The paper’s working thesis is that meaningful security sector reform is difficult to achieve in the absence of serious political reform, and that technical and operational reforms can have positive impact only if coupled with meaningful accountability and discipline for violations of international law enforcement standards. Security sector reform has become a core concept in any consideration of political transition as well as programs of political reform that involve something less – in Bahrain’s case much less – than transition. Bahrain illustrates an interesting authoritarian model: the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry documented numerous abuses associated with the security crackdown in 2011, and recommended security sector reform as key to addressing the country’s political crisis. Security sector reform should have the goal of establishing a law enforcement regime that is professional, accountable, responsive, and humane. Professionalism in part requires acquisition of technical skills (investigative protocols, crime scene management, comprehensive records). Equal treatment, not merely non-discrimination, belongs at the heart of police reform, and security forces’ composition should reflect the communities served. Professionalism also requires adherence to international policing standards. Can a polity undergo serious security sector reform when a ruling family is primarily motivated to protect, prolong and expand its ruling prerogatives, when key family members hold all crucial security posts, and when recruitment from the citizenry is limited to those who share the ruling family’s Sunni identity -- Sunnis account for a minority of Bahrainis – and instead draws on Sunnis in neighboring Arab states and the Baluchistan area of Pakistan? This paper, after reviewing the protectorate origins of Bahraini security forces and their performance in stifling political protest movements, will examine the extent to which authorities have implemented, and tried to implement, security sector reforms recommended by the independent commission and UN bodies. In this context the paper will also draw on the reform experiences – successful and otherwise – of countries with similar authoritarian legacies. The paper will draw on the author’s direct engagement in recent years with Bahraini officials and political opposition figures concerning these issues. Documentary support includes interviews and relevant correspondence with Bahraini officials and court documents from trials of persons charged over the course of the past four years with criminal offences in connection with political unrest, both opposition figures and security officials (all quite low-level to date) charged with unlawful protester killings and mistreatment of detainees.