Reform of the police and the court of justice
In 2007 the Danish police went through the largest reform of the police for nearly 70 years.
The number of police districts was heavily reduced from 54 to 12 districts that all had to be self-running in actions against all kinds of crime.
The aim was to prepare the Danish police corps for the challenges of the future through an enormous modernization. Especially to fight organized crime and IT crime.
The police reform was adopted in 2006 and came into force on 1 January 2008.
The Police Union was closely involved in the reform work and supported most of the changes. However, the Police Union did call attention to the fact that a reform would hardly be implemented unproblematically and that the assignments did not correspond to the resources available. These factors could very well bring down the whole reform process.
Unfortunately, it turned out that the Police Union was right.
Through 2007 and 2008 the police suffered severe criticism in the media and among politicians. The productivity of the police had fallen and the reform drained the last reserves of energy out of the police, just as the Police Union had predicted. For instance, documentation and administration requirements took much longer to implement than anticipated.
In the autumn 2008 several studies of the reform were carried out at the request of the Police Union. The results of these studies will be translated into reform adjustments. At the same time, in connection to the budget negotiations, an extraordinary permanent expansion of 300 police officers and 250 temporary clerical officers (for a two-year period) was granted, also at the request of the Police Union. This has never happened before in Denmark.
In connection with the upcoming police agreement in 2010, the Police Union and the political parties are to discus a regular expansion of the police force until 2020. According to the Police Union the police corps lacks approximately 2,000 extra police officers.