This article was downloaded by: [Uppsala universitetsbibliotek]

On: 07 October 2014, At: 06:30

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Police Practice and Research: An

International Journal
Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gppr20

Police, local government, and citizens

as participants in local security
networks
a
Jan Terpstra
a
Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice , University of
Nijmegen , Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Published online: 12 Sep 2008.

To cite this article: Jan Terpstra (2008) Police, local government, and citizens as participants in
local security networks, Police Practice and Research: An International Journal, 9:3, 213-225, DOI:
10.1080/15614260701797520

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15614260701797520

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the
“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,
our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to
the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions
and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,
and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content
should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources
of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,
proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever
or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or
arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &
Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-
and-conditions
 Police Practice and Research
Vol. 9, No. 3, July 2008, 213–225

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Police, local government, and citizens as participants in local security
networks
Jan Terpstra*

Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Nijmegen, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Police
10.1080/15614260701797520
GPPR_A_279796.sgm
1561-4263
Research
Taylor
9302008
Dr
[email protected]
000002008
JanTerpstra
Practice
andArticle
& Francis
(print)/1477-271X
Francis
and Research (online)

In the Netherlands, just as in many other Western European countries, there has recently
Downloaded by [Uppsala universitetsbibliotek] at 06:31 07 October 2014

been a growth in the number of local security networks. The police, local governments,
and citizens are the main participants of these networks. This study shows that the
intended participation of the police, local government, and citizens in the security
networks is realised only to a limited extent. The main problems faced by these networks
have to do with the emphasis on the ‘core business’ of the police, the coordination by
local governments, and the high and complex expectations about citizen participation.
Keywords: local security networks; citizen participation; local safety policy; multi-
agency approach; partnerships; community policing

Introduction
In many Western European countries the systems of policing and crime control have
changed fundamentally over roughly the last 10–15 years. One of the core elements of these
changes is that the prevention and control of crime and insecurity are no longer regarded as
the sole responsibility of the police. Other agencies, both public and private, are seen as
being responsible for these tasks. As a result, especially at the local level, there has been a
growth in the number of multi-agency networks in which the police, local government,
(groups of) citizens, and other public and private organisations are the partners. In this paper
I will focus on the position of the main participants in these local security networks.
Several circumstances have contributed to this shift from ‘government’ to ‘governance’
(Newman, 2001; Pierre, 2000) in the control of crime, disorder, and insecurity. In many
Western European countries the level of crime today is much higher than it was during the
1950s or 1960s. In these ‘high crime societies’ (Garland, 2000), crime and insecurity have
become major concerns to large numbers of citizens (although the fear of crime and insecu-
rity also reflect more general, often vague feelings of uneasiness and lack of control that
many citizens seem to experience in contemporary society) (Bauman, 1999). Citizens expect
or even demand that the state (and especially the police) will provide a solution for the prob-
lems of crime and insecurity. This has contributed to the fact that crime and insecurity
became major issues on the political agenda in many Western European countries in the
1990s and early 2000s. As a consequence, the police and criminal justice institutions are
confronted with rising demands and expectations. However, their resources are often inad-
equate to meet these rising demands, with the consequence that the once taken-for-granted
authority and legitimacy of the police and criminal justice are eroding in many Western
European countries (Reiner, 1992).

*Email: [email protected]

ISSN 1561-4263 print/ISSN 1477-271X online

© 2008 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/15614260701797520
http://www.informaworld.com
 214 J. Terpstra

The governments and police organisations created several strategies in reaction to this
combination of rising demands and eroding legitimacy. During the 1990s there was a shift
towards a harsher and more punitive policy in many Western European countries, with a
stress on more police, more prisons, and severe sanctions. Under the influence of the New
Public Management, all kinds of managerial measures were introduced to promote the
effectiveness and efficiency of the police and criminal justice agencies, such as measures of
performance management (Loveday, 1999; Martin, 2003). One of the most important reac-
tions consisted of what Garland (1996) called a strategy of responsibilisation. With this
strategy the government tries to promote the active involvement of other actors and agencies
in the prevention and control of crime and insecurity. Tasks that were formerly the monop-
oly of the police and criminal justice agencies are now presented as the moral duty of other
agencies and citizens. Both moral and financial arguments are given to motivate this new
Downloaded by [Uppsala universitetsbibliotek] at 06:31 07 October 2014

