MULTIPLE COMMUNITY POLICING - HOW DO YOU MEAN?

MULTIPLE COMMUNITY POLICING

  In Western multicultural societies governments are facing multiple challenges. One of them is the problematic relation between the police and etnic cultural minorities. On this issue the Belgian government wants the police to function according to the principles of Community Oriented Policing (COP, circular 2003). The goal is to create a new police culture by which policemen are acting service-oriented, problem-solving, accountable, empowering and partner-oriented. The implementation of this policy is quite difficult because police culture can"t be changed overnight. But although policemen are called "streetlevel bureaucrats" and have discretionary power on the floor, they are demanding some hold to implement COP, especially when they are confronted with multicultural problems. The central question here is what does COP mean within neighbourhoods where there are tensions due to the living together of people coming from different social, cultural and economical backgrounds. This study aims to translate in an interactive way the meaning of COP within multicultural settings by exploring and observing multiple interactions (routines, incidents,…) between the police and etnic cultural minorities and by taking into account the perceptions and expectations of the different actors involved. The main goal of this study is to improve the implementation of community policing in this field of peculiar interest and by doing so enhancing the steering capacity of our government within this area.