Paradigm Lost: The Dutch Dilemma

Maurice Punch London School of Economics, UK Bob Hoogenboom Nyenrode University, the Netherlands Tom Williamson University of Portsmouth, UK

n the 1970s the Dutch police developed a paradigm of policing that married ideas from the United States on community-oriented policing to a strongly social and democratic role for the police in society. From the early 1990s there was a gradual shift to the right in Dutch society that was reflected in concerns about crime and safety. The paradigm came under scrutiny. Then Dutch officers began to visit New York in considerable numbers and returned with ideas on zero tolerance.This tough approach to crime reduction appears to conflict with Dutch tolerance in criminal justice. The paper argues that there is reluctance to abandon that original paradigm, ambivalence about the new concepts from abroad but, above all, an inability to develop a new, comprehensive paradigm. This may well be true elsewhere and we assume that modern policing needs to be based on a well-thought paradigm on the police role in society.

In many societies the police organisation has experienced significant change in recent years (Chan, 1997; Newburn, 2003). Brogden (2005) asserts that there is a global criminal justice movement driven by international institutions, governments, consulting firms and a veritable industry of entrepreneurial academics and practitioners promoting change programs (of varying quality and integrity). In some transient societies South Africa, Northern Ireland, and Eastern and Central Europe, for example there are efforts to foster a profound change in policing with outside expertise and funding. Even where policing has an awful record of human rights abuses and corruption, as in Brazil and Argentina, there is a reform agenda ostensibly to develop a professional, accountable and universal police service (Hinton, 2005, p. 1). In cases of major reform we can refer to paradigm shift, whereby the values and practices of policing are substantially renewed (e.g., on South Africa; Marks, 2003). The thrust of developments in police reform in transient societies is to move forces from being a feature of state repression, with low legitimacy and accountability, to a fundamentally different style of policing responsive to public needs, professional in its conduct and with enhanced legitimacy and accountability. This has often drawn on the conceptual vocabulary of community-oriented policing, or
Addresses for correspondence: Maurice Punch, (res.) Veenendaalplein 8, NL 1185 DD Amstelveen, the Netherlands. E-mail: punch@xs4all.nl

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COP, and, more recently, on human rights (Crawshaw, Devlin, & Williamson, 1999). In the USA and UK in particular COP was a diffuse label that signified a shift away from the professional model of a centralised force geared to law enforcement and emergency response to a decentralised model of community involvement, problem-solving and taking citizens needs seriously (Bayley, 1994; Waddington, 1999). An excellent example of this twin thrust is the Patten Report in Northern Ireland where a fundamental reform of the police was seen as essential to the peace process after 30 years of near-civil war; the organisation had to shift from a security focus to becoming a legitimate agency responsive to the diverse communities and with a commitment to human rights (Patten Report, 1999). A third thread in reform is introducing managerial improvements in policing; this may appear to be more instrumental and ideologically neutral than the other elements but all these developments are fraught with assumptions and ideological quicksand. We should be aware that there is no one right model that fits all sizes, that organisational change is never linear and unproblematic and that there may be an element of short-sighted conceptual imperialism to exporting change (Brodgen, 2005). Moreover it remains the case that each country will retain its own specific dynamic of change related to a particular combination of historical, sociopolitical, cultural and institutional factors. The change dynamic in Britain, the USA and Australia, for example, displays some common themes but also individual characteristics (in the last a pattern of corruption and reform; Dixon, 1999). The analysis of these complex processes can focus at the macro level but also at the national, casestudy level. In turning to the Netherlands in this article the focus is on the latter. In comparison to societies and policing systems that have been through dramatic if not traumatic change, the rather genteel reforms in the stable, affluent and liberal society of the Netherlands may appear unproblematic. In the 1980s and 1990s it was not a divided society, did not have international agencies pushing for a more accountable police, did not experience insistent government pressure and had widely implemented forms of community-oriented policing. In many ways Dutch policing had already made the institutional, managerial and conceptual leaps that forces in other countries were being encouraged to make (Punch, van der Vijver, & Zoomer, 2000). In dissecting the Dutch process of change we shall argue that the interest of this case-study is that it illustrates a shift away from a progressive paradigm of policing to a harder style; this is almost the reverse of the process elsewhere. Furthermore, the primary dynamic for change came largely from professional debate within the police leadership. Perhaps most significantly, although there has been an array of changes in policing (Bayley & Shearing, 2001), although some police leaders claim to be surfing the waves of innovation with aplomb (Blair, 2003), and although the Netherlands may appear to represent a case of well-lubricated change, there does remain a measure of resilience about abandoning or shifting paradigms (which should not surprise academics; Kuhn, 1962).

