ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses how the politics of police reform has been played out in Freetown between the Sierra Leone government and its primary international supporter, the UK government, since the late 1990s. It demonstrates the tensions that are inherent in hybridization, and in the notions of positive accommodation and separation as simultaneously occurring in police reform. The chapter focuses on a discussion of the role of the paramount and lesser chiefs in three consecutive phases of police reform in the country. It illustrates the co-existence of processes of separation and positive accommodation as inherent in hybridization by exploring close to twenty years of police reform in Sierra Leone. By exploring the politics of police reform in Sierra Leone, the chapter demonstrates the continuous and ever-evolving tension between positive accommodation and separation that is integral to any process of hybridization.
