Partnership policing for police organisations

For the past 30 years, following a general move towards more holistic justice practices, new managerialism and 'whole-of-government' approaches to social issues, the notion of partnership and collaboration in the public service has been promoted in government documentation, business plans, internal directives and memos. It is documented and scrutinised by public service managers and academics alike, and whole-of-government approaches to a number of social problems seems a catchphrase the world over and has become a focus of most public sector agencies. Police organisations fall prey to such terminology, and the requirement to do more with less, among others, has seen the arrival of new partners, which requires that police 'do business' differently. This chapter considers how this might be done.

This chapter sets out partnership policing, its background, its use and its mechanics, particularly in the area of problem solving-whether relating to crime prevention or crime reduction. Then, the chapter considers how police and partners can do better in operationalising and sustaining such partnerships to achieve better outcomes for all parties and the community. This chapter looks at the range of possible partners for police and at the roles and responsibilities that are devolved to all actors-police and others-according to the nature of partnership initiatives. In reflecting on the hurdles in implementing partnership policing, this chapter considers the problematic nature of working on and in partnerships, mainly due to the inviSibility of the procedural effort required in building and sustaining partnerships, and to the paucity of strong numerical data (the touchstone of current mainstream performance management) to measure this effort. This chapter also explores some of the tools and repositories of knowledge that police organisations should use to build strong collaborative agreements, and reallocate specialty non-police activities into the hands of their rightful owners. Partnerships have become indispensable. This chapter contributes to policing literature by showing how and why they have become so, and how police can build their use and rationale into police practices.