distribution of responsibilities.
This development seems to fit in with a more general change in many Western coun-
tries in which a great number of tasks of the welfare state are privatised or transferred to
non-state agencies. According to many authors, in fact this is so much not a process of
‘hiving off’ former governmental activities, but the creation of a new role for the govern-
ment, one that places it at a greater distance (Rose & Miller, 1992), more a role of ‘steer-
ing’ than ‘rowing’ (Osborne & Gaebler, 1992). This new role implies the coordination,
activation, and regulation of the networks and activities of many partners, both private and
public.
This shift to a governance of crime and insecurity is accompanied by a new discourse
with three concepts at its core: ‘community,’ ‘prevention,’ and ‘partnerships’ (Crawford,
1997). Community here is not only understood as the location of problems and intervention.
In this view the community should also be created and mobilised to attack the problems of
crime and insecurity (Rose, 1999). The stress on community, prevention, and partnerships
resulted in a great number of security networks (Newburn, 2001) and a great degree of
multi-agency cooperation, especially at the local level.
This paper deals with local security networks in the Netherlands, where the responsibili-
sation strategy has been a central element of the changes in policing and the control of crime
since the early 1990s. Partnerships and multi-agency networks here, as in many other
Western countries, are elements of three interrelated developments. First, partnerships and
shared responsibilities are central to the notion of community policing, which became a
dominant paradigm of Netherlands’ policing in the 1990s. Secondly, in the early 1990s the
Netherlands’ government created a so-called Local Safety Policy, one premise of which is
that safety should not be the task of the police alone, but a shared responsibility of many
agencies and actors. In this view the police are still responsible for the control of safety in
the public space. The local government is seen as being responsible for the coordination of
the local safety policy, including the activation of other partners. A third relevant develop-
ment in this context is the rise of all sorts of non-state, privatised policing. In a couple of
years there will probably be as many people working in the commercial security sector in
the Netherlands as there are (regular) police officers – a situation that has already been
attained in some other Western countries (van Dijk & de Waard, 2000; Johnston, 2000). The
rapid growth of private policing is partly the result of the increasing demand for safety.
Partly, too, it is the consequence of the new policy regarding the police’s ‘core business’
and of the concomitant appeal to citizens’ own responsibilities.
Here I concentrate on the position of the main participants in the local security networks:
the police, the local government, and (groups) of citizens (including local businesspeople,
like shop owners). Two main questions are dealt with in respect of each of these participants.
 Police Practice and Research: An International Journal 215

What is their position in the local security networks? To what extent are the intended
contributions of these participants to the networks realised?
In this paper the positions of the partners in local security networks are analysed on the
basis of a model of cooperation between actors in local implementation networks, described
elsewhere in more detail (Terpstra & Kouwenhoven, 2004). According to this model the
cooperation between actors is seen as depending on both external and internal factors.
Among the external factors are the institutional relations between the policy sectors
involved and the policies and policy traditions in the relevant fields. Among the relevant
network-internal factors are: the (resource) dependencies between the participating actors
(including the stock of resources upon which each participant may rely (Benson, 1975; Pfef-
fer & Salancik, 1978), the extent to which the actors share their views and beliefs with
regard to safety problems and networks (among other things), the strategies used by the
Downloaded by [Uppsala universitetsbibliotek] at 06:31 07 October 2014

actors in their mutual relations, and the ways their interdependent activities are coordinated.
This paper is based upon a study of local security networks in the Netherlands (Terpstra
& Kouwenhoven, 2004). Eight of these networks have been studied in detail. The data
presented here are based on interviews with the participants in these networks (such as
police officers, public prosecutors, local government officials, citizens, and workers from
many public and private organisations participating in the local security networks) and on a
study of available documents. Two brief examples may shed some light upon the nature of
these local security networks.

● In the surroundings of three primary schools, located in a neighbourhood built in the

1980s, there have been problems like vandalism, nuisance, and disorder, probably
caused by groups of youngsters. At a certain moment, after a new incident, some citi-
zens living near the schools decided to do something about the problems and to start
a citizen group. Soon the schools, police, and the neighbourhood official of the local
administration also joined the network. In the years to follow many activities were
conducted, among them situational prevention, informal social control by citizens,
active patrol by the police, and youth work activities for adolescents living in the
neighbourhood. One of the main frictions in this network has been about the question
who should coordinate the network.
● A secondary inner-city school, with about 750 pupils, was faced with a lot of prob-
lems like graffiti, destructions, theft, the threatening and use of violence (both against
pupils and teachers). A significant number of pupils of the school were suspected of
wearing weapons in the school and using and trading drugs. The local community
police officer proposed to start a security network to prevent and control the problems
at the school. The school, the police, the Public Prosecution Office, and Halt (an
organisation conducting alternative sanctions for young offenders) were the members
of this network. The new multi-agency approach was based upon the notion that the
former way of dealing with the problems by the school did not work. Unacceptable
behaviour by pupils in or near the school should get an immediate, direct, consequent,
and if necessary strict reaction. New rules were formulated on how pupils should
behave at school. Weapons, drugs, and violence (in behaviour or verbal) were not
tolerated anymore. The community police officer was present at the school for at least
two days a week. The agreement was made that the school should immediately report
a pupil to the police in case he or she did not conform to the new rules (for example,
had weapons). Depending on the seriousness of the offence, the police would send
the pupil either to Halt or to the Public Prosecutor. One of the problems in this
network was a fundamental disagreement between the police and many teachers at the
 216 J. Terpstra

school about the scope of the new strict policing strategy and the autonomy of teach-
ers to decide if they still reacted on rule-breaking behaviour by pupils in their own
pedagogical way.

