Building relational peace: police-community relations in post-accord Colombia

ABSTRACT

As an important pillar of building sustainable peace after protracted violent conflict, security sector reform (SSR) has the objective to prepare state security actors, who often have been active conflict participants, for work within the frameworks of democracy, adherence to human and civil rights, and civilian rule. A major component of SSR is the re-training and re-education of local police to improve their relationship with the local communities. This relationship has often been severely strained by human rights abuses committed by police against community members during the conflict, and it continues to be put to the test in fragile post-accord environments by persisting high levels of violence. However, research on how to improve that relationship, particularly from a bottom-up perspective, remains scarce. This study analyses the dynamics of the relationship between the police and communities in the transition period from war to peace in Colombia, a country tormented by continued violence even after the signing of the 2016 peace agreement that was to set an end to the country’s decades of internal conflict. Based on semi-structured interviews conducted during the fall of 2019, it applies the theoretical lens of the relational peace framework that approaches peace in terms of relationships between different sets of interdependent actors. The findings indicate that the relationship between the communities and the police has not reached satisfactory levels of relational peace, suggesting a set-back in security-related peacebuilding. The paper concludes with recommendations, including from interviewees, on how to improve that relationship.

KEYWORDS:

• Relational peace
• security sector reform
• police reform
• Colombia

On three occasions during the past eighteen months, in November 2019, December 2020 and in the spring of 2021, massive public protests erupted in Colombia’s cities. Citizens expressed discontent with the stagnating implementation of the peace agreement signed between the Colombian government and its largest guerrilla group, the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC, after its Spanish initials) in 2016, as well as rising unemployment, high levels of inequality, and the staggering number of assassinations and disappearances of social leaders. The three protest waves have common characteristics, the most startling being the number of civilian deaths attributed to the country’s police force, especially the Colombian riot police, ESMAD (Escuadrón Móvil Antidisturbios). Colombians rejected the government’s heavy-handed security approach that did not restrain the excessive use of force by the state security actors against the protestors who in turn directed their anger against police centres and vandalised them. The police’s actions against the protesters were directly condemned by international human rights organisations (Amnesty 2021, Human Rights Watch 2021) and revived the discussion on police reform in the country. In July 2021, then Colombian President Ivan Duque announced the creation of a new department on human rights within the Colombian police to receive and evaluate citizen complaints of human rights violations, as well as the introduction of a course on human rights as part of the national police education curriculum. Police also had to start wearing name tags and body cams (Rueda 2021).

The Colombian police (Policía Nacional de Colombia, PNC) has long been accused of excessive violence against the civilian population. It has been an active participant in the country’s long lasting civil war that was sparked by widespread dissatisfaction with unequal distribution of power, wealth, and land dating back to colonial times and erupted into a prolonged period of violence in the 1960s. In later decades, the conflict has been fuelled by a rising production of, and traffic with, illegal drugs (National Centre for Historic Memory 2016) which entangled a myriad of armed actors in a web of violence and corruption, including several guerrilla groups, paramilitary organisations, members of the police and the armed forces as well as the Colombian government (Angelo 2017). The peace agreement of 2016 disarmed the largest guerrilla group in Colombia but left many illegally armed groups operating in the country. Levels of violence, particularly in the countryside, remain high.

As many police forces in countries undergoing protracted social conflict, the Colombian police had been greatly impacted by the years of warfare. Incorporated in the Ministry of Defence since the 1960s, its training, both nationally and by international actors, had been done within the context of ongoing military warfare, which turned the Colombian police into a wartime police closely cooperating with, and dependent upon, the military in all endeavours and with an increasing distance to its original tasks and the communities it was to protect. The police even had, and to some extent still has, special combat units, such as counter guerrilla and jungle units, which are normally the military’s domain (Policía Nacional de Colombia 2022a). The police’s role in the war, its place within the Ministry of Defence and its training as a military unit, as well as high levels of corruption in the force, have frequently been blamed for its hard-handed approach towards the communities and the latter’s low level of confidence in its police force (Goldsmith and Lewis 2000, Blair et al. 2021). A Colombian opinion poll conducted in 2019 shows that only 27.6% of Colombians nationwide had ‘much confidence’ in the police (DANE 2019).

Police reforms were initiated already in the 1990s. In 1991, a constitutional amendment (art. 2018) underlined the civilian character of the police corps, even though the PNC continued to be part of the Ministry of Defence and is prosecuted by military courts only (Constitución Política de Colombia 1991). Plans to make the police independent from the military have also been discussed since 1991, but have been rejected by political, military, and economic elites with the argument that the police’s fight against drug cartels and illegal economic activity requires military logistics. Others fear to lose access to the extensive budget of the Ministry of Defense (El Tiempo, Lo que hay …). The peace agreement signed in 2016 stipulated that Colombian police return from the wartime mission of combating subversive enemies to its more defensive original task of protecting the populace. Since then, the country has received a new Police Code and moved towards transforming the police from a military into a peacetime force (Policia Nacional de Colombia 2022b), a process supported by several international donors.

The recent protests suggest a set-back in this process and question the success of efforts, both national as well as international, for security sector reform in the country. They also underline the importance of improving the relationship between the citizens and the police force in charge of protecting them, particularly in countries that are transitioning from armed conflict to sustainable peace where levels of violence remain high. This objective constitutes an integral part of the international peacebuilding agenda in post-accord countries that suffered from protracted social conflict (Nyborg and Lohmann 2020, Divon 2021). We agree with Söderström et al. (2021), that in order to understand the conditions that lead to sustainable peace, it is imperative to analyse the changing relationship dynamics between different societal actor dyads in peacebuilding processes. The police-community dyad is one of those, as police that has been involved in violent protracted social conflict as a state security actor has often antagonised the civilian communities it is tasked to protect. Establishing relational peace for that dyad is an important part of today’s peacebuilding agenda. However, everyday police-community relations, particularly after protracted social conflict where levels of violence are constituting important hurdles to re-establishing security, remain under-researched despite their importance for the peace process and the extensive and costly international efforts involved. The objective of this study is, therefore, to contribute to closing this gap by analysing the relationship between the police and the communities in the transition period from war – to peacetime police in Colombia. More particularly, it discusses Colombian police efforts to improve the relationship to the citizens and how both actor groups perceive each other, as well as their proposals of potential measures that might help improve that relationship.

The article is structured the following way. After a discussion of the debate on police-community relations, we present our theoretical point of departure and the methodology employed for the study. The following empirical case study analyses interactions between police and communities as well as the perceptions they have of each other and the obstacles they see when describing their relationship. We then analyse the relationship as such and bring forth recommendations made by our study participants concerning its improvement. The conclusions summarise the findings, relate them to the ongoing debates on police reform and international policing and provide further recommendations.

