From Repressive to Community Policing in Uganda

Abstract

Uganda Police Force has over the years been transformed from repressive policing to community policing, especially through deliberate institutional change. There is a relationship between the trend that Uganda Police Force is taking and the general socio-economic and political situation in the country. Indeed the national transformations like the regime change (NRM 1986), economic liberalization and political pluralism, and global issues like transformations in technology, globalization, and increasing regional integration have significantly changed the societal demands, hence if the Uganda Police Force is to perform in such an era, change must be embraced. Therefore, underpinning the role of the police in the new democratic dispensation in Uganda, facilitating and encouraging civil society democratic oversight and accountability, capacitating the Ugandan police force to play a leading role in national development would necessitate undertaking strategies that bridge the gap between the force and the public. Critical issues such as promotion of human rights and the rule of law based on the principle of community policing, require a total reexamination of the Uganda Police Force’s approach to work which, especially given the emerging recognition of the centrality of the police, must be undertaken on a professional base that encourages discipline, accountability, and pro-people policing in peacetime and democratic Uganda.