Since Community (Oriented) Policing (COP) was introduced in most western countries, there has been a major emphasis on the management of police forces. Some have wondered if police leaders have not become too much oriented towards managerialism, such that a new form of police centrism has developed (De Kimpe, 2006). Instead of looking outwards, to the external world, to developments within communities and their problems, police focused more and more attention on their own organisation and internal problems. To a certain degree this tendency is understandable in a period of
transition. Certainly, changes were in the air, particularly in Belgium where, some ten years ago, a fundamental reform of the police shook the foundations of the system. In the Netherlands after many years of debate the Police Act 1993 was passed. A single kind of police came about with the merging of the municipal police forces and the State Police...