The debate on improving police-community relations as a pillar for building sustainable peace

Security sector reform (SSR) constitutes an integral part of peacebuilding in fragile states, particularly in those impacted by high levels of post-accord violence. However, it has been accused of prioritising a top-down, short-term security agenda focused on stabilisation over the long-term core values of SSR, first and foremost democratisation, good governance and an emphasis on human rights and gender equality (OECD/DAC 2007, Price and Warren 2017, Jackson 2018). The mixed record of these first-generation SSR efforts has sparked a lively debate. Recent discussions about second-generation SSR have moved away from security sector reform as a mere exercise in state-centred institution-building and towards promoting a non-linear, hybrid process that adjusts to local conditions, acknowledges the linkages and power relationships between different stakeholders, and contributes to long-term democratic transformation (Abrahamsen 2016, Jackson and Bakrania 2018, Nilsson and González 2019). Adding to the discussions about security sector reform, transnational and global policing literature points to the challenges involved in cross-cultural police reform programmes and questions the motives of international actors’ involvement in local police reform (Goldsmith and Sheptycki 2007, Bowling 2010, Bowling and Sheptycki 2012, Bowling et al. 2019, Schaap 2020). They underline that international police-building is a political mission and point at the difficulties to fight corruption within local police (Goldsmith and Dinnen 2007).

Central to both debates are better relations between the police and the communities they are to protect.¹ Donais (2018, p. 38) points out that it is ´inherently misleading to think in binary terms of state-level security providers and citizen-level security consumers’, underlining the importance of non-state security actors and initiatives and the imperative of security collaboration to bridge the state-community divide that often characterises post-accord societies with high levels of ongoing violence. Both second-generation SSR strategies as well as transnational policing literature, therefore, emphasise the inclusion of local actor agency for achieving local ownership and long-term security sustainability. They also underline the need to abstain from missionary zeal and instead embrace cultural differences that might further different notions of the nature of the security problem (Goldsmith and Dinnen 2007, Goldsmith and Sheptycki 2007). This aligns with the discussion on the ‘local turn’ in peacebuilding that stresses the need to include bottom-up perspectives of everyday peace to achieve an inclusive and contextual peace (OECD 2011, MacGinty 2014, De Coning 2018).

A core theme in this discussion on how to improve police-community relations is the issue of trust. Researchers agree that a low level of trust between police and citizens is common in post-conflict communities and presents a considerable hurdle to security cooperation. A more comprehensive dialogue between both actor groups, procedural justice in everyday police behaviour, reconciliatory gestures on the part of the police acknowledging past wrongs and a relationship characterised by mutual respect and legitimacy are seen as key to establishing more trust between both actor groups (Goldsmith 2005, Goldsmith and Harris 2012, O’Brien and Tyler 2019, Schaap 2020, Schaap 2021). This applies also to Colombia, one of the ‘low-trust settings’ where confidence and trust in the police deteriorated during the decades-long civil war (Goldsmith and Lewis 2000, Blair et al. 2021). The militarisation of the Colombian police further contributed to weakening citizens’ trust in the institution (Flores-Macías and Zarkin 2019).

A major strategy to improve the relationship between the police and the communities and to decrease mistrust between them has been community-oriented policing (COP). In post-conflict countries, COP has for the past three decades been a widely adopted strategy to change the approach of local policing from authoritarian reactive to proactive democratic policing (Baker 2009, Yero et al. 2012, Okafor and Aniche 2018, Nyborg and Lohmann 2020, Divon 2021, Malone and Dammert 2021). Blair et al. (2021, p. 1) define community policing as

a set of practices designed to build trust between citizens and police, increase the co-production of public safety, and reduce crime. Community policing is meant to improve outcomes by increasing engagement between citizens and police through increased foot patrols, community meetings, and the adoption of problem-oriented policing strategies that address concerns raised by citizens.

COP has even become a major emphasis in the international donors’ security sector reform efforts, as there is a broad agreement that without community involvement international efforts to reform police as part of security sector reform have little chance to prove successful (OSCE 2008, UNSC 2014, Kocak 2018).

However, case studies analysing community-oriented policing in post-conflict countries point out several problems. The fact that COP is highly context dependent is apprehended as both a strength and a weakness (Davis, et al. 2010, Divon 2021). Most noticeable are differences between international and locally owned forms of community-oriented policing, a reluctance among the local police to adopt what is perceived as a Western approach of policing, and the absence of a gender perspective (Nyborg 2019). Other aspects pointed out frequently as obstacles for a successful implementation are the lack of financing, the citizens’ low levels of trust based on a violent history between the two parties, and a police force resistant to change (Baker 2009, Blair et al. 2021). A recent study by the European Union featuring eleven post-conflict countries where community policing had been introduced confirms similar problems (ICT4COP 2021, see also Nyborg and Lohmann 2020, Divon 2021).

As one of the first countries in Latin America, COP was introduced in Colombia already in the 1990s as one of the most important pillars of security sector reforms and Colombia is often presented as a successful example for other Latin American countries to follow. However, researchers point out that the high expectations of the model’s ability to create institutional changes were not fulfilled (Frühling 2007, Moncada 2009, Frühling 2012, Ruiz Vásquez 2012). A recent study on community policing in Medellín, Colombia, and other Latin-American countries finds that community-oriented policing has neither reduced crime nor increased trust in the police or called forth better cooperation between the latter and citizens (Blair et al. 2021). While the COP strategy called forth some debate, the important problem of how to improve police-community relations in countries trying to reform their police force in a post-accord environment where levels of violence continue to be high and, therefore, often justify a more forceful role for the police remains unresolved and under-researched. This study’s bottom-up approach that focuses particularly on the perceptions of the local rather than the international actors, particularly the police in Colombia, but also takes into consideration voices from the communities, helps to expand our understanding of the obstacles the important task of improving police-community relations encounters on the ground.

Relational peace as a theoretical framework for police-community relations

The study’s theoretical framework connects to the trust-building debate outlined above. We take a lead from Söderström et al. (2021) and approach peace in terms of relationships between different sets of interdependent actors. In a society recuperating from protracted social conflict, and particularly in one characterised by continued high levels of violence even after a peace accord was signed, such as Colombia, these relationships might advance towards peace at different paces and might, therefore, be analysed separately from each other. Relational Peace as a theoretical framework and its actor-centric approach facilitates this task. It is based on the premise that relationships entail three components: the interaction between the actors, the subjective experiences of the other; and the actors’ understanding of their relationship as a whole.

