget.
It is essential that a parliament supervise the use of the state’s scarce resource both
effectively and efficiently. Parliament provides the general supervision over law
enforcement. At the same time, the parliament should provide control of the executive in the implementation of security policy. For example, the BiH Parliament
adopted the document called ‘Security Policy.’ According to the document, organized
crime is considered as a serious threat to BiH safety. The parliament creates legal
parameters for security issues. In practice, it is the executive that drafts laws on security issues. Nevertheless, members of parliament play an important role in reviewing
these drafts. They can, if needed, suggest amendments to ensure that the proposed
legal provisions adequately reflect the new thinking about security. It falls to parliament to see that the laws do not remain a dead letter, but are fully implemented.
Parliament is a bridge to the public. The executive may not necessarily be fully aware
of the security issues that are priorities for citizens. Parliamentarians are in regular
contact with the population, so they are able to pass on what they hear. They can
subsequently raise citizens’ concerns in parliament and attempt to have them
reflected in security laws and policies.
Current BiH legislation (both at state and entity level) that regulates the law enforcement agencies anticipates parliamentary oversight of the police. Particularly it refers to
the SBS, the Agency for Security and Information (SIPA) as well as the entity Ministry
of Interior. Legal provisions clearly define parliamentary control and oversight of the
law enforcement agencies. In order to provide effective oversight, parliamentarians
should have enough knowledge and expertise to implement that policy. The question
is what a parliamentarian can do as a member of parliament’s committee for the oversight of security sector in order to make improvements in the field and provide effective insight into police activities. More recently attention has been given to the
education of BiH parliamentarians in the field of civil control over the security sector.
Training had been held in BiH as well as abroad, with the purpose of exchanging experiences with Western democracies which have a tradition and wide experience in
democratic control of the security sector. More active parliamentary oversight can
contribute to transparency and strengthen the role of parliament and civil oversight of
the police.
The Role of Civil Society in Control of the Police
The term ‘civil society’ refers to autonomous organizations that lie between the state
institutions, on the one hand, and the private life of individuals and communities on
the other. It comprises a large spectrum of voluntary associations and social movements representing different social interests and types of activities. Groups within civil
society—such as semi-autonomous academic institutions, think tanks, human rights
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non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and policy-focused issue-based NGOs—
can actively strive to influence decisions and policies with regard to the security sector.
Governments can encourage the participation of NGOs in public debate about security
issues. Such debate, in turn, enhances further the transparency of the government.
NGOs and research institutes can strengthen democratic and parliamentary oversight
of the security sector (including police) organization by:
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Disseminating independent analysis and information on the security sector to the
parliament, the media, and the public.
Monitoring and encouraging respect for the rule of law and human rights within the
security sector.
Putting on the political agenda security issues which are important for society as a
whole.
Contributing to parliamentary competence and capacity building by providing
training courses and seminars.
Giving an alternative expert point of view on government security policy, budgets.
Procurement and resource options, fostering pubic debate, and formulating possible policy options.
Providing feedback on national security policy decisions and the way they are
implemented.
Educating the public and facilitating alternative debates in the public domain.
Unfortunately, considering the non-governmental sector as one of the key actors of
civil society in BiH within the international context, it can be said that it still falls
behind in all of these aspects. There is inadequate legislative regulation of the nongovernmental sector or prescribed involvement of NGOs in police management and
government oversight of police. People involved in NGOs have limited experience of
working with police and NGOs have inadequate financial resources. This means that
NGOs do not have sophisticated strategies for working with police nor do they
necessarily understand how government institutions work. There is also a problem of
acceptance of NGOs by citizens.
Capacity building of existing NGOs and establishment of the new specialized NGOs
in the field of security and law enforcement is necessary. Generally speaking, NGOs and
other actors which deal with police and security issues are not common in BiH. Existing
organizations that deal with security issues include the Association of Defendologists
(security and police researchers) of Republika Srpska; and the Center for Security
Studies in Sarajevo University and the Center for Geostrategic Studies in Banja Luka
University. These organizations are actively involved in policing issues and exercise
influence through round tables, seminars, public debate, research publishing, and
establishment of cooperation with similar NGOs and research institutes abroad. The
BiH’s third sector has more to develop in its research capacities, particularly in police
relations with the community; protection of human rights by police; organized crime,
and international and regional police cooperation in the fight against organized crime.
Research in these areas requires highly qualified personnel and a permanent system of
education and training of NGO staff is required. One of the obstacles in achieving these
Police Practice and Research: An International Journal 371
goals is lack of financial support. Inadequate funds threaten the sustainability of the
BiH NGOs.
