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grows, the police can gain information and access that greatly help them
in their crime-fighting task.
station houses, lack good intelligence, and act only after crimes have
been committed is unlikely to make much of a dent in crime and cor-
ruption. What is needed are police with citizen support, communi-
ties where trust in public institutions and
one’s neighbors is more or less the norm,
Counting the num- and wider conditions (including courts to
ber of police trained, make the rule of law stick, as well as jobs
and investment) that go beyond the sphere
however briefly or
of police work.
poorly, as an indi-
The desire to meet numerical targets, or
cator of progress in simply the belief that more police are bet-
state-building is like ter or that any police are better than none,
using body counts often leads to a narrow focus on training
as an indicator of as many officers as possible in the shortest
progress in counter- amount of time. A normal course of police
insurgency. training should take from six months to a
year of academy preparation followed by
four to six months of on-the-job training
under expert supervision. It should include core training in the prin-
ciples and practices of policing in a democratic society, including an
emphasis on serving the people and combating government corruption
as well as “how-to” skills in weapons use, crowd control, crime investi-
gation, security provision for persons and places, and the arrest and de-
tention of suspects. Training for still harder tasks, such as surveillance
and undercover work to fight organized crime and narcotics trafficking,
or dealing with heavily armed gangs or bomb threats, would require yet
further instruction and field training.
Yet as James Dobbins notes, “pressures for rapid deployment [of po-
lice] sometimes lead to more accelerated schedules. In Iraq the most ex-
tended basic course of instruction was eight weeks . . . the resulting stan-
dards of performance were unacceptably low.”12 Recurring appraisals
of police training in Iraq and Afghanistan find the same problem. Thus,
the “Interagency Assessment of Iraq Police Training” by the inspectors
general of the U.S. State and Defense departments noted that the “em-
phasis on numbers overshadows the attention that should be given to the
qualitative performance of those trained.”13
The broader issues of what police training is for and how it relates
to other elements of postconflict reconstruction and democratic val-
ues are rarely discussed. While individual police recruits are told to
respect human rights, this is not the same as developing democratic
policing as an institutional commitment or making the entire force
aware of the distinctive character and goals of policing in a democrat-
ic society. In many ways, counting the number of police trained (how-
ever briefly or poorly) as an indicator of progress in state-building is
like using body counts as an indicator of progress in counterinsur-
Michael D. Wiatrowski and Jack A. Goldstone 85
ing, is still too militarized to tackle the full range of police activities.
Moreover, it is designed to leap into crises rather than to provide the
long-term local policing and training that is required for the creation of
democratic police forces in previously authoritarian societies.
The United Nations has increasingly utilized its UN Police not only as
observers and monitors but also as active trainers and mentors, working
to build indigenous police forces in Bosnia, Haiti, Liberia, Sierra Leone,
and Timor-Leste. Nonetheless, the UN has encountered two main dif-
ficulties in undertaking extended training and capacity-building police
missions: obtaining sufficiently qualified police officers for those ef-
forts, and managing communications among the individuals drawn from
the more than one-hundred nations that staff the UN Police.16
The UN has started to develop formed police units (FPUs) to act in
especially disorderly environments. Each FPU consists of 125 police
officers who have been recruited from a single country, have trained
together, and are slightly more heavily armed than regular police. This
is a good start that might well form the nucleus of an expanded inter-
national police-building and training capacity. Some of the FPUs, how-
ever, come from nondemocracies such as China, where the regime has a
less than exemplary regard for human rights and police are trained to act
as the guardians of an authoritarian political system.17 Ironically, one of
the largest contributors to the UN Police is Bangladesh, which is itself
currently hosting a UN mission sent to reform its police. In fact, a re-
cent International Crisis Group (ICG) report, citing human-rights abuses
and corruption, calls the Bangladeshi police “a source of instability and
fear [in their own country] rather than a key component of a democratic
society.”18 Police from countries that have yet to embrace democratic
policing at home cannot be expected to lead the training of new police
forces for emerging democracies.
It makes sense to create an international police force with a clear mis-
sion to furnish full-range policing and training in accord with democratic
principles rather than to have existing agencies support developmental
tasks that they are neither trained nor equipped to accomplish. Whether
under the auspices of the UN, the EU, NATO, or other organizations,
what is needed is an established, professional international force that
can handle the full range of police operations and training over extended
periods and in diverse countries. At the core of this force’s mission must
be the goal of establishing local police practices that comport with and
support democracy.
their core duties and drag democratic state-building efforts down along
with them.
Efforts to put big numbers of officers on patrol quickly and to fore-
stall the old regime’s “guys with guns” (to borrow Michael McFaul’s
colorful phrase) from becoming dangerously jobless often result in prior
security forces being taken almost whole-
sale into new or remodeled police ranks.