Söderström’s et al. (2021) first component of relational peace, behavioural interaction, analyses in how far the actors’ interactions are deliberative, non-dominating and cooperative. Deliberation is here defined as the ability of the actors to address differences publicly and in a non-violent way through a dialogue where both actors accept the other’s legitimacy. Non-domination denotes interactions that are free from arbitrary power despite potential power imbalances, even though a complete absence of domination is unlikely in most relationships, including the one in focus in this study. Cooperation, on the other hand, involves ‘working and acting together on shared issues instead of competing’ (Söderström et al. 2021, p. 491). Data collection through interviews has, therefore, focused on projects engaging both police and communities, their evolution, and accomplishments, as well as the obstacles both actors saw in these cooperative activities, particularly in terms of levels of deliberation and domination.

In the framework’s second component, subjective conditions encompass the emotions, beliefs and attitudes actors entertain about the other, particularly in terms of mutual recognition and trust. Recognition involves the respect for the other’s particular identity elements as put forth in an actor’s self-image as the basis for mutual acceptance and legitimacy to exist. Trust, on the other hand, signals that ‘there are positive expectations at work in the relationship … as behaviour is modified in the anticipation of different behaviour from the other’ (Söderström et al. 2021, p. 494). Our interviews, therefore, focused on levels of trust and recognition displayed in emotions, beliefs and attitudes expressed by actors towards each other.

The framework’s last component attempts to define the idea of the relationship in order to determine perceptions of fellowship or friendship. The former refers to the mutual acceptance of the legitimacy of the other to coexist in a given space, even admitting a certain level of competition; the latter suggests a degree of positive valence and affect unlikely between actors that recently experienced a protracted conflict. Peace between friends is thus characterised by cooperation, non-domination, and trust and possibly visions of a shared future, while actors whose relationship advanced from an agonistic relationship towards a fellowship would have to have reached at least minimal levels of deliberation and mutual recognition (Söderström et al. 2021). In our interviews, we focused on collecting information for components one and two, interaction and subjective conditions, in order to combine those to evaluate component three, the quality of the relationship between the dyad actors. We believe that components one and two of the framework indicate levels of acceptance, legitimacy, valence and affect that determine if the relationship fits more into the category of fellowship or that of friendship, therefore, fulfilling basic conditions to enter the continuum towards relational peace, or if it remains within the agonistic realm.

Methodology

This study employs a qualitative methodology based on semi-structured interviews conducted in Colombia in the fall of 2019, as we decided to take a bottom-up approach towards the topic of police-community relations to better understand actor perceptions. We realised early on that a study representing the entire Colombian police corps was neither possible nor particularly fitting for our research approach and theoretical framework. We, therefore, chose to only interview police officers who had been trained by an international actor that placed particular emphasis on improving police-community relations in police training as part of security sector reform efforts – Sweden. Sweden has been active in police training in Colombia since 2013 (Palmgren 2017). Among other objectives, the Swedish training, conducted both in Sweden and in Colombia, was to improve the relationship between the police and the citizens predominantly by introducing specific guidelines regulating police behaviour based on the principles of non-confrontation, de-escalation, and dialogue (National Police of Colombia and Police of Sweden 2018). Those guidelines, introduced afterwards in Colombia’ police education centres as Basic Tactical System (Sistema Táctico Básico, STB), were to avoid excessive use of force by the police against citizens and thereby improve human rights and ultimately the image of, and the trust towards, police officers among the Colombian citizens (Palmgren 2017). A second training focus, following Swedish development aid priorities, was a specific focus on police work to reduce sexual and domestic violence.

The field research included a total of 48 individual interviews with representatives of the Colombian police force (30), Swedish police trainers (2), representatives of Colombian state institutions (7), and civilians (9). Furthermore, four group interviews with prostitutes, police students, ESMAT members and women participants in the Madres Emprendedoras project (see below) were added. While the civilian and state institution interviewees were predominantly female, the ESMAT interview included a small amount of female ESMAT members. Both Swedish trainers were male and so were all students in the Colombian training centre. Of the thirty Colombian police interviewed, only three were women. All interviews were conducted almost entirely in and around two of the three police stations selected as pilot station for the Swedish training programme in the city of Barranquilla, Simón Bolivar and one of its substations, San José. The latter two were the focus of this investigation, as they still employed police who had undergone the Swedish training, while most police trained from the third pilot station, Usaquén in Bogotá, had already been relocated elsewhere by the time the field trip for this study was organised. These police stations had been chosen as pilot stations as they are located in urban areas characterised by high levels of violence and poverty, low educational levels and a lack of employment opportunities, leading to prostitution, high levels of alcohol consumption and related conflicts, drug trafficking and increased gang war activities, homicides and extortions. Focusing on the pilot stations also enabled us to interview civilians from the surrounding communities with whom the trained police had daily contact. Interviews with police officers (marked as P) included all those who had been trained by Sweden, were still present in the two pilot stations and at that time available for interviews, as well as two interviews with Swedish police officers involved in the SSR project. Interviews with civilians included six civilian state institutions and programmes (marked as S) that constitute civilian counterparts to the police work in the communities and eleven interviews with community members (marked as C), community leaders (Juntas de Acción Comunal) and participants in the Madres Emprendedoras project, a cooperative programme between police and communities, all of them located in the neighbourhoods surrounding the police stations subject to this study. Overall, it is abundantly clear that the number of interviews conducted, and the study’s specific regional focus, does not allow for generalisations that apply to the entire Colombian police force. Rather, they call for a larger scale research project to test and expand our results. We, therefore, consider this work a preliminary study and we are looking forward to larger scale research to confirm our findings.

To be able to conduct the study, we needed – and obtained – a research permission from the Colombian police, a process that was greatly facilitated by the Swedish police who conducted the training programme. However, this also led to a particular research situation, where we were obliged to live at the police school José Antonio Nariño in Barranquilla during the entire research period and submit to a rigorous schedule for our time in Colombia. Living with the police officers and students offered plenty of opportunities for informal conversations and observations of everyday situations, which we added to our methodology. Our police contacts at the school arranged all our meetings and interviews which enabled us to have access to all the parties that we wanted to interview. However, even though our police hosts provided us with the interviews we requested, the police’s control over our schedule led to a careful selection of the civilians we were presented to interview which compromised our flexibility to select our own interviewees, particularly on the civilian side. Furthermore, the setting of the study also led to a stronger emphasis on police interviews rather than a balance between interviews with actors from both sides.

Given the particular modalities of this study, we are keenly aware of its limitations, particularly concerning factors such as response bias and incomplete recollection reflexivity, where interviewees express what they believe the interviewer wants to hear. It is likely that our police contacts apprehended us as representatives of the Swedish police force, and, therefore, their guests, rather than as independent researchers, and we were always accompanied by several police officers. While this increased our access, comfort, and safety in areas with high levels of violence, it had an impact on how the interviews were conducted and it is likely that the police officers who received their training from the Swedish police gave diplomatic answers about what benefits they felt the training had given them. However, as we had plenty of opportunity for informal discussions with them, we also got nuanced answers and were able to study their actions in realistic situations through observations. It is also likely that the citizens we interviewed assumed that we were connected to the police, or that we conveyed the interviewees’ statements to them. When our police escort was present during the interviews with representatives of the civilian population, we noticed that some of the interviewees were inhibited in their expressions. Therefore, we removed all police officers from the interview sites. Even then, criticism directed against the police was often only whispered into our recorders.