The Dutch Social Paradigm of Policing

On the surface the Netherlands appears to be a small and homogeneous society with a strong central state. Compared to the mish-mash of agencies in the decentralised

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USA (Loveday & Reid, 2003), the Dutch Police would probably be perceived by outsiders to be a national force. In practice there is more of a national/regional, twotier structure with the large municipalities still playing an influential role through the mayor (Policing in the Netherlands, 2004). But there is central governmental control of policing, much uniformity in training and equipment and only 26 police chiefs (with some 40,000 officers, about the same as New York or London). Surely, one might think, this must be an ideal environment for innovation because the system is relatively small and coherent and can be steered from the centre. But some of Punchs experiences from the mid-70s onwards with the Dutch Police revealed local chauvinism, resistance to central control and a resentment of the dominance of the Randstad (the western part of the country, with Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague). This proviso is simply to warn against overemphasising the degree of consensus and cohesion over practical implementation within the Dutch system. But of major significance here is that the Dutch Police organisation has functioned with a widely accepted paradigm that has exerted considerable influence in the last two decades but which is now up for revision. What were the components of that paradigm? Punchs contacts with the Dutch Police have extended over a period of 30 years, from 1974 when he began fieldwork in the Amsterdam city centre (Punch, 1979). In that period he encountered old-fashioned policing that institutionally was highly reactive, with little sense of direction, and with a distant, bureaucratic leadership. This model was soon under attack for being distant, unresponsive and authoritarian and the criticism came not only from without, but also from within. The background was that Dutch society had reacted to the turbulence of the late 1960s with a leap to the left; politicians and others became progressive and policies were lenient notably on drugs, pornography and prostitution. The antiauthoritarian and at times anarchistic Provo movement of the 1960s continually provoked the police with playful happenings that often elicited a heavy-handed response; the organisation was held to be hopelessly out of touch with developments in society. One response to this societal change was that a new generation of critical young police officers started to kick against the old-style, hierarchical, bureaucratic system. In particular, three of them were given an assignment by the Ministry of the Interior to examine the manpower, strength and organisation of the police, but grasped this opportunity to write a critical report on policing in general (Nordholt & Straver, 1983; POS, 1977). This argued for a more internally democratic police and for a stronger external orientation to societal change (POS, 1977; the title was A Changing Police and POS stood for Project Group on Organisational Structure).
A Changing Police was mainly concerned with the legitimacy of the police in society. Straver was important for the content along with Wiarda, Nordholt and Hans Anderson (Straver, Wiarda and Nordholt were police officers, Anderson was a consultant). At that time there were very few people who thought seriously about policing and there was no research on the police. People wanted to change but noone knew exactly how to go about it; and then A Changing Police was designed to get back to the essentials, small is beautiful and so on, based on the new ideologies in society (Interview, Kees van der Vijver, Professor, University of Twente).

