Wesley G (2008) Why reforms fail, policing

and society
According to this publication the author/s shows that reforms are necessary for any organization
and this particular case police. The author also shows that police and the public are inseparable
entities and therefore co existence in this case is a must. The author examines the sources of
resistance to reforms in police and the factors are both external and internal, among these factors
leadership problems within the organization, politicians and other potential opponents on the
other side.
To the author policing reform is risky and hard. In this publication the writer refers to Chicago
Police and it seems the research was mostly made there. The police arrangement known here is
top managers, sergeants, street officers, elite units like detectives and union leaders which is not
much different with our arrangement here. It seems the author has vast experience and his facts
are based on wide opinions and information from police, community members throughout the
world but on community-oriented and problem solving projects plus narcotic studies.
Most innovations in policing come from outside the organization, thus academic consultants who
summarize some public outrage over police affairs. This always comes with support from
politicians and in the long run some change comes through this trend. According to the author for
us in the system we are just bickering internally and every one protecting his job.
At the top of the police organization, executives are on keeping their jobs and try to ensure that
the lower ranks perform. Even the top managers may not know what happens at the lower level
say at a guard point which means no feedback from our customers hence explaining why reforms
fail. we fail to thoroughly understand what can work for us; say the concept of community
involvement in policing as some way of modern policing.
According to the author, internal coordination within the organization is important but with a
public leaning, civilians can be of paramount importance to our work. We can learn something
from each other given the fact that we are both human beings, we co-exist and can learn from

one another and the challenges faced today can be well understood by coordination and hence
accept reforms aimed at improving the system.
The authors desire is a modern force flexible to any positive changes aimed at improving the
system. Police managers are typically command driven and their measure of success is success in
operations like the number of gangs arrested, guns recovered and everything is book and papers.
Hierarchy remains a key factor and modern tactics of employee empowerment remain major
obstacle.
A modern system depends on the managerial outlook and its top managers who must accept
reforms and move them down to their subordinates with ease for implementation. The author
sites an example where a new chief was brought in one of the large city to initiate community
policing he found that he was unable to get uniformed patrol division of the department to do
anything about it from the top down. Actually continuity in terms of standard operating
procedures is unable, we tend to use different parameters and every manager has his own
managerial style and way of doing things.
Units must be supported by managers and you find that you must take a leading role, volunteers
like crime preventers must be supported and it can act as a change strategy in our operations.
This one does not in any way affect the existing units actually even here in Uganda we tend to be
comfortable in our units and any other sister agency or support staff are seen as obstacles in our
comfort zones. Officers in these units we call them civilians because they work well and along
the community; liaison officers are seen as salary earners only and nothing to learn from them,
for crime preventers those are just typical civilians and yet these vigilantes have done a
tremendous job in some parts of the country.
Different styles of policing are a major challenge to reforms and in a long run this affects policies
and strategies of the organization and this ends up being costly. However the quality of our
officers and performance still heavily depends on the managers though at times its individual
discretion and judgment, the best way would be to explain new policies and strategies to our men
and encourage uniformity.
To crown it all the writer views community policing as a major reform aimed at making policing
a simple job and enjoyable, in his article he summarizes what happens at all levels for example

the rank and file officers they prefer to adequately to follow command and what they are
assigned to i.e. crime fighting and emergency work. Community policing means extra tasks and
tiresome assignments, for the detectives the writer says that they have an avoidance strategy of
promising to get involved in community policing soon and making arrests and seizing guns
remains core. The author also looks at external blocks like failure of intergency cooperation and
public unresponsiveness as some of the major impediments.
QN.2
Chicago police, Texas and the rest of the world are not different from Uganda police force, we
may have some disparities in technological advancement, development and set up of systems but
the bottom line remains crime and how to manage and prevent it. The ranking system may also
differ maybe due to naming but the fact remains hierarchy and schedule of duties which apply to
all forces in the world. Personally I joined Uganda police force in 2007 and all along I have been
working under the directorate of operations as a middle level manager and to the best of my
knowledge our core value is to keep law and order. Article 212 of the constitution of the republic
of Uganda stipulates our core function as Uganda Police Force and we work along that line. The
departments in Uganda Police Force are many but we work in the same line scoring in the same
goal and our functions are similar, its just a matter of specialization and professionalizing the
force that create different departments and units.
According to the paper Uganda Police mainly measures its success on curbing down crimes
using provided statistics which is usually annual. And reduction means exerted efforts,
increment means our troops have relaxed and therefore criminals taken advantage. We have been
in major reforms like creation of units as earlier mentioned all aimed at strengthening the force
through professional conduct, and training as one way of equipping our forces which is a major
focus these days.
This gives capacity to our troops in terms of discipline, confidence and individual discretion, all
this is aimed at improving the institution to greater heights and we are moving day by day.
Strategic leadership of Uganda Police is at its peak but the challenge is failure to implement
major reform and policies by the managers and even the lower cadres. Last year in the month of
October we celebrated 100 years of police existence and the major promise to community we