Behavioural interaction

Instruments to curb domination: the STB and law 1257

According to the interviews with police officers, one of the main strategies to improve police-community relations by reducing dominant police behaviour has been the introduction of the Sistema Táctico Básico (STB) by the Swedish police trainers. The intention was to provide a new roadmap for daily routines and thus regulate the behaviour of police officers towards community members, by increasing dialogue and preventing unnecessary violence (García Morales 2017). Several police officers admitted that the police used to use violence against communities before (P1, 2, 10, 11, 14, 20), applying ‘shock treatment’ to deal with the communities because ‘the society in Colombia made the police react that way’ (P1). One interviewee claimed that ‘through violence we controlled everything’ (P9). Overall, blaming a ‘culture of violence in Colombia’ for much of the harsh police behaviour towards communities was used as a frequent argument by interviewed police (P 2, 10, 17, 20, 30). The interviewees concluded that STB has helped to improve the relationship with the citizens (P1, P2). However, others underlined that there are still frequent clashes between police and community members (P23). Colombian police’s behaviour in the recent protests shows that STB was all but forgotten during the extreme conditions that prevailed during the protests and dominance once again characterised this unbalanced power relationship.

Colombian police interviewees also underlined an important change in their attitude and work related to domestic and gender-based violence. For example, even though Law 1257, outlawing, and sensitising towards, domestic violence against women, had already been introduced in 2008, most interviewees had not heard about it before the Swedish training (P 17, 19, 22, 28; S 1 and 4). Throughout the interviews, the police officers revealed that violence against women had been widely accepted at all levels of society, including by the police (P 6, 13, 14, 20, 22, 27, 28). Many pointed to the Colombian society’s ‘macho culture’ as the main culprit that even induces victims to protect their perpetrators when the police try to intervene (P 14, 17, 20, 23, 28). They now reported making regular home visits to women victims of domestic violence in order to protect them from further violence, educate them about their rights and help them receive medical attention, which has led to an increase in claims against perpetrators (P 6, 7, 17, 21, 22). Interviewees were eager to present concrete cases of successful interventions, ranging from protecting prostitutes in Barranquilla’s red-light district from violent clients to facilitating therapy sessions between victims and perpetrators (P 7, 13, 19). Presentations in the police training facility featured a number of carefully prepared films featuring victims praising police activities to protect them.

However, in how far these attitude changes really depict a transition towards non-domination remains to be seen. One of the Swedish officers involved in the reform project underlined that it took a while to convince Colombian police officers that sexual violence was not acceptable. Finding common ground concerning basic values seems to have been a major problem in the Swedish-Colombian cooperation (PS 1). In our interviews, a certain empathy with the perpetrators seemed to be lingering on. While helping the women and following the law, police officers often continued to sympathise with the perpetrators or found excuses for their behaviour, describing them as ‘just a bit temperamental’ (P7). One even went as far as complaining that ‘women have more benefits now than we men – now the ones discriminated against is us men’ (P28).

Signs of deliberation? CAIs, CACs and Offices of Human Rights

Equally difficult is the quest to determine levels of deliberation. According to the police, a major pillar in the work with the communities are the Centres for Immediate Attention (Centros de Atención Inmediata, CAIs). CAIs were created in 1987 in an effort to attend to civilian needs when the level of urban security in Colombia was at an all-time low (Policia Nacional 2009; El tiempo 2020b). As police units located in the urban areas of the municipalities and accessible to the public day and night (P 22), they could have presented perfect opportunities for dialogue to address differences publicly. However, in the latest protests during the spring of 2021, a very different image of the CAIs emerged. They were attacked as symbols of police violence rather than cooperation, repeating similar actions during the protests in 2019 and 2020. The word ‘murderers’ was written on many of the vandalised CAIs and protestors interviewed in the streets described the CAIs as centres of torture where drugs and arms were traded and police corruption was rampant, which was even confirmed by some police (Pardo 2021). The police’s facebook site, on the other hand, posted pictures of civilians cleaning up CAI centres that had been vandalised and statements by civilians expressing their respect for and cooperation with the police.²

Other options for community members to voice complaints against police behaviour in a non-violent way are the police force’s own Offices of Human Rights. They work particularly with vulnerable sectors of society, among them social leaders, defenders of human rights, Afro-descendants, the LGBTQ society, and they cooperate with NGOs working with human rights as well as with the United Nations’ Office of Human Rights. Officers interviewed stated that they conduct meetings with those groups to discuss their experiences and the situation in their communities and even capacitate other police officers concerning law 1257, human rights and the legitimate use of force (P 26). Furthermore, all police stations in Barranquilla have a Centre of Attention to Citizens (Centro de Atención al Ciudadano, CAC) where citizens can hand in complaints, petitions, and suggestions based on their perceptions of police behaviour towards them (Fiscalía General de la Nación 2019, p. 25). Complaints against police behaviour left by citizens in the CACs are first filtered by the receiving CAC officers and then go through a conciliation process, where police officers in civilian clothes trained as lawyers or psychologists try to mediate between the accusatory citizen and the accused police officer. If the parties are unable to agree, the complaint is transferred to the police’s disciplinary committee at the metropolitan level, consisting entirely of police personnel. However, this last step is taken only if the citizens can support their claim with factual evidence in form of videos, witness reports or medical statements, a requirement that often discourages people from going through with their claims (P 23). CAC officers even underlined that there is a risk that complaints backfire and result in a fine for offending police authorities if the accused police officer denies the accusations and the presented evidence is contested (P 23, 24). Citizens can also file complaints directly with the prosecutor’s or the ombudsman’s office, although one interviewee doubted that that was a better way, as ‘they (the prosecutor’s office) send the reports right back to us’. Of all complaints filed, he maintains, most result at best in disciplinary actions. During his nine years of service, he had only heard of one case that actually went to the trial phase and that particular case is still under consideration eight years later (P25). Most complaints are resolved through conciliation. ‘Sometimes the prosecutor’s office simply puts the case into the archives’, he confided. He preferred the simpler solution to transfer the policeman to another station (P25).

Overall, these points of contact between police and community members can hardly be called signs of deliberation or dialogue. Though they present opportunities to express differences non-violently, the control of the process and the structural constraints placed by the police on any success for citizen claims rather speak of a lack of acceptance of legitimacy of the community members in the eyes of the police. Following the excessive use of force during the latest protests in the spring of 2021, the Colombian Minister of Defence asked for pardon and promised an investigation of police use of firearms against civilians. However, even those investigations were to be conducted by the police itself, without civilian representatives (El Tiempo 2020a).

