Police accountability


The police can be held accountable in many ways: to those within the service and outside; to higher authority and to local people and service users. Our research has concentrated on police accountability to the public.

Promoting the involvement of citizens in decisions about how they are policed is a central focus for the Home Office. The White Paper ‘Building Communities, Beating Crime: A better police service for the 21st century’ established a broad framework of local control and accountability, with the aim of giving members of the public more information on police performance and a greater say in determining local community safety priorities. It also highlighted the importance of close working between the police and local partnership agencies.


Community engagement

We use ‘community engagement’ to involve the public, both in terms of agencies ‘taking into account’ public priorities, and in terms of citizens ‘holding to account’ agencies for their performance.

Our research in this area has provided key information on:

• Levels of community engagement across Police Authority areas
• Public perceptions of engagement and police accountability
• Methods and techniques for involving the public

How to maximise levels of community engagement in community safety initiatives.

Please note that research on operational policing is now carried out by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA).

Key publications

• Community engagement: practical lessons from a pilot project, (2007) Development and Practice Report 48
  
• Public Perceptions of Police Accountability and Decision-Making (2003), On-line Report 38/03
• The Role of Police Authorities in Public Engagement (2003), On-line Report 37/03
  
• Involving the Public: the role of police authorities (2003), Development and Practice Report 13
  
• Widening Access: Improving police relations with hard to reach groups, Police Research Series Paper 138
• It’s Good to Talk: Lessons in public consultation and feedback (1996) Police Research Series Paper 22

Related links

• Community engagement in policing: Lessons from the literature: Crime Reduction website
• Police Authorities' Public Accountability Role: Learning from three Community Engagement Demonstration Projects: Oxford Journals website
• The Review of Policing by Sir Ronnie Flanagan: Interim Report: Home Office Police website
• Police reform
  
• Association of Police Authorities
• National Policing Improvement Agency

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