First I will describe local security networks in the Netherlands and the cooperation
between the partners in practice. I then deal with the three main partners mentioned. Some
of the main problems and contradictions in the policy on local security networks will be
dealt with briefly in the concluding remarks.

Local security networks

The first local security networks in the Netherlands were introduced in the late 1980s. Most
Downloaded by [Uppsala universitetsbibliotek] at 06:31 07 October 2014

Dutch cities and communities have had many such local networks since the mid-1990s.
They focus on a wide range of safety problems, as for instance those in an industrial area,
a neighbourhood, a recreational area with a concentration of bars and pubs, or a large
school. Other networks focus on problems of disorder and nuisance resulting from the
use of and trade in drugs, the problems of soccer hooliganism, or a group of youth causing
trouble, like crime and feelings of insecurity in their neighbourhood.
Most local security networks are the result of a bottom-up initiative. People living in a
neighbourhood, teachers at a school, a group of shopkeepers, or a community police officer
observe some serious problems of crime, disorder, or insecurity in their immediate environ-
ment. In their view, previous strategies did not work and a new strategy, based on cooper-
ation between several agencies, is urgently needed. In many cases some informal leader,
often with charismatic qualities and relevant social capital, will take the initiative to set up
the network. Often a local community police officer plays this activating and stimulating
role. For the network to become established, it is necessary that after a time the initiative
receives the support of a broader coalition of partners.

One of the networks studied is in an area containing many bars and discos. Especially in the
weekends thousands of young people visit this area, making it overcrowded until at least four
o’clock in the morning. In the past the area had a bad reputation because of many violent
incidents, often caused by the use of drugs and alcohol. Earlier attempts to do something about
the problems here, never succeeded. The mistrust among bar owners with regard to the police
and local government was too much deep-rooted. Their mutually conflicting interests made a
collective approach hard to realize. The arrival of a new community police officer meant a
break-through. With his personal involvement and enthusiasm he persuaded others to over-
come their mistrust, to see their mutual interests and to co-operate in working on the problems
in this area. His charismatic qualities made that in a couple of years almost all relevant persons
and agencies co-operated in a joined-up approach. He also convinced his own police force
that the incident-driven approach used up till then should be changed into a permanent and
communicative presence of the police in the area and a problem-oriented approach. Other
participants praise his style of working and see this network as his personal success. The
work of this community police officer in this recreational area made him locally a well-known
figure.

At first many local security networks encounter a lot of problems. In the beginning there
are often only vague notions about the goals of the network, its envisioned activities, and
relations between the partners. In many cases the cooperation between the partners is
initially hampered by distrust and sceptical attitudes among the partners. The feelings of
distrust may be overcome only after a while, when the partners become personally
acquainted with each other and the first concrete results of the network are realised.
 Police Practice and Research: An International Journal 217

The organisation and number of participants vary widely among the local security
networks. One of the networks studied had only four participants: a school, a community
police officer, an official from the public prosecutor’s office, and an organisation responsi-
ble for the implementation of alternative, extra-judicial sanctions for youngsters. In other
cases some 30 or 40 participants may be involved in the security network. Which organisa-
tions participate in the network depends on the network’s goals, its envisioned activities, and
the history of its origin. The police were among the participants in all networks studied.
Local government and citizens or local businesspeople were involved in most networks.
Other participants may be schools, organisations for social work, youth work, probation
services, or a real-estate agency. As a rule partners frequently meet to exchange information,
make decisions, and implement and evaluate joint activities.
The local networks studied are mainly oriented to concrete and specific problems of
Downloaded by [Uppsala universitetsbibliotek] at 06:31 07 October 2014