Cooperation or control: block vs. prevention police

A national strategy designed to improve the relationship between citizens and the police is the National System for Community Monitoring by Block (Modelo Nacional de Vigilancia Comunitaria por Cuadrante hereafter called the block system), introduced in 2010 (Periódico de la Policia Nacional de Colombia 2010). All urban areas are divided into blocks (cuadrantes), controlled by six policemen on motorbikes in three eight-hour shifts, providing constant police presence and a certain permanence in the same block (P 18 and 28) which was to improve crime prevention (National Police of Colombia and Police of Sweden 2018). All policemen are assigned daily quotas of checks on persons or locations and the data from those visits are fed into a statistical evaluation system to update information on crime. That information, in turn, determines the goals for, and evaluation of, police work. Overall, the block system was popular among the interviewed police officers. ‘I know who is fighting with whom, so I don’t have to fight with them but instead help to reconcile them’, one police officer who had worked in the same block for the past six years, claimed (P 28). Police 14 described how block police officers give their contact information to every citizen in the block and have more personal interaction with the communities under their care. The police stations have specific conciliation spaces where people can get help of facilitators or mediators to settle their disagreements (P 28). However, a Swedish police officer involved in the training project remarked that the motivation of the block police is rather low because of the constant monitoring and pressure to accomplish quantitatively set goals. He assumed that the block system was introduced because Colombian police authorities distrusted their own block officers and argued that this heavily controlling system destroys the attitude needed for the police’s work with the communities (PS 1).

The block system had replaced community policing. The latter was introduced in Colombia in 1993 as a tool to improve the image of the police (P 30). It created two rather separate types of police, the ordinary police in the streets, essentially seen as a punitive force by the communities, and the community police who actively sought cooperation with the communities, which according to one block officer led to a loss of credibility of the police system (P 12). The disenchantment with community policing seems to be widespread among the police force. Even a Swedish police officer in charge of training Colombian police remarked that community policing is ‘a thing of the 90s’ and is today looked down upon in most police forces, including in Sweden. He argued that police-community relations are not improved by trying to bond with local communities by ‘displaying smiling inflated police puppets or organising a polizumba’ (policemen giving zumba lessons to citizens) but rather by improving crime prevention strategies and general police service that in turn will increase security and, as a logical consequence, the communities’ trust in police work (PS 2). Police 12 agreed and underlined that in the block system, ‘all policemen are community police’ (P 12, seconded by P 14).

However, remnants of community policing still exist in Colombia in the person of the prevention police (policía de prevención), a small group (four to five in each of the two stations) particularly charged with improving relations with the communities. Prevention officers aim at building close relations and good communication with the community leaders, the Juntas de Acción Comunal (JACs)³, to help them resolve the security problems in their neighbourhoods (P 32). Prevention police try to involve the communities in improving their own security, for example by creating neighbourhood committees, so-called security fronts, and organising activities to raise money to buy monitoring cameras and installing more streetlights. Prevention officers interviewed underlined that they have a preventive instead of a punitive approach to crime (P 15, 29, 31, 32). They work with previous gang members, implement educational programmes on security, gender-issues and domestic violence and offer activities for children, such as educational movie weekends. They even arrange football games between under-age street gangs in order to channel energy otherwise used to throwing stones at each other into a more peaceful competition (P 29). All those activities take place directly in the communities and in close collaboration with the community leaders and they seem to be popular among community members (P 30, 31). Oftentimes, prevention officers cooperate with civilian state institutions, such as the Family Commissioner (Comisaría de la Familia), the Colombian Institute for Family Wellbeing (Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar) and the National Learning Service (Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje, SENA) (S1, 2). They can also intervene as mediators in conflicts between the communities and the block police and often invite the latter to join their community meetings so that the community members get to know them better (P 15, 29). Having female prevention officers was seen as an advantage as some community members, particularly women and victims of sexual violence, often preferred to talk to them rather than to a male police officer. In conflict situations, prevention officers preferred to find a solution together with the communities rather than call the police’s anti-riot unit, ESMAD, to disperse the conflictive actors (P 30, 31). Prevention officers interviewed liked their particular work with the communities and appreciated when people recognise and greet them in the streets (P 15 and 30). ‘Here I can make a difference’, one prevention officer underlined (P 30).

Prevention police also implemented the only actual cooperation project we came across during our field study, even though Madres Emprendedoras (Enterprising Mothers) was presented to us by the block police as an example of their own good relationship with the communities. The project helps seventy-five women, all heads of households and victims of domestic and gender-based violence, achieve economic independence through professional training in order to enable them to stand up against their perpetrators, often family members (P 6 and 12; C 11; S 3). Prevention officers initiated the project in early 2019 and selected the participants among victims of gender-based and domestic violence from their respective blocks in the Simón Bolívar neighbourhood. The women themselves argue that as ‘the police are living with us in the neighbourhood, they are the first to find out if something is going wrong’ (C 11). The women also recount that the police want to eliminate ‘the border’, an imaginary line established in the neighbourhood between competing gangs whose crossing by civilians has caused several deaths. Overall, however, levels of cooperation seem to be low when looking at block police–community relations, and considerably higher with prevention police.

Trust and recognition: perceptions of the other

Police perceptions of their role and their relationship with the communities

Those police officers interviewed perceived that as a result of the Swedish reform efforts, and particularly the STB and Gender and Domestic Violence-training, they have achieved a better relationship with the communities and that the communities had reacted positively to their reformed behaviour in the street, leading to a decrease in violent police-community encounters and increased trust in, and cooperation with, the police (P 1, 5, 11, 18, 19, 21, 24, 27). ‘People now talk to us’, one police officer remarked (P14). Another even acknowledged that the Swedish training in gender-based violence had a positive impact on his relationship with his wife and claimed that ‘we have changed our mentality’ (P17). Yet another felt ‘more confident and secure’ talking to people in the street based and that the communities now feel ‘supported by the state’ (P 18). The continued reluctance of some community members to collaborate with police was attributed to fear of the revenge of armed gangs if citizens seemed to befriend police officers (P 22). As was to be expected, prevention officers reported good relations with their communities and claimed that within the police ‘we are the ones changing the image’ (P 15, 29, 30, 31). All prevention officers interviewed had been block police before and argued that they can note the difference in their relationship to the communities. They maintained that community members prefer to talk to them rather than to the block police and that the communities prefer a preventive to a punitive approach towards security matters (P 32). They evaluated their own relationships to the communities as much better than that of their block colleagues, as ‘we educate, and they arrest’ (P 29), underlining the old dichotomy within the police force that the block system was to eliminate. Prevention officers even reported that actions of their block colleagues often work in detriment to their own efforts and worsen relationships with the communities again (P 31).

