Policing and Accountability in the Netherlands: A Happy Marriage or a Stressful Relationship?

Abstract

This article overviews the principal structural features concerning the system of police accountability in the Netherlands. At issue is the police ability to deliver good standards in public safety, especially in the context of local communities and small towns, after a decade of police organisational reform. The article offers insights into the complexities for managing police accountability in the Netherlands under the current structure. Police systems across Europe are experiencing, to varying degrees, the tendency to centralise management functions. The Dutch case is an example of this. In the Netherlands, police reorganisation as a result of the Police Act 1993 has had negative consequences for local accountability which are not adequately addressed by the characteristic informalism that underpins the system. A tendency to 'structural incidentalism' exacerbates these weaknesses. The article concludes by calling for greater transparency in police decision making and greater participation by external representatives of the public in order to bolster a fragile legitimacy of the system.