crime, disorder, or insecurity. Nevertheless, their formal goals may be rather broad, like ‘the
promotion of the quality of the area’ or the realisation of ‘a city centre with an attractive
climate to live, to stay, to set up a business and to invest money.’ The emphasis on such
broad goals may be seen as a way to eliminate potential resistance to a network that concen-
trates on crime and may be primarily associated with the police or criminal justice agencies.
These broad and often rather vague goals may give room for the participation of actors and
agencies with widely differing views and interests.
Most local security networks use several methods of intervention, or what Johnston and
Shearing (2003, pp. 28–29) call ‘technologies.’ Some of these methods are more bound to
the traditional work of the police; others belong to the domain and competencies of the local
government or non-criminal justice agencies. These methods may be used in all kinds of
combinations. Eight methods used in the local security networks may be distinguished:
formal and informal surveillance; repression, sanctions, and alternative sanctions; adminis-
trative prevention and the enforcement of civil and administrative law as an alternative to
criminal law enforcement; measures focused on the social and economic infrastructures;
preventive measures to change the physical situation; educational and social work activities;
recreational activities; and the promotion of social cohesion, seen as a way to foster the so-
called self-reliant behaviour of citizens.
Most of the local security networks are based on both formal and informal modes of
cooperation. The main original agreements between the partners are often formally laid
down in some document or treaty. However, as other studies also found (Blagg, Pearson,
Sampson, Smith, & Stubbs, 1988; Crawford, 1997; Pearson, Blagg, Smith, Sampson, &
Stubbs, 1992), informal relations are often much more important in understanding the
relations and cooperation between the partners. To a large extent the local security
networks are based on mutual trust, informal agreements, and personal acquaintance. This
‘informalisation’ may be seen as a strategy to avoid the restrictions of formal rules and
create some room to avoid (potential) contradictions between the partners involved (cf.
Terpstra, 2004). This informality, however, may create some unintended consequences.
For reasons of goal-orientation and effectiveness, partners may decide to exchange infor-
mation informally, even if this is against the formal rules regarding the protection of
citizens’ privacy. The weight of informal considerations may in the long term make the
local security networks rather vulnerable: if one of the participants gets another job, the
continuation of the network may be in danger. The informality may cause roles and
competencies of the partners to become blurred or even intermingled. This is especially
striking because these networks may have important consequences for public values and
may intervene in individual lives. One of the consequences may be that the democratic
accountability and control of the local security networks may be difficult to achieve. It
 218 J. Terpstra

may also seriously hamper the legitimacy of the police and the local government’s local
safety policy.

The police: between responsibilisation and retreat

In general the police in the Netherlands today have a positive attitude to cooperation with
citizens and other agencies and to participation in local security networks. Mostly they are
aware that an adequate (re)action to many public safety problems requires the expertise,
knowledge, and skills of other actors and agencies, besides those of the police. It is seen as
impossible for the police to meet all the needs and demands laid upon them. In the
last decade or so a new, partly moral, orthodoxy has been established in many of the
Netherlands’ police organisations, which states that a new distribution of responsibilities is
Downloaded by [Uppsala universitetsbibliotek] at 06:31 07 October 2014

needed in the prevention and control of crime, disorder, and insecurity: other actors and
agencies should accept their responsibilities and no longer shift their tasks to the police.
Many of the local security networks were to a large degree the result of initiatives taken
by the police. Especially in the initial phase the network often depends on the enthusiasm
and dedication of the local community police officer.
Nevertheless, the role of the police in the initial phase of the network may be rather
ambivalent. Many of the networks were not only the result of initiatives by the police, but
also motivated by the view of some of the partners that the police did not pay enough atten-
tion to their problems and were insufficiently accessible to citizens, shopkeepers, or teach-
ers in case trouble should occur. At first the police often were somewhat hesitant about
joining the network. Both the cultural gap between the participating organisations and the
ways police officers perceived some of their partners (like the youth workers or the local
administration) contributed to this ambivalence. The police may also fear a loss of auton-
omy or dependence on other agencies by participating in a network, a feeling which may
also hinder the cooperation later on.
The activities of the police officers in the local security networks may vary widely.
Some of them have to do with the network itself, like maintaining relations with partners,
frequent meetings with them, managing the partners, the exchange of information with other
agencies, and acting as the link between the partners and other units of the police force. The
police also undertake more concrete activities, such as surveillance in the public space (in
some cases in close cooperation with other actors, like citizens or private police organisa-
tions), the creation of more or less formal reactions to crime, disorder, and other problems
(alone or with other agencies).
Police participation in the local security networks is to a great extent based on the
assumption that the police on their own are not able to create an adequate answer to many
of the problems of crime or insecurity. According to this view, other actors and agencies
should be convinced of the need to cooperate and to accept their own responsibilities in the
prevention and control of crime and insecurity.
The new distribution of responsibilities, however, implies that other actors and agencies
should adjust their expectations about the police. Actually, the need for a ‘management of
expectations’ (Crawford, 1997, p. 176) is one of the main arguments for the police to join
local security networks. Although responsibilisation and the management of expectations
are closely connected with each other, there is also a tension between these two police strat-
egies. On the one hand, the police cooperate closely with other actors and agencies. On the
other hand, however, the police tried to retreat from the network after a while in half of
the networks studied, in most cases without formally terminating their membership. In this
way the initially comprehensive, initiating, and stimulating role of the police is gradually
 Police Practice and Research: An International Journal 219

replaced by a more limited role according to which the police only have a secondary task in
the local security network. This strategy of retreat is partly a consequence of a lack of time
and other resources available to the police. In part, too, it is the result of the aim of concen-
trating the police on so-called core business tasks, which are said to have a ‘more measur-
able output’ and to fit more with ‘real police work’ than participation in local security
networks. The strategy of responsibilisation is hard to reconcile, both with the recent pres-
sure to accept new managerial criteria and with the new stress on a more punitive policy in
the Netherlands.
This somewhat ambivalent position of the police in local security networks has several
consequences. Some of the local networks seem to evolve to a new model, according to
which the partners still cooperate, but with a strict separation between their tasks. In other
cases, however, partners in the network fear that the withdrawal by the police may under-
Downloaded by [Uppsala universitetsbibliotek] at 06:31 07 October 2014

