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Challenges of Policing Democracies: A World Perspective, Executive Summary of the Second International Police Executive Symposium, Onati, Spain, 1995

NCJ Number
175449
Journal
Policing Volume: 20 Issue: 4 Dated: 1997 Pages: 609-630
Author(s)
D K Das
Date Published
1997
Length
22 pages
Annotation
The second International Police Executive Symposium was held in 1995 to explore what police agencies in emerging democracies regarded as challenges, to discuss contemporary experiences related to challenges of policing democracies, to examine similarities and differences in these challenges with respect to different categories of democracies, and to address responses and remedies adopted by various countries at different levels of democratic achievement.
Abstract
Symposium participants considered characteristics of democratic policing, organizational and operational issues, professional issues, international cooperation, legal resources, the role of the media, and administrative measures to attain greater police professionalism. No consensus emerged from the symposium as to what should specifically constitute democratic policing. Further, the concept of democratic policing did not appear to depend on how long the democratic experience of a country had been, and the nature of challenges faced by police agencies in different societies did not depend on the level of democracy. Nonetheless, the level of democracy seemed to make a difference in the degree of the seriousness of some challenges and the availability of responses to confront them. The authors discuss multi-dimensionality in democratic policing and suggest each society has to determine the best way of organizing the police in accordance with democratic standards and values. Appendixes provide additional information on levels of democracy in countries represented at the symposium. 56 references