The Democratic Deficit of Community Oriented Policing
This collection questions the assumption that community oriented policing (COP) is necessarily democratic policing. Because community oriented policing ideals are to bring police closer to the people – increasing trust, encouraging community participation in crime prevention, and enhancing police effectiveness in creating secure environments – police reform labelled as COP is often assumed to indicate the democratization of state-society relations. Yet, the articles in this collection demonstrate that COP in Latin America and the Caribbean hardly diverges from the region’s generally authoritarian approach to policing. Global policy diffusion through the filters of the region’s highly unequal political and economic systems results in COP practices that differ starkly from democratic ideals. Indeed, community oriented policing has been used as much to legitimise violent policing tactics, as it has been used to undertake serious reforms. Anchored in the global literature and in the transnational policy flows of COP, the Latin American and Caribbean cases presented speak to broad issues and problems.
The papers in the collection were first presented at a workshop hosted by the Research Team on Inclusion and Governance in Latin America (ÉRIGAL), the Lab for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (LLACS), the Montreal Research Network for Latin American Studies (RÉLAM), the Centre d'études et de recherches internationales de l’Université de Montréal (CÉRIUM), and the Centre de recherche sur les politiques et le développement social (CPDS) at the Université de Montréal and Concordia University in November 2017.
Edited by
Annabelle Dias Felix(Department of Political Science, University of Montreal)
Tina Hilgers(Department of Political Science, Concordia University)