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All three of the young officers Nordholt, Wiarda and Straver later became influential and prominent chiefs (in Amsterdam, Utrecht and Haarlem respectively). The 1970s rebels became the new establishment. This report, and the triumvirate that produced it, are of central significance. For the call for reform had come from professionals within the system; it was not driven by government demands or by scandal (Sherman, 1978), but by a powerful, internal demand for change from critical young, middle-ranking officers. This report acted for many years as a leitmotiv for policing in the Netherlands and gave it a strong social character geared to societal change, internal democracy and the wishes of the public (Boin, van de Torre, & t Hart, 2003). Although this report was essentially a reflection of highly particular progressive changes in Dutch society, it did draw importantly on organisational concepts from the US. In particular, the Dutch model saw an affinity in moves by American police agencies towards community-oriented policing (COP) and problem-oriented policing (POP; Goldstein, 1979). These imported models fostered a series of experiments that were especially stimulated by the Department of Research and Development (O & O) at the Ministry of the Interior. The projects were oriented to both internal and external change in the police organisation; internal efforts were geared to better communication, less hierarchy, and decentralisation and were aimed at enhanced problem-solving; external efforts were centred on improved relations with the public, adopting a service-oriented mentality and focusing on societal problems. The two key figures at O & O, Broer and van der Vijver, were academically trained police officers. Following their research and development work at the Ministry, Broer and van der Vijver went on to implement devolved neighbourhood policing in Amsterdam (important in sealing the innovation nationally as this is the lead agency). Van der Vijver was later appointed Director of the Foundation for Police, Society and Safety (SMVP) and the SMVP became, in turn, an influential stimulator of change. SMVP had been set up in 1986 and it pushed for an emphasis on community safety, on increasing the self-reliance of citizens, on bringing back visible control agents (in public transport, schools and on the streets) and on informing the public on safety and prevention. Through conferences, projects, research, publications and publicity it strongly pushed two themes the need to focus continually on the relationship between police and society and the importance in communities of a proactive integrated safety policy with multiple agencies. And safety was a task to be shared with others and could not be the sole responsibility of the police (a forerunner of community safety and plural policing elsewhere; Crawford & Lister, 2005). In short, there has been continuous innovation since the early 1980s, with a few prominent players proving highly influential and with a substantial investment in socially conscious, locally oriented policing with an external focus in the community. Much of the conceptual content of the change came from the USA, and to a lesser extent the UK:
We looked particularly to the USA. We drew directly from the work of Chaiken and also from the Presidents Commission. With regard to community policing we more or less gave it our own flavour. With us it was much more about legitimacy than with the Americans (Interview, Kees van der Vijver).

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A great deal was based on COP and POP as well as team policing. The work of John Angell (1971) had a tremendous influence. When we read his work it was a sudden revelation. He analysed how you had to integrate the police both internally and to the outside world (Interview:, Kees van der Vijver). People also drew on the research experience of the Police Foundation in Washington, DC. Officers and policy- makers attended academic and policing conferences in the US, interacted with experts on police change there and some of these were subsequently invited to the Netherlands (Punch, 1983). Reflecting on that time we would say that the key Dutch actors would undoubtedly have drawn from American ideas but would have said that they were giving it a strong Dutch flavour. For Dutch society was quite unlike American society. It was in that period stable and affluent, had low levels of violent crime, had an advanced welfare state, high security of employment and had experienced low racial tension (Goudsblom, 1967). In fact, criminal justice in the Netherlands came to be viewed as an alternative paradigmatic model to the USA (and to a lesser extent Britain). In his analysis of Dutch penal policy, Downes (1988) showed that the judiciary had taken professional views on rehabilitation on board; few people were imprisoned compared to the US and UK and most prisons did not have punitive regimes (Punch, 1979). Indeed, in the early 1970s the number of prisoners in the Netherlands was falling despite rising crime. In 1975 the prison population was roughly four times less than in England and Wales, where the prison population had been rising for some 20 years (Downes, 1988, p. 7). This alternative, progressive paradigm in criminal justice the least inhumane in Europe (Bianchi, 1975, p. 1) was viewed by outsiders as a reflection of some presumed generic Dutch tolerance. To debate that concept is beyond the bounds of this paper but here we view it from three main perspectives that impacted on values and practices in criminal justice. First, the Netherlands was a liberal democracy that, rather like Canada, New Zealand and the Scandinavian countries, followed relatively progressive and humane policies on social issues. This fostered, as Downes (1988) shows, a genuinely liberal position on crime and punishment and most police chiefs, prison governors and politicians would have supported this (academics and their research findings were taken seriously). Second, the Dutch speak of a practice that is gedogen, or to which a blind eye is turned, which is more of a pragmatic or even opportunistic way of condoning a practice (Brants, 1999, speaks of regulated tolerance). Police chiefs, in consultation with the mayor and public prosecutor (formally his or her bosses), often tolerated practices that would have attracted enforcement in other countries. This pragmatic liberalism could, thirdly, also take the form of nondecision-making and of rationalising the postponement of problems (Pakes, 2004). During the 1970s in the centre of Amsterdam it was as if everything around gambling, prostitution and drugs was formally forbidden yet tolerated. It could be said, then, that the system was enlightened, that there was a large measure of consensus and that many criminal justice practitioners were operating along a fundamentally different paradigm to the USA. This could have come from a combination of pragmatism, opportunism and indifference but also from principles and conviction. But it did have a considerable impact on policies and practice in criminal justice in general and policing in particular (SMVP, 2004). Of importance