Block police were also eager to complain to us about the citizens they are charged with protecting. Most interviewees argued that the communities were not cooperating with the police, rather working against them and even on occasion using violence. Examples mentioned were women who despite having been physically abused by their male partners or other family members still protected them when the police appeared and even turned against the latter, or community support in favour of un-licensed street venders and against law enforcement officers handing out fines. A common complaint was also that there was a general lack of respect for the authority of the police, with neither victims nor perpetrators following the established rules of behaviour (P 8, 9, 13, 25, 26, 28). One interviewee lamented that ‘people only remember the police when there is a problem, when they need the police, but otherwise they complain about the police’ (P 26). Another maintained that ‘ten years ago, they respected us more’ and that now civilians are much more protected than the police. He underlined that people today have more confidence and that both parties now record each other’s behaviour on their cell phones (P 25), which are signs of increasing mutual mistrust. ‘People attack the police, the police defend themselves, and then people come and complain about us’, one police officer lamented. ‘In other countries, police say ‘stop’ and people stop, but here you say ‘stop’ and they shoot at you’ (police 23). He reported one case of a police officer getting a complaint about himself every week, ‘so we had to tell him to not get into conflict with people in those neighbourhoods that are very conflictive, don’t let himself be provoked so much, they tried to incite him to do wrong’ (P 23).

This general mistrust towards the communities was also voiced by the police’s special riot force ESMAD. ESMAD was created in 1999 to accompany and prevent social protests from becoming violent, as well as to remove squatters and roadblocks. The unit has become a frequent target of civilian protests, to the point of demanding its dissolution (Pardo 2021). ESMAD officers interviewed underlined that they ‘protect the human rights of those who protest’ and only use ‘non-lethal weaponry’ such as tear gas, rubber bullets and tasers (P 8), a statement that was belied by the reports about the social protests in the past three years. Their entire appearance, from heavy protective armour to specific height requirements designed to evoke respect and fear in citizens, seems to further contradict their argument. ‘Usually when people see us arrive, they leave’, one ESMAD officer boasted and complained that social protests ‘get out of hand every day’, in nine out of ten cases. The group also blamed Colombian culture for that and argued that ‘talking to people never works’ and that ESMAD then needs to come in and restore order (P 11 and 8). However, prevention officers maintain that ESMAD interventions do more harm than good and damage prevention officer work (P 30, 31).

The police’s critique was even extended to civilian state authorities, who were accused of restricting the police’s rights more and more in favour of those of the citizens instead of giving the police appropriate tools to uphold public order and to defend themselves against growing citizen aggression (P 16). In particular the Prosecutor’s Office, where crimes are investigated and processed, was accused of being too lenient to perpetrators the police handed over, thereby discouraging citizens from filing complaints and increasing insecurity for block police in the streets (P 13, 14, 26, 27 and 28). The Prosecutor’s Office, on the other hand, maintained that the police further stigmatized under-age perpetrators rather than work with the community leaders to reinsert them into the communities’ social fabric (S 5). Overall, both police and civilian state authorities cooperating with the police complained that there was no common approach how to deal with perpetrators (S 4, 5, and 6).

Community perceptions of the police and their relationship to the latter

It is not surprising, considering the methodological circumstances of this study, that most civilian interviewees presented a positive image of the police, at least initially when police were still present in the interview location. During the group interview with Madres Emprendedoras, participants first underlined that the police behave better now and actively help women. ‘Before, all police did was civil service, now they do more social work’ one interviewee explained. They also proposed that the police should do more neighbourhood education to bring criminal youth off the streets. However, once we removed all the block officers from the meeting room, more criticism came forth. Several complained about continued abuse of power by the block police (C 11). One participant, whose husband was killed ‘crossing the border’ by ‘the bad in the neighbourhood’ expressed that she did not feel safe and maintained that the police is essentially powerless to control criminality in her neighbourhood and that community members are fearful to collaborate with police (C 5). Others were grateful that the police helped them to a new life and provided regular protection visits (S 3; C6, 7). However, Madres Emprendedoras was initiated and implemented by a prevention police officer, P15, and the participants’ praise focused almost entirely on him.

Upon our request to talk to civilians outside the Madres Emprendedoras project with whom the police had had repeated contact, we were directed, among others, towards a trans-gender interviewee belonging to a minority in conservative Catholic Colombia. After suffering domestic violence from her family members, she received regular visits by the block police who stopped by to check on her several times a week. She expressed gratefulness for the visits by the police and felt that they provided a certain amount of protection from further harassments from her family. At the same time, she underlined that the police were disrespectful of her status and stressed that many of her trans-sexual friends continued to suffer from police violence, including by female police. ‘It is very hard to complain about the police’, she said (C 3). The police’s contempt for transsexuals was also confirmed by our own observations. One police officer said he protected transgender people as part of his job but that he didn’t think it was right to live that way.

Another interviewee, a victim of domestic violence, expressed her gratitude for a female block police who helped her to get away from her abusive partner and educated her about law 1257. She felt protected by the local police and safe living close to a CAI (C 4). Another echoed those sentiments and underlined that many people in her neighbourhood have noted and appreciated more block police presence (C 9). Yet another JAC member reported that the JAC organised the neighbourhood to take the initiative on installing streetlights to fight criminality after application for state support led to nothing. This active neighbourhood committee also built a little shed and provided food and drinks to entice the police to frequent their neighbourhood. She reported that police presence increased which in turn improved security in the neighbourhood and maintained that she had a cooperative relationship with her block officers (C 8). A group of six prostitutes interviewed in one of Barranquilla’s red-light districts and patrolled by a block police who participated in the Swedish-Colombian programme also expressed gratitude and satisfaction with the way they were treated and protected by the police (C 10).

However, some civilians interviewed were open in their critique. ‘We have explained to the police that we don’t need more repression, we need more social work’, one communal leader in one of the neighbourhoods under investigation explained (C 2). However, the low security level in the communities often impedes civilian institutions to come in without police support.

Here in Barranquilla, the prevention police are more appreciated than the repression one. That one (referring to the prevention officer) really gets to the communities, but the police structure in Colombia does not give him the tools to work with.

he continued. He also maintained that in neighbourhoods where prevention police are active, criminality goes down and reports that the communities distrust the police because there are corrupt policemen who are not committed to security. He wanted the police to be more in contact with the communities but maintained that ordinary block police do not do that. ‘The police do not come to get to know us better, but to divide’, he complained. ‘The policemen should be the friend of the community, but he is only interested in being the enemy’ (C 2). He also argued that the police do not respond to distress calls from his neighbourhood and fondly remembered the community police of previous years who were even invited to neighbourhood celebrations together with their wives and underlined that ‘there was a true friendship’ between them and the communities. When a community police officer was once hit by a car, people went after the perpetrator because of their close relationship to that policeman. He did not understand why the police abandoned community policing and replaced it with the block system and he accused some of the block police officers of corruption, particularly in connection with drugs (C 2). He believed that the police in general prefers the communities to live in fear rather than to cooperate with them. He also accused the police of transferring those policemen who have positive relationships with the communities. ‘We are not interested in CAIs, we are interested in community police’, he maintained and continued ‘without credibility and trust we cannot move forward’ (C 2). Another summarised the problem as ‘police trains police, so everything is simply reproduced constantly’ (C 1).

