Audit System in the Service of Municipal Safety

Abstract

Among the security challenges, the safety of a municipality plays a key role in shaping citizens' subjective perception of security. Local governments have a cardinal legal obligation to contribute to local security, but the extent to which municipalities fulfil this obligation varies. An audit system based on objective criteria has not been developed in the past for measuring and reviewing the performance of local governments in the area of law enforcement and municipal security. The development of an audit system based on recent research on local government law enforcement is intended to fill these gaps. This audit system will approach the issue from the point of view of the municipalities, setting out a set of criteria and aspects on which the municipalities have an influence. During a municipal safety audit, the municipal safety indexes on which the criteria and aspects are based are assessed to determine whether a municipality can be considered safe from a municipal perspective. This audit system is described in this paper.