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in the filtering process of policy transfer is that the Dutch looked to the US, and UK, for working concepts and practical techniques. Indeed, a number of Dutch forces have had, and still have, strong professional connections with forces and training establishments in Britain; the distance is short, the language makes communication easier than elsewhere in Europe, and officers sense a similarity in working styles and values. Dutch officers and officials particularly rejected the harshness and punitiveness in criminal justice ideology and practice in the US (and still do; Een sociaal New York, 2004). In many ways American society was a negative reference point (Punch, 2005). For, in general, the Dutch policing paradigm was based on progressive values, minimising violence, avoiding conflict by negotiation with groups, and on close involvement in society to generate legitimacy and to increase the confidence of the public. The functioning orthodoxy was that virtually all basic policing was in decentralised teams with a geographic base, with specialised community beat officers geared to problem-solving (area managers) and with engagement in multiagency arrangements. Policing displayed a social face; indeed, in the 1980s the slogan was the police is your best friend. In Britain, in contrast, John Aldersons (1979) attempts, as Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall, to establish a more liberal, community-oriented police through similar ideas were ridiculed by other chiefs and it has taken two decades for Neighbourhood Policing to become the new orthodoxy with the Home Office promising to fund it in every force.

External Developments Impacting on Policing

However, there were forces gathering that challenged that paradigm. Before turning to scrutinise that challenge, we look briefly at some external developments that impacted on policing in general and inevitably also on Dutch policing (Manning, 1997; Reiner, 1997, 2000). Our focus in the previous section has been mainly on an internal analysis, but the Dutch are fervent travellers, speak several foreign languages, are often involved in international organisations and conferences and are usually well acquainted with external changes in policing. This is not to say that they are completely cosmopolitan, eternally searching for, and anxious to adopt, the latest innovation; but it is difficult for an advanced and open society, in a strategic location in Europe and a good EU citizen, to remain immune to wider alterations in policing that have impacted on other societies and their police (Chan, 1997; Morgan & Newburn, 1997). For reasons of space we simply list them (see Newburn, 2003, 2005). 1. Neo-liberalism: the rise of neo-liberal governments and policies (in the US, UK and elsewhere). 2. Punitiveness: rhetoric and practice in the US fostered increasing punitiveness in criminal justice; it is debateable as to the extent to which this was exported (for the UK, see Tonry 2004; Jones & Newburn, 2004; and for Australia, OMalley, 2004, and Dixon, 2005). 3. Managerialism: efforts were made to transfer managerial practices to public services and the impact of concepts and rhetoric from New Public Management (NPM) on policing was considerable (Leishman, Savage, & Loveday, 1996).

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4. Privatisation: the expansion of the private sector in criminal justice has posed a considerable challenge to public policing (Jones & Newburn, 1998; Stenning & Shearing, 1979). 5. Technology: the ICT revolution of the last two decades has had a tremendous impact on practical policing and internal control. 6. Risk: Ericson and Haggerty (1997) focus on the concept of the risk society where fear of risk and harm abound and where certain groups are proactively targeted. 7. Internationalisation: crime has become increasingly international in scope and this had an impact on cross-border policing in specialised agencies (Loader, 2004). 8. Partnerships and multilateralisation: from a monopoly position the police agency has moved to engage increasingly in multiagency partnerships; Bayley and Shearing (2001) use the term multilateralisation and refer to this process as the governance of security (Crawford & Lister, 2005, speak of plural policing). 9. Media and crime: particularly in the US and UK, the media has highlighted crime and crime control with a populist law and order slant arguing for tougher measures and heavier sanctions. 10. Militarisation: there has been substantial investment in soft end of policing but there have also been contrasting developments at the sharp end (Kraska, 2001). In the US there has been an increase in specially trained and heavily equipped paramilitary units and this is true of other countries. Particularly since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in the US there has been an emphasis on strong security measures in a number of societies. 11. Specialisation. Increasingly the police organisation has set up specialised units above front-line policing to cope with new forms of crime, ICT developments and new forensic techniques. 12. Economies of scale and national units: the last two decades have seen amalgamations, or proposals for amalgamations, of forces in several countries on the grounds of economies of scale (Savage, 1998) and the setting up of central national units to deal with serious crime domestically and across borders (Blair, 2003). 13. Gender and diversity: the composition of police forces has been altered by the recruitment of women and minorities while agencies have had to come to terms with diversity in the workplace and among victims and witnesses (Bowling & Phillips, 1997). 14. Accountability: a most significant factor is that police officers have become more accountable to governments, the courts, the press and the public for their policies and even for operational decisions (Punch & Markham, 2004). These 14 factors combined to have a substantial impact on criminal justice in general and policing in particular; in various ways they influenced Dutch policing and threatened its comforting, consensual paradigm.