Evaluating the perceptions of the dyad towards each other based on the limited number of interviews undertaken for this study, it is safe to say that levels of trust and recognition continue to remain low. With the exception of the relationship between the communities and the prevention officers, block police-community relations are characterised by mistrust as well as a lack of respect and acceptance, in other words, low levels of recognition. While both actor groups seem to want to improve their relationship, there are neither ‘positive expectations at work in the relationship’ nor seems the behaviour of either actor to be ‘modified in the anticipation of different behaviour from the other’, following Söderström’s et al. (2021, p. 494) definition of trust.

Foes, fellows, or friends?

So, what, if any, level of relational peace has been achieved between police and communities in these particular communities in Barranquilla, Colombia? The interviews show the existence of an understanding of mutual interdependence and the necessity to coexist, a low level of fellowship at best. However, confidence levels of Colombian citizens in their police are decreasing. In a survey conducted in 2014 (Galiani and Jaitman 2016), confidence levels were at 45%, compared to only 27% in 2019 (DANE 2019). Furthermore, apart from the Madres Emprendedoras project, which was initiated by a prevention officer, no other example of explicit cooperation was presented to the interviewers, even though most of these interviews were arranged by the Colombian police and, therefore, served to put the latter into the best possible light. In fact, it was the police interviews more than those with civilians that suggested that community members seemed to be resisting rather than cooperating with the police. The interviews also underlined that a certain level of domination by block police – not prevention officers – remained. Even though opportunities for deliberation were created over the past years in form of different units that established possibilities for communication between both actor groups, they were often restricted by the uneven power levels in that relationship. Furthermore, block and prevention officers, though belonging to the same police force, considered their tasks, ways of approaching, and relationship to, the community members very differently. While prevention officers successfully encouraged the communities to bring forth proposals for cooperation in which both actors contribute to increasing security, block police took a reactive focus and predominantly fulfilled prescribed performance quotas, despite the block system’s initial focus on prevention. This dichotomy appears to be somewhat counterproductive, at least to the prevention officers and some of the community members interviewed.

While all block police asserted that the relationship with the communities improved, they also complained about resentment and mistrust towards them as well as a lack of respect and authority. Contrary to the official discourse, the interviews raised doubts in the interviewers whether the block police in fact saw a relationship with the communities as essential to fighting insecurity. The image of the latter as presented by block police as well as ESMAD was essentially negative: uncooperative, complaining, violent, disrespectful, conflictive, and influenced by a culture of violence. Members of the communities interviewed were content with the increased police presence created by the block system. However, praise was directed mainly towards prevention officers and their work, and some expressed the desire to have more prevention police or proposed a return to the community-oriented policing of the early 2000s. Once our police escort was removed from the interview space, interviewees voiced complaints about police being violent, corrupt, and generally indifferent towards working closer with the communities, resembling more those opinions towards the police that were expressed in recent protests against police behaviour. Thus, levels of trust and recognition remain low on both sides. Considering the recent protests as well as opinion polls, this relationship overall in the country seems to be moving backwards towards being foes rather than fellows, an important backlash to peacebuilding in Colombia.

That the relationship between the police and the communities in Colombia needs improvement, seems to be obvious to both trainers and trainees, from the leadership down to the police training level. One Colombian upper-level police authority interviewed placed the blame for strained relations with the communities on the current police culture and education. He argued that the police think in terms of hierarchies of power instead of regarding ‘the communities as our reason to be’ which impedes a new role for the police in relation to the communities (P16). Swedish police officers added to the criticism by underlining that quantitative evaluation processes based on achievement quotas such as those used in the block system put policemen in competition over achievement percentages (SP 1 and 2; Palmgren 2017). Furthermore, recruitment into the police service seems to be difficult, with less than 60% of training positions filled, which constitutes the lowest percentage in the past 15 years (P16). However, those police students currently occupying the benches in the police schools showed much enthusiasm for their profession. In a group interview, they underlined their desire to serve society and change the image people have of the police. Most did military service before joining police education and all have ambitions to become ‘a good police officer’. They underlined that their education in the police school is today much better compared to previous years and provides the basis for ‘good behaviour in the streets’ (P9). They feel that they are ‘the new blood of the police’ and that the image of the police has changed in the communities, and they look forward to good relationships with the communities once out in the streets.

Prevention police officers, on the other hand, proposed a return to community policing to improve police-community relations. They underlined the need for more state support as well as cooperation from the private business sector and resources, for example to design programmes to offer livelihoods to under-age gang members (P15, 29, 30). This is also supported by community leaders (C2). One lamented that impunity continues to reign in Colombia and underlined the need for a cultural transformation that will take generations. ‘The day when police and communities unite, that is when we will find the true concept of security and crime levels will go down’ (C1). After the signing of the peace accord in 2016, a return to prevention and a focus on closed relations with the communities has appeared in a number of strategy documents, including the Institutional Strategy Plan Vision 2030, which in turn is part of Secure and Peaceful Communities plan (Plan Comunidades Seguras y de Paz), as well as the Institutional Modernisation and Transformation Plan, MTI after its Spanish initials (National Police of Colombia and Police of Sweden 2018). However, here again prevention is essentially a crime reduction strategy and translates predominantly into an increase of police presence in the streets, similar to the implementation of the block system. All strategy plans display pictures showing police in friendly conversations with community members, helping the elderly or embracing children. However, they all lack instructions on how police-community relations could be improved and a more acceptable level of relational peace based on increased cooperation, deliberation, trust, and recognition could be reached, other than through a tougher and more coordinated approach on crime.

Conclusions

The objective of this study was to analyse the relationship between the police and the communities in the transition period from war – to peacetime police in Colombia, as improving that relationship is an important part of building sustainable peace in post-accord societies. Even though the research sample was limited in its regional focus, it nevertheless provides a starting point for the analysis of the police-community relationship in the country as a whole by providing a critical view concerning the level of relational peace between police and communities in Colombia. Söderström et al. (2021, 496) claim that

a peaceful relation entails behavioural interaction that can be characterized as deliberation, non-domination, and cooperation between the actors in the dyad; the actors involved recognize and trust each other and believe that the relationship is either one between legitimate fellows or between friends.