From the BiH perspective, civil society should play a more active role against the
high rate of organized crime that emerged in the war and post-war periods. Organized
crime includes trafficking in human beings, illegal emigrations, smuggling of weapons,
drug trafficking, the black economy, and corruption in the public sector. The effectiveness of the government to challenge these crime threats certainly attracts the attention
of the public and an inadequate government response might cause negative social
reactions. Another important point is that civil society can be viewed as a crucial agent
for strengthening the empowerment of people and enforcing political accountability.
It is considered as a crucial factor in improving the quality and inclusiveness of governance. Some civil society actors may seek to act as a watchdog over the state and function as a force for accountability by challenging government decisions, making officials
explain to the public what they are doing and holding them responsible for what they
have done. Moreover, civilian expertise in security affairs is widely recognized as a vital
element in democratic control of security structures through monitoring, research, and
policy development. The human rights situation is a particularly important field of
interest for civil society. Human rights protection is always a challenging aspect of
police work, particularly for a country such as BiH in building a democratic police
force and in pursuing the goal of joining the European family of nations in the near
future (Vejnovic, 2002).
Conclusions: Community Policing as an Integral Part of Police Reform
In BiH community policing is a new police philosophy: the idea that the security
culture and police practices are designed to meet the needs of the community. The shift
from military-based policing to democratic policing is an essential process of police
reform. The old concept of policing was mainly based on the repressive role of the
police, particularly during the civil war, when police were actively engaged in hostilities, and on many occasions had been involved in the flagrant violation of human
rights. Another characteristic of the old policing was the lack of ethnic representation
in the staff profile. There was also a low level of cooperation with the community that
inevitably followed from a low level of public trust in police. Community policing
should engage the variety of social actors. Community policing by definition means
that policing is not exclusively the police job. It includes partnerships and cooperation
with the government and non-government sectors, public and private security, and the
public. The process should include training of the police on how to work with the
community. It also should include education of the community on the principles and
strategies of working with police and making police accountable. Creation of partnerships and trust between police and the community is the key to mutual success. The
police should be a citizens’ service, capable of understanding and satisfying community
needs through problem solving. Ordinary citizens are actors involved in defining security needs in their community. But they should not be an instrument of manipulation
and false, ideologically based, collaboration. Definitions of security needs and crime
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prevention implementation strategies should be based on partnership between the
police and the community. The police task is to sense the community needs and carry
out the policy in favor of the community. In a democracy the police are financed by the
citizens and accountable to them.
Political and economical stability represent important factors in community–police
relations in BiH. Reform of the police and its professionalization have occurred while
police have had to work in a social environment of extensive poverty with a new class
of rich people who took advantage of the social disintegration and inability of the
government to adequately respond to the emerging crime situation. At the same time,
police have faced unusual challenges such as the safe return of refugees to their pre-war
homes and the rapid growth of organized crime. The high rate of crime and corruption
obstruct social development, generates a high level of social dissatisfaction, and raises
social distrust in the government, which inevitably leads to the weakness of state
legitimacy. According to a recent public opinion poll the level of dissatisfaction with
some government institutions is still high—up to 65.8% in some cases—and with most
people believing that corruption is common in state institutions (Early Warning System
BiH, 2002). This inevitably adversely affects public thrust in the police as a governmental institution. But police morale can also be negatively affected by the fact that many
serving police officers face the same problems and share the same destiny as the majority of the population.
The above analysis leads to a difficult question: Is it possible to foster positive
change in police–community relations and a shift from traditional military-based
policing to democratic policing in BiH? Is it possible to implement the communitypolicing concept in the field in the future given all the social problems that BiH faces at
present? The answer must be ‘yes.’ BiH has already gone a long a way in police reform
since the end of the civil war. The establishment phase was facilitated by the UN
Mission in the reconstruction of civil policing, institution building, and inter-police
force cooperation. These achievements represent the foundation. The EUPM mission
continues with the professionalization process. The Mission’s priority is to bring the
BiH police closer to mainstream European policing standards. This phase entails
strengthening parliamentary control to ensure a transparent and accountable police
force. Civil society is also taking a more active role in seeking to influence law enforcement policies and practices. Implementation and development of community policing
in BiH remains a big challenge both for the police and the community. Accomplishments to date are the best proof that reform can be successful, even though it was
sometimes very hard work. But the challenge was worth the effort. BiH is open to
progressive concepts that will improve quality of life and safety for all its people.
Therefore, we believe that community policing has a future in BiH as a concept
accepted both by the police and the community.
References
Dayton Peace Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. (2005, November 21). Dayton, OH.
Early Warning System BiH. (2002, October). Quarterly report. Open Society Fond BiH and UNDP.
Police Practice and Research: An International Journal 373
International Crisis Group. (2002, M...
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