Introduction

Now that police corruption and prevention strategies have been covered, the purpose of this chapter is to explain how police reform fits within wider security initiatives based on political ideals. We begin by looking at the dynamics of SSR, and more narrowly police reform, to focus on rebuilding a police sector and reforms that include the justice sector. We then explore post-conflict reconstruction and the liberalist forms that dictate externally driven statebuilding operations and the repercussions these have on patronage relations.

The subsequent parts of the chapter cover post-conflict policing in the context of Haiti and Iraq to draw out some comparisons with Afghanistan. I will demonstrate that the liberal model of police reconstruction has attempted to move to a more reflexive model of democratic policing but former liberal imperatives – namely fighting an insurgency and thus militarising the police – commence in post-9/11 conflict zones. The final section covers police reform to curtail corruption in volatile settings, which includes Honduras, Venezuela and Serbia. Although Honduras and Venezuela are developing states and affected by instability, and may not necessarily qualify as postconflict states, they are appropriate examples here because they share similar traits of police forces engaged in high levels of criminality and corruption.

Security sector reform

Corruption seriously undermines security and the rule of law. It has been recognised that security actors in conflict-stricken states are ethnically, religiously and politically polarised due to their affiliations, and lack professional standards, which leads to corruption, nepotism and lack of oversight (Özerdem, 2010: S43). In order to combat corruption by strengthening the security and judicial sectors, SSR and poverty alleviation became a policy goal forwarded by the DFID in early 1999 (Ball, 2007: 94). This rationale contended that if a security force is not professionalised, corrupt, ethnicised or is poorly regulated, it will aggravate security problems (Hendrickson, 1999: 9). If SSR is planned incorrectly, citizens may be in danger due to incompetent security forces, political factions, a weak and unjust justice system and irregular militias (distinct from the national army or state police). SSR is endeavouring to professionalise state police and the armed forces, to undergo human rights, anti-corruption and ethics training to reduce corruption and oppression, and to install a security sector that does not actually endanger its citizens (Hutton, 2009: 5).