Neighbourhood wanting police officer to be authoritarian (6)
I believe the answer is:
strict
'be authoritarian' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'neighbourhood wanting police officer' is the wordplay.
'neighbourhood' becomes 'district'.
'wanting' indicates named letters should be taken away (wanting can mean lacking).
'police officer' becomes 'DI' (detective inspector).
'district' with 'di' removed is 'STRICT'.
'to' is the link.
(Other definitions for strict that I've seen before include "Allowing no deviation from a standard" , "Observing rules very closely" , "Rigidly accurate" , "Following rules exactly" , "Tough" .)