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Paradigm Lost
What factors started to eat away at the Dutch policing paradigm and how did practitioners react to this? Already in the mid-1970s in Amsterdam it was evident that policing was dominated by two main features foreigners and drugs and both figure significantly in subsequent Dutch crime patterns. Indeed, crime began to rise sharply from the early 1970s with a fourfold rise between 1970 and 1983. The criminal justice system came under considerable strain; a policy document in 1985 spoke of the need for a drastic expansion in prison capacity up to the end of 1990 (Society and Crime, 1985). In a nutshell, the country became the centre of the European drug trade; there was substantial immigration notably from Turkey and Morocco; segments of crime became dominated by organised criminal groups; and there was increasing pressure from other members of the European Union to toughen policies. The opening of European borders with the Schengen agreement allowed for much greater ease of travel while the fall of the Soviet Union brought new threats from the East. In retrospect it is possible to see the Dutch Police by the early 1990s at a crossroad. In research conducted in 19941995 for the SMVP, which was reported in Searching for a Future (Punch, van der Vijver, & van Dijk, 1998; the translation of Toekomst Gezocht, SMVP, 1995), many of the problems were becoming increasingly evident. But debate was still predominantly within the paradigm of social policing with a high measure of devolution in neighbourhood teams (Gebiedsgebonden politiezorg, 2000). In 40 interviews that Punch conducted in 1994/1995, there was as yet no mention of new, tough policies in a potentially fresh paradigm. There was, however, an increasingly sombre picture of the criminal justice system painted in the media (SMVP, 1995), which then promoted a wider debate on the defects of criminal justice and of tolerance. This became increasingly critical throughout the 1990s and culminated in a sharp shift to the right politically with the rise of the populist politician Pim Fortyun (Pakes, 2004). There were views that people who had traditionally been associated with authority had lost that authority, that gedogen had gone too far and that the police had become too soft (Hoogenboom & Vlek, 2002; SMVP, 2000, 2004). By the mid-1990s it was clear, then, that the Dutch Police institution was looking for new paths to follow. And at that time there were some interesting developments in New York, and many significant changes going on elsewhere (see above). We focus primarily on three features which began to alter the views of leading practitioners in Dutch policing. First, the so-called New York miracle, with respect to which it was claimed that Brattons and Giuliani s policies had substantially reduced crime and made the city safer, proved highly attractive to many foreign police officers. Dutch police officers travelled in large numbers to the USA and to New York (Punch, 2005). The socalled zero-tolerance approach was based on assertive patrol with relentless attention to street crime and nuisance offences, on rapid use of information combined with pressure on senior officers to perform in crime-reduction and on multiagency initiatives to recover public spaces (Kelling & Coles, 1996). Although it might appear that this forceful approach sometimes referred to as kick ass (Bowling, 1999) is diametrically opposed to the Dutch social paradigm, some chiefs came