mine the basis of the network. Initially the police often had a stimulating and coordinating
role in the network. Many participants wonder if the withdrawal by the police will not result
in gaps that no other agency will be able to fill.
In regard to the individual police officer who participates in the local security network,
the participants generally have a favourable judgement of the police contribution to the
network. The community police officer’s dedication, motivation, and goal-oriented attitude
are praised. About the rest of the police force, however, the partners are remarkably less
positive. In the view of many participants the police force management displays only a
limited involvement. According to the partners, it is often hard to make agreements
with other units or departments of the police organisation. Many participants fear the
consequences of the police withdrawal, both for the continuation of the network and for its
effectiveness.

Local governments and coordination of networks

In the Netherlands the local governments have the formal responsibility to coordinate
the Local Safety Policy. The local security networks are one, highly visible element of
this local policy. The security networks often depend on resources – like manpower,
information, or formal competencies – which only the local governments have at their
disposal.
Still, however, other partners often criticise the contribution of the local governments to
the security networks. In many cases the local government is described as the ‘weakest’
participant in the network. Several factors contribute to this poor realisation of the leading
and coordinating role of the local government in practice. In many cases several departments
of the local administration are involved with the local security network. Each of these
departments has its own expertise, information, resources, or relations on which the network
more or less depends. In many cases there is a lack of coordination between these depart-
ments, or they may even be in competition or conflict. In some cases it appeared that the
departments of the local administration, although participating in one and the same local
security network, were not aware of each other’s decisions or activities and tried to shift their
responsibilities to each other. In other cases the departments of the local administration have
different views on the security problems, their causes, the preferred measures, or the needed
distribution of responsibilities. Many participants in the local security networks complain
about bureaucratic inertia, irresolution, or other perverse effects of bureaucracy in local
government. These problems may be reinforced if local authorities do not have a clear vision
on local security problems and local safety policy or if they do not give a high priority to
local safety issues.
 220 J. Terpstra

Members of the local security network in the surroundings of the three primary schools
mentioned before asked the Municipal Department of Public Works to get a better street-
lighting and to trim the bushes near the schools. This would make it easier for people living
near the schools to keep an eye on what is going on there. For more than two years this depart-
ment did not react on this request. However, at a certain day workers of this department started
to build a fence of almost three meters high around the school yard. Citizens, but also the repre-
sentative of the local administration in the network were upset and embarrassed about this. The
members had decided that they did not want a fence, because despite all problems they did not
want to forbid children living nearby to play at the school yard. However, the Department of
Public Works had its own policy, which remained completely independent from the prefer-
ences of members of the local security network.

The municipal department which is primarily responsible for the local safety policy often
has a rather weak position within the local administration. Often this department was estab-
Downloaded by [Uppsala universitetsbibliotek] at 06:31 07 October 2014

lished only recently. Its general task consists of the formation and implementation of a
neighbourhood policy. This department often still has to establish its own domain in relation
with the other, older, more centralised departments within the local administration. At the
same time it is still highly dependent on the other departments. One of the reasons for this
is that there is generally only a limited budget for safety policy within the local govern-
ments. The result of this complex of factors is that in the view of partners in the local secu-
rity networks measures by the local government are often implemented incompletely, too
late, or not at all.
The uneasiness and incomprehension among the partners with regard to the local
government’s lack of goal-orientation and effectiveness may also be linked to a difference
in perspectives between representatives of the local administrative bureaucracy and other
participants. Citizens, entrepreneurs, and community police officers in particular have a
pragmatic, goal-oriented attitude and are primarily oriented to direct, tangible, visible
results. On the other hand, however, officials working in local government have a more
bureaucratic–legalistic attitude. They often pay more attention to formal procedures or to
the need to gain political support for proposed measures. One of the results of this gap in
perspectives is a difference in time horizon. What to local administrators may look as if they
are following a taken-for-granted procedure may in their partners’ views appear as a lack of
involvement and understanding of serious security problems, as a wait-and-see attitude or
even simply as red tape.
According to most of the partners the formal responsibility of the local government to
coordinate the local safety policy should also imply the coordination of local security
networks. However, most of these networks are not (or only to a limited extent) coordinated
by the local government. Several factors mean that local governments often fail to meet this
expectation. First, the department of a local administration that is responsible for the local
safety policy is often not able to realise a coordination of local networks because of its inter-
nal marginal position and lack of competencies and resources. Secondly, local security
networks are predominantly implementation networks (O’Toole, Hanf, & Hupe, 1997).
Municipal officials, however, are often mainly oriented to the formation of policy and are
only marginally interested in day-to-day policy implementation. The practical problems
associated with implementation do not fit in with their ambitions. For this reason they often
try to withdraw from the responsibility of coordinating local security networks.
This coordination failure on the part of local government may have several effects.
Although many participants expect the local government to coordinate the local security
network, in fact it may be unclear who actually takes this responsibility. In some cases the
coordination may be fragmented among several of the participants or may be shifted from
one to another. In fact, there is often a continuous, partly hidden struggle going on about
 Police Practice and Research: An International Journal 221

who should coordinate the local security network. Until a couple of years ago in many cases
the community police officer decided to fill the gap left by the local government by taking
the responsibility for coordinating the network. However, the increasing emphasis on the
need to focus on ‘core business’ tasks often compels police officers to abandon this informal
coordination role. What remains is often the question of who will do this coordination now.

