Abstract:

The research finds that, in Georgia, a partnership-based policing approach has not yet developed into a fully functioning independent institutional framework. Its practical effectiveness is limited by the functional overloading of community officers, insufficient clarity of their legal status, weak mechanisms of local accountability, and irregular communication with the public.
The scientific novelty of the study lies in assessing this institution not as an additional preventive function of the police, but as a separate legal and organizational framework requiring clear functional separation, trust-building at the local level, and activities tailored to community needs.
The study applies comparative legal and institutional analysis. It evaluates the experience of the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and the Netherlands, as well as the applicable Georgian legal framework. The conclusions indicate that further development requires clarification of the community officer’s role, improvement of professional training, stronger local accessibility, and more effective accountability mechanisms. These findings may be used for improving the legal regulation of community officers, developing professional training standards, and strengthening accountability mechanisms in Georgia’s policing system. The proposed recommendations are intended to restore the substantive purpose of the model and align its practical operation with the needs of a democratic law-enforcement system.

Keywords:

public trust; accountability; crime prevention; local security; institutional reform; neighborhood partnership

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