serve was that we are shifting from colonial policing to modern policing embraced by
community policing. This concept called community policing must be understood properly by
Uganda Police Force because this is the way to go. Separating the community from police is a
risky venture, as earlier mentioned we live in the same society and therefore we must co-exist
,supplement one another and hence peace, stability and development in the long run.
We live in the modern era of sophisticated crimes like terrorism, robberies etc and community
participation in this is a key because crimes at most are committed in our absence and we
respond after, therefore we must be able to get useful information from the members of the
community cordoning the scenes apprehending the criminals and many others are all fruits of
community policing.
Experts in terrorism say the best weapons to terrorism are our eyes. This must be well understood
and it will yield wonders. Crime prevention tactics like recruitment of crime preventers per
village, neighborhood watch all is community policing but however this land mark innovation
faces challenges as earlier mentioned, policing is the same worldwide, the mode and magnitude
differs.
Community policing must be well understood right from top managers of Uganda police to lower
cadres because this is the only way to go. We as police, community participation at all levels
must be at the peak and work will be simplified. We must be able to identify societys problems
together with the public and look for practical solutions to manage them. Our actions must be
transparent and well understood by every one for ease of participation. Accountability is the
modern management tool for transparency, top managers are mindful of the discipline of the
force and reduction of crime rate; The reports we write and other communications we make its
what our top manager use as a measure for testing the ground and at times we tend to alter facts
by defending ourselves and our offices, of course strict management to the grass root is an
expensive venture and it needs too much resources which may be hard for us being in mind our
economy. Like any other policing system having a measure of success in this mighty community
policing is a major problem, as unit commanders the only successful measure we have always
used is public response through the feedback we get. We can easily know the number of guns
recovered, suspects apprehended and taken to courts through our records but community policing
stands a challenge, even individual performance of our troops in this field stands a challenge but

on a positive note, community policing is now one of the major course units in our training and
we shall get through. As human of course that tendency of the fear of unknown also is in our
forces but the crucial point of community policing must be understood and the core values of this
process should be upheld. Most of our fears are not realities but people in forces always want to
have comfort and shield in there waiting to get their monthly pay and thats all, confidence in
everyone is must uniformity in the way we do our things following our laws will always remain
core.
The perception that community policing is always for liaison officers and some uniformed
people is wrong, for specialized units they tend to stay to their schedules and as per the author
the same applies to those forces everywhere, this must change, every member of the force should
exercise community policing at his level. Policing is a service with conviction and therefore
anybody in the organization must understand this, have passion for service, listen to the
community needs and expectations and striving towards achieving that. A police officer must not
work against the community he serves, yes its the community where wrong elements are found
but we must work towards reforming them, we must know why we have correctional services,
crime must be committed but we need to fight it, draw lessons from such occurrences and deter
re-occurrence. All this is possible through community participation,
we exist because we have a public to serve and in it there some crimes committed due to certain
factors and as an elite force we should be able to be a step ahead, get information from the
public, utilize it to suit their policing demands and we must be committed to achieve this. Unit
commanders must be able to know these dynamics in society, balance between our community
and the forces and at the core of it all reactive policing must be exercised along with pro active
policing.
Internal factors of why reforms fail take a big portion than the external factors we must accept
change. Its unfortunate that some of our forces are rigid and have stuck to old policing tactics
against a modern policing aiming at cooperating with the public through community policing and
its core values. Over detention of suspects, the bucket system, police bond questions all still
remain a big challenge. We had established a system of investigating minor offences before we
carry on arrests to avoid overcrowding in our cells, this has failed to work because our juniors
benefit out of this through extortion. Police bond is another money minting exercise for our