Participation by citizens
The involvement of citizens or (local) businesspeople in local security networks is highly
differentiated, sometimes even within one network. Four types of involvement by citizens
or entrepreneurs may be distinguished. The first two of these types of involvement are
primarily forms of ‘talking’; the last two are more based on specific activities or on ‘doing’
Downloaded by [Uppsala universitetsbibliotek] at 06:31 07 October 2014

some activity to intervene in safety problems. Both ‘talking’ and ‘doing’ may be either more
limited, or more extended (see Table 1).
The first type of citizen involvement is mainly based on the exchange of information
between the partners in the local security network. This type of citizen involvement may be
promoted by the police because of the need to get more information from citizens and to
have a closer relation with them (or as police officers in the Netherlands call it, ‘knowing
and being known’).
The second type of citizen involvement is not limited to the exchange of information,
but also intends to give a ‘voice’ to citizens in the formation of police and/or local govern-
ment policy. As a rule, however, despite the rhetoric of the participatory state, the actual
influence of citizens is quite small. Citizens see this especially as a consequence of a lack
of responsiveness of the local administration.
The third type of involvement is mainly based on the notion of self-reliant behaviour.
Citizens are asked to participate in the network to intervene actively in local safety problems
or to create a solution for problems of crime and disorder, for example, in their neighbour-
hood. Sometimes they are expected to do this on their own, but in most cases in collabora-
tion with others, like the police. In this view the prevention of crime and disorder is closely
associated with the promotion of social cohesion and informal control.
In most cases the involvement of citizens is the result of the initiative of others, like the
community police officer. The fourth type of involvement is the only type that is the result
of citizens’ or businesspersons’ own initiatives. Main activities of the network are here
implemented by citizens or businesspeople more or less on their own or (partially) funded
by them. For instance, a private policing organisation is paid by a group of businesses to
make frequent patrols through the streets of their industrial area.
The participation of citizens or businesspersons in local security networks may create
several tensions, some of which may be the result of conflicting expectations about their
role in the network. In one of the networks studied citizens wanted to have a clear voice in
the decisions of the local government (according to type II). However, municipal officials

Table 1. Four types of involvement by citizens or (local) businesspeople in local security networks.
Limited Extended
‘Talking’ Exchange of information (I) Citizens as advisors or participants in
decision-making (II)
‘Doing’ Promotion of self-reliant Safety activities under citizens’ control (IV)
behaviour (III)
 222 J. Terpstra

perceived citizens as only giving information (which is more an involvement of type I). The
community police officer wanted citizens not only to be just ‘talking,’ but to ‘do something’
and contribute actively to solutions to the problems of crime in their neighbourhood
(type III).
Other participants are often somewhat ambivalent about the contribution of citizens to
the local security network. Although they are convinced that citizens might have an impor-
tant contribution, in practice this is often seen as somewhat disappointing and of only
limited value. In the views of many of their co-participants, citizens in the local security
networks are often only interested in their own situation and are not able to take a more
detached view of the problems concerned. According to their partners, citizens often lack
the needed expertise and see their participation in the local safety platform mainly as a
frequent and pleasant social meeting with others, like their neighbours. This reflects a clash
Downloaded by [Uppsala universitetsbibliotek] at 06:31 07 October 2014

