The role of police in community
crime prevention
Transforming Hungarian policing into
knowledge-based policing
Community Crime Prevention
• Community Crime Prevention (later: CCP) is a
professionally committed social movement aiming at
achieving a better public order by
– curbing consequences of underlying crime causes
– reducing risk of victimisation
– diminishing incidence of offending
• CCP clusters professional and civil agents of crime
prevention
• National Crime Prevention Board is CCP headquarter
• National Strategy of Community Crime Prevention is
in force from November 2003
Public Order – a socially devoted approach
• Public order is
– a collective achievement of the society
– a result of the co-operation of efforts & endeavours
– a product of the whole community accomplished
by co-operation of social & professional partners
• Police is a key player in establishing public
order
• None of the possible partners has monopole
position in producing public order
Structure of the Hungarian police
• Hungarian police is
– highly centralised
– militarised
– separated from civil administration
• Unchanged is good even in a changing world
• Changes worsen efficiency
• Sworn police officers are subordinated to a
strict and militant hierarchy
Functions of the Hungarian police
• Key functions of the Hungarian police involve
–
–
–
–
criminal law enforcement
maintaining public order – the concept of visible policing
traffic enforcement
immigration enforcement (due to soon merger with now
independent Border Guard)
• Hungarian police is a uniform organisation – no
functional or professional independence is granted
either branches of police activities
• Hungarian police is a militarised organisation – being
a brave police officer is often simplified to following
orders & commands
Efficiency of the Hungarian police
• The police appraises its own efficiency
– it supplies the gauge to measure
– it monopolises the data upon which its appraisal stands
• No outsiders or ‘civilians’ shall be welcome to
evaluate the police and its work
• No cost & benefit analyses
• The police always appraises its work & performance
perfect and assumes itself the best possible solution
Performance of the Hungarian police
• Hungarian police does reactive policing & focuses on
law enforcement
• It is widely empowered to implement means of secret
& under cover detection (police intelligence)
• Maintaining public order & traffic enforcement often
involves challenging everyday citizens for ID without
reason
• No full compliance with human rights, fundamental
freedoms & constitutional safeguards
Knowledge of the Hungarian police
• Police is the fieldworker of law enforcement
• Police still holds the monopoly of case-oriented
knowledge, i.e.
–
–
–
–
has a general overview of the crime complex
experiences changes in both structure & volume of crime
perceives shifts in territorial features of offending
holds the knowledge of how to investigate into and enforce
criminal offences
• Police is a key supplier of crime statistics in Hungary
• Police possesses enormous forensic expertise
What is CCP waiting from the police
• To be a co-operating professional partner
• To pay attention to the needs of those communities it
serves & protects
• To be considerate to community policing values
• To work together in preparing people not to conceive
public order any more as a social service funded and
supplied by the government
• To contribute to strengthening self-defence
capabilities of citizens, communities and market
players
What makes policing knowledge-based
• Giving up believing that police is the monopole
supplier of public order
• Approaching crime problems with a CCP attitude
• Employing knowledge & expertise CCP accumulated
in everyday policing
• Involving citizens & municipalities in producing &
maintaining public order
• Being open towards recent findings of criminal
sciences and criminological research
Thank you
for your kind
attention