Under democracy, This is especially likely in peaceful demo-
“security” is not cratic transitions, as such incorporation is
often a key plank in the pact that allowed
supposed to have the
the transition to be nonviolent in the first
sinister connotations place.
that the word takes Even when incorporation is conditioned
on under a warlord or by vetting programs that seek to exclude the
dictator. most egregious henchmen of authoritarian-
ism, there will be enough holdovers from
the old force to make the task of changing
police culture essential. Authoritarian rulers train their police to intimi-
date people and crush opposition. In a democracy, police officers must see
people as citizens who need protecting and whose help is needed in the
fight against crime and corruption. It is often difficult or impossible to get
police officers who have long served in authoritarian regimes to change
their ways. Moreover, since records of police abuses and even crimes of-
ten are absent or were never compiled under authoritarian regimes or dur-
ing civil conflicts, the vetting process is usually of limited value.
In postconflict settings, police officers “checking papers” and con-
sciously or unwittingly intimidating citizens are a common sight. A
woman sitting on a street corner trying to sell three mangoes in the
blazing sun may see the man who murdered her husband and raped her
walk up in a new uniform. With impunity, he takes one of the mangoes
and starts to eat it as she freezes in terror. Even if the officer had not
previously assaulted her, the street-corner encounter would likely prove
most distressing.19
Holdovers from the old security forces may thus require even more
vetting and training than new recruits. Under democracy, “security” is
not supposed to have the sinister connotations that the word takes on
under a warlord or dictator. For the latter, it means cowed opponents,
terrified potential opponents, and “guys with guns” who enjoy whatever
rewards that the big man thinks he needs to hand them in order to keep
their loyalty. For a democracy, “security” implies limits on the govern-
ment’s power to detain or imprison people, and the welfare of citizens
takes priority over that of public officials. Democracy also requires in-
stitutions to monitor and correct corruption and other forms of official
misconduct.
Personnel steeped in the older culture and behavior may not be able
Michael D. Wiatrowski and Jack A. Goldstone 89
NOTES
1. Charles T. Call, ed., Constructing Justice and Security after War (Washington, D.C.:
U.S. Institute of Peace, 2007), 7. See also Sean McFate, Securing the Future: A Primer
on Security Sector Reform in Conflict Countries, USIP Special Report 209, Washington,
D.C., September 2008.
2. Robert C. Trojanowicz and Samuel Dixon, Criminal Justice and the Community
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1974). All of Peel’s principles are presented in “A
History of the Nine Principles of Policing,” available at www.magnacartaplus.org/brief-
ings/nine_police_principles.htm.
5. James Dobbins et al., The Beginner’s Guide to Nation Building (Santa Monica,
Calif.: RAND Corporation, 2007).
7. William G. O’Neill, Police Reform and Human Rights (New York: HURIST, 2005), 6.
8. See the sources in note 3 above and also David H. Bayley, Democratizing the Police
92 Journal of Democracy
10. Richard Youngs, Is the European Union Supporting Democracy in Its Neighbour-
hood? (Madrid: FRIDE, 2008).
11. David H. Bayley, Police for the Future (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994);
David Weisburd and John Eck, “What Can Police Do to Reduce Crime, Disorder and
Fear?” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 593 (2004): 42–65;
Robert C. Trojanowicz and Bonnie Bucqueroux, Community Policing: A Contemporary
Perspective (Cincinnati: Anderson, 1990); Robert J. Sampson, “Transcending Tradition:
New Directions in Community Research, Chicago Style,” Criminology 40 (May 2002):
213–30; John Kretzmann and John McKnight, Building Communities from the Inside Out:
A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets (Chicago: ACTA, 1993)
13. Inspectors General, U.S. Departments of State and Defense, “Draft Report: Inter-
agency Assessment of Iraq Police Training,” 3, 15 July 2005. Available at http://www.
dodig.mil/IGInformation/IGInformationReleases/Iraq_Report_071905.pdf.
14. Brian Nichiporuk, Alternative Futures and Army Force Planning: Implications for
the Future Force Era (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, 2005).
15. Robert M. Perito, “U.S. Police in Peace and Stability Operations,” USIP Special
Report 191, Washington, D.C., August 2007; Terrence K. Kelly et al., A Stability Po-
lice Force for the United States: Justification and Options for Creating U.S. Capabilities
(Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, 2009).
16. Brian Hansford, “UN Police Strive for Quality over Quantity as Role Changes,”
UN Police Magazine, December 2006, 8–9.
17. Michael D. Wiatrowski, Nathan W. Pino, and Anita Pritchard, “Policing and
Formed Police Units during Democratic Transitions,” Journal of Security Sector Manage-
ment 6 (November 2008): 1–14.
18. International Crisis Group, “Bangladesh: Getting Police Reform on Track,” Asia
Report No. 182, 11 December 2009.
19. Sean McFate, “The Art and Aggravation of Vetting in Post Conflict Environments”
Military Review (June–August 2007): 79–97.
20. Michael D. Wiatrowski, Lynette Feder, and Tim Lenz, “Policing, Corruption and
Democratic Development: The Role of Human Rights” in Stanley Einstein and Menachem
Amir, eds. Police Corruption: Paradigms, Models and Concept-Challenges for Develop-
ing Countries (Huntsville, Tex.: Office of International Criminal Justice, 2003).
21. International Crisis Group, “Policing in Afghanistan: Still Searching for a Strat-
egy,” Asia Briefing No. 85, 18 December 2008.