in perspectives between citizens (for whom participation in the local network is often
mainly a social phenomenon valued in itself) and representatives of formal organisations
(who have a more instrumental, utilitarian view of local security networks).
Although citizens are valued by their partners as participants in the local security
networks, in many cases they are also seen as ‘troublesome,’ as being ‘unrepresentative’ of
the community, or as the ‘loudmouths,’ who only create problems, a phenomenon also
found in other studies (Skogan, 1998; Terpstra, 2004). Several strategies are used by other
participants, like the community police officer or officials of the local administration, to
avoid the problems which they feel may be created by the presence of citizens. In some
cases citizens are (partly) excluded from information or decision making in the local
security network, even if this makes the network more complex and less transparent.
As a rule only a small number of citizens or local businesspeople participate in the local
security network. In most cases the participants may not be seen as representative of their
community: the young, members of ethnic minorities, or the low skilled are often poorly
represented (see also Benyon & Edwards 1999; Crawford, 1997, 2002; Pearson et al., 1992;
Skogan, 1998). This may be the result of both selection and self-selection.
Citizens or local businesspeople who participate in a security network may get into
a difficult position because different groups of citizens and/or businesspersons in their
community may have opposed interests or views.
In the recreational area with bars and discos mentioned before there are also houses.
Residents living here complain about the noise of visitors, loud music of the bars, and other
side effects, like litter, vandalism, burglary, and violence. Many of the owners of the bars
understand these complaints and try to a certain extent to decrease the noise and annoyance.
But they see this problem as fundamentally unresolvable. They think that the local govern-
ment should not have given permission to build new houses in this area. Some of the
residents decided to take the local government to court to get them to do something about
the noise produced by music in the bars. Other citizens who participate in the local security
network do not appreciate this. They think it is wiser to try to get an agreement by negoti-
ations, but also feel this is an unjustified criticism of their own role as representatives of the
neighbourhood.
In many cases a significant number of the citizens and/or businesspeople do not partic-
ipate in the local security networks. Nevertheless, they often also benefit from the preven-
tive measures taken by the network. Businesspeople who participate (and sometimes pay for
the measures taken by the network) often disapprove of what they call the ‘free-riding’ of
the others. As long as the participation in local security networks is voluntary, it is almost
impossible for individual citizens and/or businesspersons to find an adequate answer to
this problem of non-participation. In some cases local businesspeople expect the local
 Police Practice and Research: An International Journal 223

government to solve this problem by forcing non-participating businesses in their area to

become members of an association which is responsible for the so-called ‘facility manage-
ment’ of the area. This association should, among other things, be concerned with preven-
tion and control of safety problems. The local government may force business firms in the
area to become a member of the association and to contribute towards its costs: if they do
not contribute, the local government will refuse to grant them a permit to locate their firm
in the area concerned.
In some of the networks citizen participation is seen as a way to promote self-reliant
behaviour. Participating citizens and businesspeople are expected to informally control
other citizens and if needed to try to influence their behaviour. In practice it proves to be
very difficult to realise this ideal of active citizens as informal agents of social control. Fear
of threats and reprisals makes citizens abandon an attempt to correct other people, such as
Downloaded by [Uppsala universitetsbibliotek] at 06:31 07 October 2014

a group of boys hanging around in the neighbourhood. In some cases people think that it is
actually the duty of the police or the local government to take care of the local safety prob-
lems. Self-reliant behaviour may also be restrained because it is not clear to citizens what
exactly is expected of them or they do not know how they should try to control and correct
other people.

Conclusions
The policy of responsibilisation and the shift from ‘government’ to ‘governance’ in the
prevention and control of crime, disorder, and insecurity should be seen as endeavours to
create an answer to the lack of effectiveness and the eroding legitimacy of the police and
criminal justice agencies in many of the Western European countries today (Crawford, 1997;
Garland, 1996). However, the local security networks create a wide range of new problems
with serious consequences for their effectiveness and legitimacy. The aimed participation
by the police, local government, and citizens in Netherlands’ local security networks is
achieved only to a limited extent. This participation encounters serious problems and contra-
dictions. A range of factors is relevant here, like the resource dependencies between the
participants (and the resulting uneven distribution of influence in the network), the conflict-
ing perspectives between them, contradictory expectations about their proper role, the lack
of congruence between the notion of local cooperation and the policy or policy traditions in
several of the relevant policy fields. The strategy of responsibiliation is hard to reconcile with
the current stress on a more punitive policy and with the increasing dominance of managerial
demands that the police organisations face. One of the main contradictions is that the police
try on the one hand to cooperate with other agencies in local security networks, but on the
other hand they are forced to concentrate on their ‘core business’ tasks and to retreat from
active participation in the networks. This may result in a new distance between the police
and local society (which is hard to reconcile with the envisioned community style of policing)
and in the refusal of the police to go on taking care of the coordination of local security
networks. Both the police and other participants expect that the local government will replace
the police as the coordinator of local security networks. This study clearly indicates that local
governments often fail to meet this expectation, the result being that the responsibility of
coordination becomes an object of struggle among the participants involved, is fragmented
among several agencies, or is abdicated and passed from one to the other.
One of the main problems of local security networks has to do with the participation of
citizens (or local businesspeople). In many cases it is hard to realise the intended involve-
ment of citizens in local security networks. One of the problems is that the expectations of
citizens’ participations are both high and divergent. The differences in perspectives between
 224 J. Terpstra

citizens and representatives of formal organisations often gain insufficient attention.

