NCJ Number
79903
Date Published
1981
Length
104 pages
Annotation
This report emanates from a conference attended by representatives of the national and municipal police, the Royal Military Police, the Ministry of Home Affairs, and the Ministry of Justice of the Netherlands to discuss police mobile units in the wake of large-scale police operations performed on April 30, 1980.
Abstract
An evaluation report by the Amsterdam police chiefs of the April 30, 1980, operation was used as the basis of discussion at the conference. The objective of the conference was to help improve or optimize organized group police operations. Special attention was paid to the judicial aspects of such operations. Discussion topics were organization and preparation of police operations; the support units for initial reception, instruction, provision, and withdrawal; the task of the mobile units; mobile unit organization; tactics and techniques of mobile unit operations; mobile unit arms and equipment; mobile unit communications equipment, and transport vehicles. The conference emphasized that police action in public disturbances must at all times be geared to deescalating tension and violence. Among conference recommendations are that the specific duties of the mobile units be defined, be distinguished from general police responsibilities, and coordinated with support units of the Royal Military Constabulary. Policy must be made particularly clear on the use of force and on detention practices during large-scale public disturbances. Also needed is a more effective legal framework for judicial action in these circumstances. In general, the police mobile units must be raised to a sufficient state of preparedness to be deployed on short notice in large-scale disasters for maintaining law and order with maximum protection to the public and optimal safety for the police. Appended are two reports of the Arms Committee, the conference program, and a study group report on police organization.