Our empirical bottom-up analysis shows that police-community relations in Colombia, as observed in this particular sample, are at best placed at the lower end of fellowship within the relational peace framework. Even though there is some cooperative behaviour on both sides, we found very few joint projects that are based on a common understanding of security, and, apart from the prevention officers, there does not seem to be a general willingness among block police to form a closer relationship with the citizens in their areas. Fulfilling quotas appears to be the main goal with the block system as such. While dyad actors are aware of their interdependence and the need to cooperate when necessary, levels of mistrust are high, while cooperation, deliberation and respect towards each other remain low. Both sides blame each other for this somewhat mistrustful relationship. The recent accusations against police behaviour during the protests further support this result and show how easily such a fickle relationship can convert into violence on both sides. This is clearly against the goals of security sector reform and a major obstacle to the end goal of peacebuilding, sustainable peace.

So how do we increase trust as an important part of relational peace between police and communities? According to Goldsmith (2005), Colombian police has in recent encounters with civilians displayed trust-diminishing behaviour – impunity, corruption, intimidation, excessive use of force and discrimination, among others. However, several of his trust-building strategies, such as improving accountability, consistency and reliability, fairness and transparency, respect, and the limitation of the use of force, had all been part of the Swedish training and even constitute parts of the Colombian police reform process of the past two decades, but seem to have given way to a return to the excessive use of force during the latest social protests. Establishing ombudsman offices, another one of Goldsmith’s proposals, was also a rather unsuccessful undertaking in the Colombian case. The question, therefore, remains what can be done to achieve an acceptable level of relational peace between police and communities in Colombia. The PNC is aware of the need to improve that relationship. Changes in the police code as well as an intensification of educational reforms in recent years constitute important first steps towards this goal. Our interviewees underlined that the Swedish training and particularly the introduction of the STB produced a change of behaviour in the PNC and that the communities recognised that. However, evidence for this claim is weak, which is supported by the fact that trust levels are still very low. However, it is important to underline that there is a difference between relatively high levels of trust in individual policemen, predominantly prevention officers, and trust in the police as an institution. We, therefore, argue that emphasis on more prevention police, and, therefore, a return to community-oriented policing, could strengthen levels of trust and cooperation and help build deliberation and respect on both sides. After all, the debate on community-oriented policing blamed the circumstances – lack of financing and willingness to change within the police force, among others – for its failure, rather than questioning the underlying principle and need of improving police-community relations. The results of this study support the argument that it might be worthwhile to give a more locally owned form of COP new consideration. While a balance between the introduction of top-down reforms, the training of street police officers, and a closer connection to the community level is essential, it is the latter that produces the bottom-up input needed to create sustainable peace based on common ground between the dyad actors and trust in the police as an institution, not only in individual police officers. Furthermore, ombudsman offices should be staffed, and future police reforms monitored and evaluated, by teams including not only police officers but also community leaders.

The final question, however, concerns the ultimate goal of police reform as part of SSR in peacebuilding. Already more than a decade ago, Bowling (2007) argued that it is unrealistic to produce perfect police through cross-cultural police reforms and that we should accept ‘good enough’ policing at an acceptable, and achievable, minimal level of fairness and effectiveness. Others point at the inherently political nature of policing (Schaap 2021), including international policing, even though democratic institutions create what Bowling et al. (2019) call protective myths of ideal policing, maintaining that policing per se is, and must be, apolitical. The latter also underline the important impact of culture and politics on providing social security that might contribute more to safety and order than the police itself. Even though good policing is often expected to create social order, they argue that it at best can help to preserve, but never produce it. Swedish police’ frustration about the struggle to find common values on which to base police training provides an excellent example for that all-important impact of culture and politics. Cultural underpinnings seem to counteract any Swedish SSR efforts in Colombia, and Colombian police officers are the first to blame society’s values and culture for ongoing violence and obstacles to better police-community relations. Following those two strands of thought, should police training as part of international security sector reform then just lower expectations to ‘good enough’, since changing cultural values and politics is beyond its sphere of work?

Re-evaluating the goals of international involvement in trans-national police reform efforts might be the best way forward when it comes to improving police-community relations. Police reform in Colombia as well as elsewhere seems to be based predominantly on the assumption that improving security levels will inevitably lead to improved police-community relations. However, recent research studying trust-building in European countries underlined that trust in the police was mainly determined by procedural injustice and that crime rates were unrelated to trust (O’Brien and Tyler 2019, Schaap 2020). We, therefore, argue that this nexus between police-community relations and security needs to be reconsidered. Adopting an approach to security that combines top-down and bottom-up perspectives might show that a better relationship and a better security level are interdependent goals that need to be pursued in parallel, not in sequence. Furthermore, international actors need to take into consideration that police in countries emerging from conflict that struggle with high levels of violence act in a context that is rather different from that which international police trainers are used to, a comment also made repeatedly by Colombian police officers. As in the Colombian case, police who have lived through decades of violent conflict, without the opportunity to advance their educational degree and with low levels of income, cannot be expected to adopt the values of international police trainers at face value. We agree with previous research that change will take place only gradually, particularly where violence still dominates everyday life, and that reform must also be directed towards political structures for police building (Goldsmith and Dinnen 2007; Schaap 2021). The methodology of police reforms needs to be adapted to local circumstances, displaying flexibility and humility in terms of objectives behind police building and listening to local priorities. Similar to previous research, our study shows that in order to implement a long-lasting and stable change in police-community relations, consideration and adaptation to the historical, political and social processes during which the police force has been shaped and is evolving is imperative (Davis, et al. 2010, Nyborg and Lohmann 2020, Divon 2021, ICT4COP 2021, Nyborg and Nawab 2021). As in the case of the Swedish police training in Colombia, trainers and local police often struggle to find common ground and international trainers lack contextual understanding while at the same time being guided by what Schaap (2021) calls ‘rationalized myths’ about how police work should look like. Increasing knowledge of the contextual circumstances can give international police trainers opportunities for better adjustments in the introduction of new concepts and methods. Future research into the preparation of international training and its impact on acceptance on the training by local police might provide insights into better cooperation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We are focusing in this review on police-community relations in post-accord countries, countries that recently emerged from conflict. For a good overview of the literature on police-community relations in general, see Nalla et al. (2018).

2 This post generated a huge debate among facebook participants, where some defended the police, but many condemned their behaviour, see (https://www.facebook.com/Policianacionaldeloscolombianos/videos/701168260482306).

3 JACs have their roots in the 1991 constitution and are elected for three-year periods of unpaid service by each neighbourhood. They are social community leaders working with, but not for, the state to improve the neighbourhoods they represent and serve as bridges between the state and the communities. They are often targets of criminal attacks in Colombia (civ 2).