The police accountability and reform project, Phase One, spearheaded by HURINET-Uganda paved the way for constructive engagement and civil society participation in police accountability processes and contributing to the development of a more democratic and accountable police service which space needs to be fully utilized. Specifically, the project has achieved the following among other notions;

Despite various security reforms, policing in Uganda still bears the hallmarks of its colonial past.  During colonial times, the role of the police was to defend colonial interests often in blatant disregard of the human rights of the local population. This same authoritarian, oppressive machinery was maintained virtually intact by the post-independence governments of Uganda.

During the period of civil wars the police was relegated to the periphery and the subsequent governments often relied on the army to enforce their authoritarianism rather than the Police. This was the state of affairs inherited in 1986, by the National Resistance Movement (NRM) government led by current President Yoweri Museveni.

The Uganda Police Force still continues to have an unpredictable image before the public. This is because there is a section of the police that is professional and knowledgeable about the best policing practices; but there is also a section that is still confined to acts of brutality, torture, dishonesty to mention a few. This has made it very difficult to rate the performance of the police. Consequently, the institution suffers the bad image and has resulted into inadequate support and participation of the public in matters of security and combating crime.