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back enthused with ideas; in several cities this impacted on policing with a far more prominent police presence on the streets, more attention to street crime and nuisance offences and a far more assertive stance on crime-related issues. The police were not alone on their way to the Big Apple and elsewhere in the US; the droves of criminal justice tourists included mayors, judges, prosecutors, politicians and other officials (de Volkskrant, of September 11, 2004, reported an Amsterdam delegation of 25 officials returning enthusiastically from New York). Second, Dutch governments increasingly adopted neo-liberal policies and, taking their example from New Labour and Tony Blair, started to reform public services. They went strongly down the road of New Public Management (NPM) with targets, performance contracts and budgetary restraint in policing. Police chiefs adopted the rhetoric of reducing crime, increasing safety, tackling antisocial behaviour and stimulating their officers to perform with defined quotas for summonses. This was a sea change from the relaxed, nonchalant and not always productive style of much Dutch policing. Third, the political and social climate in the Netherlands inexorably began to move away from the pillars of the Dutch consensual society based on tolerance, gedogen, laxity in regulatory enforcement, and the polder model of negotiation and compromise (Hoogenboom & Vlek, 2002; Pakes, 2004). Crime and safety became major societal issues, there were increasing interethnic tensions and vocal antiimmigration views, prison sentences increased and the police were being pressured to tackle crime and the nuisance offences on the streets. A crucial factor in this leaning to the right was pressure from other EU members to be more forceful, particularly on drugs enforcement from the neighbouring French and Germans. The Netherlands, as a good EU citizen which presided over the EU when treaties were signed pushing for greater coordination in criminal justice (Maastricht in 1992 and Amsterdam in 1997; Loader, 2004), could hardly remain an oasis of tolerance and restraint. That Europol went to the Netherlands could only have been bought by firm promises from the Dutch government. Without doubt there has been a shift in policies, practices and rhetoric with regard to policing. The traditional pillars of wisdom in the old policing paradigm are in the process of redefinition (Hoogenboom, 2005). But compared to other countries the government has not been that directive, the media debate has not been that rabid and there have, until recently, been no populist moral crusaders pushing law and order. Indeed, it is important to note that the major source of taking on new ideas and of implementing innovations has been the police leadership itself (Boin, van de Torre, & t Hart, 2003). In 1994 there was a major reorganisation that created 25 new regional forces with one central agency, the National Police Services Agency (Policing in the Netherlands, 2004). There are, then, only 26 leaders and they know one another intimately. In 1977 the blueprint for reform came from professionals within the system and again change is being driven largely internally. How, then, is this small cadre of senior officers responding to these significant developments in policing and have these led to any abandonment of the dominant social paradigm? First of all there is ambivalence. There are hard-liners, who state boldly that they are thief-catchers, who play down the social tasks of the police, maintain that community policing was bought at the price of neglecting the crime investigation

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function, and support the new national crime units. But there remains a strong ambivalence about introducing hard methods. This echoes the situation in Britain where the liberal elite of senior officers proved lukewarm if not antithetical to zero tolerance policing and bottom-line, crime-fighting rhetoric (Jones & Newburn, 2004; and for Australia, Dixon, 2005). Second, there is an attempt to combine new methods within the existing paradigm. The soft-liners not only argue for priorities, targets and reducing crime but also emphasise the need to continue efforts on safety, legitimacy, relationships with the community and an integral safety policy with other partners. Third, and this is related to the phases of development in the police leadership, there has been something of a circle the wagons strategy in a display of unanimity against an increasingly demanding environment. This new collectivism is modelled on the role of a management board in a private corporation and part of this style is to bury ones head in the mantras of NPM. There is a tendency to avoid big issues, to focus on performance and to adopt the fetishism of quantification. This escape into managerialism could be interpreted as side-stepping the need to confront the old paradigm. Many Dutch officials do not employ the punitive rhetoric of the US and UK but enthuse about reducing crime, hitting targets, setting priorities and nononsense tackling of problems with low leniency and swift sanctions. In deciphering the jargon there might well be a code indicating underlying punitiveness that cannot be expressed openly. Finally, and this is the phase now, there is a realisation that Dutch society and the wider environment is changing so rapidly that the police cannot rely on a paradigm formulated over 25 years ago in a time of heady radicalism. There is group within the Council of Chief Commissioners working on a new document. Again this is primarily an initiative of professionals from within, although now from the established hierarchy and not from the critical margins as in 1977. Yet there is considerable reluctance to abandon the old paradigm and in a number of interviews in 2004, chiefs insisted that A Changing Police still had relevance (Punch, 2005). There was even a feeling that it would not be possible to reproduce a new, comprehensive blueprint in the modern situation. In 1977 the police lagged behind the radicalisation in the wider society and was seen as a defensive, unwieldy mastodon. Now, and particularly since the rise (and murder) of the populist politician Pim Fortuyn, and the so-called revolt of the voters, the police are being seen as a soft, socially oriented service that has lost its cutting edge and authority, as being left behind by increasing conservatism in society and as in danger of becoming marooned in a sea of revulsion at a complacent past of tolerance, gedogen and compromise (Van Swaaningen, 2004).