Participation of citizens is hampered by a range of problems, like the conflicting interests
between different groups of citizens, the problems of a limited representation of the partic-
ipating citizens, or their lack of resources and information. Each of the types of citizen
involvement in local safety policy distinguished earlier seems to have its own impediments.
Each type of citizen participation requires that the police and local government are closely
involved in local security networks. These networks depend on resources and competencies
that only the police and/or local government have. Self-reliant behaviour of citizens will
often only be possible if it receives sufficient, tangible support from the police. Citizens and
businesspeople on their own are not equipped to find adequate solutions for problems of
non-participation and free-rider behaviour. Moreover, important individual and social
values are involved in safety policy and security networks. The promotion of safety for one
Downloaded by [Uppsala universitetsbibliotek] at 06:31 07 October 2014

category of people may have unintended consequences for another group. Safety policy,
even if it is partly in private hands, is fundamentally concerned with a public good. A close
involvement of the police and (local) government is needed. Responsibilisation should not
be equated with a retreat, by either the police or the local government.

Note on contributor
Jan Terpstra is associate professor at the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Faculty of
Law, University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. His main research interests are police, public safety,
criminal justice, and policy implementation. His most recent book is about the managerialisation of
the Dutch police. He is currently preparing a book based upon an observational study of community
police officers.

References
Bauman, Z. (1999). In search of politics. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Benson, J.K. (1975). The interorganizational network as a political economy. Administrative Science
Quarterly, 20(2), 229–249.
Benyon, J., & Edwards, A. (1999). Community governance of crime control. In G. Stoker (Ed.), The
new management of British local governance (pp. 145–167). Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Blagg, H., Pearson, G., Sampson, A., Smith, D., & Stubbs, P. (1988). Inter-agency co-operation;
Rhetoric and reality. In T. Hope & M. Shaw (Eds.), Communities and crime reduction
(pp. 204–220). London: HMSO.
Crawford, A. (1997). The local governance of crime: Appeals to community and partnerships .
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Crawford, A. (2002). Public participation in criminal justice [Electronic version]. Criminal justice
review 1999–2001. Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, University of Leeds. Retrieved March
2004, from http://www.leeds.ac.uk/law/ccjs/homepage.htm
Dijk, F. van, & de Waard, J. (2000). Publieke en Private Veiligheidszorg: Nationale en Internation-
ale Trends. Den Haag: Ministerie van Justitie, Directie Algemene Justitiële Strategie.
Garland, D. (1996). The limits of the sovereign state: Strategies of crime control in contemporary
society. British Journal of Criminology, 36(4), 445–471.
Garland, D. (2000). The culture of high crime societies: Some preconditions of recent ‘law and
order’ policies. British Journal of Criminology, 40(3), 347–375.
Johnston, L. (2000). Policing Britain. Risk, security and governance. Harlow: Longman.
Johnston, L., & Shearing, C. (2003). Governing security. Explorations in policing and justice .
London: Routledge.
Loveday, B. (1999). The impact of performance culture on criminal justice agencies in England and
Wales. International Journal of the Sociology of Law, 27, 351–377.
Martin, D. (2003). The politics of policing: Managerialism, modernization and performance. In R.
Matthews & J. Young (Eds.), The new politics of crime and punishment (pp. 154–177). Cullomp-
ton, Devon: Willan.
 Police Practice and Research: An International Journal 225

Newburn, T. (2001). The commodification of policing: Security networks in the late modern city.
Urban Studies, 38(5/6), 829–848.
Newman, J. (2001). Modernising governance: New labour, policy and society . London: Sage.
Osborne, D., & Gaebler, T. (1993). Reinventing government. How the entrepreneurial spirit is
transforming the public sector. New York: Addison-Wesley.
O’Toole, L.J., Hanf, K.I., & Hupe, P.L. (1997). Managing implementation processes in networks. In
W.J.M. Kickert, E.H. Klijn, & J.M.F. Koppenjan (Eds.), Managing complex networks. Strategies
for the public sector (pp. 137–151). London: Sage.
Pearson, G., Blagg, H., Smith, D., Sampson, A., & Stubbs, P. (1992). Crime, community and
conflict: The multi-agency approach. In D. Downes (Ed.), Unravelling criminal justice. Eleven
British studies (pp. 46–72). Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Pfeffer, J., & Salancik, G.R. (1978). The external control of organizations. A resource dependence
perspective. New York: Harper & Row.
Pierre, J. (Ed.). (2000). Debating governance. Authority, steering, and democracy . Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Downloaded by [Uppsala universitetsbibliotek] at 06:31 07 October 2014

Reiner, R. (1992). Policing a postmodern society. The Modern Law Review, 6, 761–781.
Rose, N. (1999). Powers of freedom. Reframing political thought. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Rose, N., & Miller, P. (1992). Political power beyond the state: Problematics of government. British
Journal of Sociology, 43(2), 173–205.
Skogan, W.G. (1998). Community participation and community policing. In J.P. Brodeur (Ed.),
How to recognize good policing? Problems and issues (pp. 88–106). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Terpstra, J. (2004). Governing the police in the local governance of crime and disorder. In K. van
der Vijver & J. Terpstra (Eds.), Urban safety: Problems, governance and strategies (pp. 87–
105). Enschede: IPIT.
Terpstra, J., & Kouwenhoven, R. (2004). Samenwerking en netwerken in de lokale veiligheidszorg.
Zeist: Kerckebosch.