juniors and elite forces like the detectives and they fear to go for community policing because of
of public feedback on bond. Despite the measures in place, some of these issues remain
challenges to reforms in Uganda police.
The spirit of continuity is another challenge for us office bearers, a newly transferred officer in
the unit comes with his fresh ideas opposing the old system this causes breakage and puts our
juniors in dilemma and our community policing approach seems different and yet this must not
be the case.
Politicians are an important section of players in the field of good governance, policy action and
legislation at times is done according to their needs and preferences that suit these people while
in offices. As one of the core functions the constitutions mandates us to cooperate with civilians
in maintaining law and order, through community policing we have tried to vise means that suit
our policing demands like crime preventers, but its quite unfortunate that politicians term them
election vigilantes which is a misconception, as police ours is crime prevention. In any case if
these were election vigilantes still we have seen a lot of up rise coming from elections which end
up claiming lives, loss of property and as police we must have our independence and do our
mandate without fear or favor, any form of violence we all have what to lose and therefore
coordination in matters of safety is key and we must cooperate. Well crime preventers
sustainability is a challenge which must be understood, control of that big force with expectation
is a challenge too and unit commanders must try towards promoting the spirit of voluntarism and
people will support our efforts.
The public order management act before it was passed it faced too much resistance in the current
parliament especially by the members of the opposition, even a pupil in primary two can tell the
price of public disorder like in Kampala, the tear gassing, property damage and looting and even
loss of lives like in the so called Kabaka riots of 2009. We must regulate some of these
processions as a matter of fact, the damage out of these riots in Kampala is just tremendous
some people have got permanent injuries and by way of legislation our politicians must make
laws aimed at improving policing standards and at the same time laws that are understood and
easy to enforce for the good of our people.

Policing in Uganda is a key in security matters and we must make the environment conducive
for everyone, allow free trade that is free from insecurity and hence development. We shall
always work towards achieving development.
The three arms of governments must be able to notice the importance of humanity and exercise
their powers in the interest of society needs and expectations, the Rotarians call it service above
self, this is what we exercise in forces for example by working on a 24 hour basis is an example
of service above self. We must guard our people. The laws we make should really be
implementable, condemn the greedy individuals who work towards satisfying self ego. We must
bear in mind that the current sophisticated public where crime changes trend every day the three
arms of government must coordinate. Inter agency cooperation is key in this as we build capacity
in areas like proper investigations, responding to emergency calls, surveillance, and we need
support from all the stake holders.

QN.3
The paper is so interesting and I have noticed with concern that policing is policing despite the
location where you are. we must be able to corporate with the community uphold our policing
standards and by the way the public will appreciate our efforts.
With great concern, managers must be at the front of any reforms in the organization, the burden
of making sure anybody understands the new innovations is on the managers and it must be done
well with love and passion so that everybody owns the system.
Community policing is an important element in modern policing by equipping the public with
crime prevention tactics in homes your reducing on the 999 calls and hence cost reducing in the
long run, priorities like well fare are catered for.
Hierarchy in an organization is a must because policy action must be guided well and at the same
time modern administration tactics must be used like employee empowerment. We must
coordinate because everyone in an organization is important including the support staff. As
earlier mentioned we maybe in different departments but our vision and mission are same and we

should all work in achieving that. As a commander I exist because there troops to command and
we are inter- linked.
In terms of performance appraisal of individual staff, key reforms like community policing
should be given priority. We should be able to know the performance of our troops measure it
and reward the performers, despite the schedules everybody will understand how important the
reforms will be and it will not fail.
By reading this paper it gives me an insight that we must always read and it is through such
reading that we can get vast knowledge of what is around us and what policing is worldwide and
also exposes our insight to other challenges in other countries and what steps they have implored
to meet them.
We have detractors in the force who are always negative and against reforms we must keep
encouraging them through training and other recreation services so that they can be able to learn
what worked where and how we can imply it here. The force we serve must have some kind of
preservation for the next generations and service should be aimed at serving our people and
never give detractors chance to fail our system.
Lastly, standard operating procedures should be the emphasis in our training. Am wondering why
we should do the same job differently this confuses the public we serve and therefore major
reforms like community policing should be carried out the same way using the same syllabus and
school of thought