Conclusion: Challenges
We have traced the development of a paradigm of policing which steered the Dutch Police for some 25 years. Its foundations rested on marrying community-oriented policing from the US and UK to the socially democratic consensus culture of negotiation, compromise and tolerance of the Netherlands. But a constellation of general external factors and specific domestic factors has put that paradigm under

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stress (Vlek et al., 2004). Reflecting on that process we perceive a number of general issues related to the challenges of change. First, neo-liberal governments tend to adopt short-term, productivity-oriented policies that limit the role of the police to crime-fighting. They also want more control over the police with increasing centralisation (this is the case in the UK and the Netherlands), are mesmerised by the fetish of auditing and quantification, and insist on micromanaging change processes. These factors can readily distort the broader police mandate while restricting the professional and even the operational autonomy of senior officers. Second, there are pressures to conform and to adopt uniform policies; these come from a variety of sources including the EU and Council of Europe, NGOs, individual governments, the successful marketing of American models and the promotion of these through a global industry of criminal justice entrepreneurs. There is a McDonaldisation of policing taking place. Third, the widespread adoption of NPM has tended to produce a generation of police managers. Part of that shift is that it is almost no longer necessary to think paradigmatically. Senior officers have become smarter and are clued up on organisational strategy, but the continuous need to cope with externally enforced change (such as new security measures against fundamentalist terrorism), to achieve performance targets (one police chief in Britain was expected to report on over 50 targets), and to meet escalating public demands and rising expectations, fosters a tendency to avoid the big issues and become preoccupied with system maintenance rather than with a philosophy guiding change and practice. There is a tendency to pick up swiftly new trends and catchphrases, or to recycle old concepts, with all the gullibility, glibness and lack of reflection that is evident among business executives with their addiction to gurus and slogans (Knights & McCabe, 2003). This explains the popularity of the diffuse if not vacuous concept of zero tolerance policing, which was a semantic sponge that promised something new while allowing the practitioner to interpret it any way he or she wished (Manning, 2005). Fourth, however much forces have gone down the road of COP, POP and partnerships, there is a residual orientation to having to switch organisational modes to cope with large-scale incidents, disasters and emergencies (Punch & Markham, 2004), while the occupational culture of front-line policing has always espoused thief-catching as central (Waddington, 1999). The police organisation can revert to the primal, latent, nonparadigm of crime control and order-maintenance without soul-searching; the New York model stripped of the hype, rebranding and jargon was simply a reversion to good old aggressive policing (the innovation was computer-aided ass-kicking). Fifth, a constellation of sociopolitical and economic factors in an increasingly global world have produced a shift to the right (even in previously left political parties and governments, with New Labour in the UK as the prime example), a preoccupation with threats and security and populist calls for tougher approaches to law and order. Finally, it could be argued that the Dutch island of tolerance was difficult to maintain when developments in policing elsewhere were pushing in the direction of tougher enforcement and less tolerance, when international political pressure demanded conformity, and when Dutch sociopolitical culture swung to the right

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(Van Swaaningen, 2004). The Dutch Police are, then, in the middle of a paradigm shift and that process is characterised by ambivalence, reluctance, delay and denial. Perhaps most significantly the Dutch paradigm was also about emancipating the police internally to make it a critical, reflective agency of professionals who were capable of generating their own philosophy of policing. That unique Dutch paradigm came at a specific time and a humane, tolerant and caring society produced a humane, tolerant and caring style of policing. But when major external developments, significant political pressure and, above all, a societal shift to the right within the Netherlands threatened once more to outflank them, the Dutch Police effectively relinquished their paradigm. In essence, the largest challenge to change is when police refuse to think paradigmatically. The alterations in society and in policing are increasingly complex and swift and in the struggle over who controls the police, and who defines policing, the threat is that others will impose their will and there will be a regression to a servile police leadership with Taylorisation of the lower ranks. The best defence for an embattled but self-respecting profession is a good, comprehensive paradigm. Our advice is, then, to roll your own.

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