ABSTRACT
In 1931, the Netherlands set up a reserve police force to support the regular police. In this chapter, I give my impression of the way the reserve police force has developed into a volunteer one in the Netherlands. This concerns volunteers in uniform ranking as officers on the beat and constables who, together with the regular police force, carry out duties aimed at maintaining public order. A new category of volunteers has meanwhile been developed, namely “volontairs,” that is, special police constables who work in various different ways both on the streets and at police station computers to support professional police officers.
