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1. Police Corruption: What Past Scandals Teach about Current Challenges

Author:
Robert Perito and David Bayley
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Police corruption is an international problem. Historically, police misconduct has been a factor in the development of police institutions worldwide, but it is a particular problem in counterinsurgency and peacekeeping operations, such as the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization police training program in Afghanistan. There, police abuse and corruption appear endemic and have caused some Afghans to seek the assistance of the Taliban against their own government. The most reliable and extensive knowledge about police corruption in the world's Englishspeaking countries is found in the reports of specially appointed blue-ribbon commissions, independent of government, created for the sole purpose of conducting investigations of police corruption. To reduce police corruption, the commissions recommend creating external oversight over the police with a special focus on integrity, improving recruitment and training, leadership from supervisors of all ranks about integrity, holding all commanders responsible for the misbehavior of subordinates, and changing the organization's culture to tolerate misbehavior less. The remedies proposed by the commissions, however, rely on a set of contextual conditions not commonly found in countries emerging from conflict or facing serious threats to their security. This report suggests triage and bootstraps as strategies for reducing police corruption in countries with security threats. Triage involves targeting assistance in countries where there are solid prospects for tipping police practice in the desired direction. Bootstraps involves using reform within the police itself as a lever to encourage systemic social and political reform in countries in crisis or emerging from conflict.
Topic:
Security, Corruption, Crime, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and United States

2. Iraq's Interior Ministry: The Key To Police Reform

Author:
Robert Perito and Madeline Kristoff
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Iraq's Ministry of the Interior (MOI) is responsible for the supervision, training and administrative support for Iraq's non-military security forces. These include: the Iraqi Police Service, the Iraq National Police, the Iraqi Border Enforcement Service and the Facilities Protection Service. In total, MOI is responsible for nearly 600,000 men under arms or a force that is three times the size of the new Iraqi Army, Navy and Air Force combined.
Topic:
Security, Corruption, Crime, Ethnic Conflict, and War
Political Geography:
Iraq and Arabia

3. Special Report No. 208: Haiti: Confronting the Gangs of Port-au-Prince

Author:
Robert Perito and Michael Dziedzic
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Although ostensibly criminal in nature, the gangs of Port-au-Prince were an inherently political phenomenon. Powerful elites from across the political spectrum exploited gangs as instruments of political warfare, providing them with arms, funding, and protection from arrest. Beginning in 2006 and reaching its culmination in February 2007, the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) conducted a series of successful military and police operations against armed gangs, based in sanctuaries in Cité Soleil and other urban slums, that had terrorized the populace. The campaign resulted in the arrest of principal gang leaders and some eight hundred of their followers. UN operations followed a public announcement by Haiti's president, René Préval, that the gangs must “surrender or die,” and a private request to the United Nations to take armed action. Préval's call for action came after efforts to negotiate with the gangs proved futile. Antigang operations involved the Haiti National Police (HNP), the country's only security force. HNP support for, and direct engagement in, these operations was essential to their success. Haitian police SWAT teams arrested most of the gang leaders. Although the UN assaults resulted in civilian casualties and extensive property damage, the great majority of Cité Soleil residents surveyed believed that the UN crackdown was justified. If MINUSTAH had not been willing and able to confront the gang threat, the likely consequences would have been the collapse of the Préval administration and the failure of the UN mission. The United Nations must be capable of mounting assertive operations to enforce its mandates, and it can succeed in such operations under the proper conditions if it summons the necessary resolve. MINUSTAH's success in con-fronting the gang threat suggests that the conditions needed for successful mandate enforcement include unity of effort among mission leadership, local buy-in and support, actionable intelligence to guide operations, effective employment of Formed Police Units (FPUs), integrated planning of military, police, and civilian assistance efforts to fill the void left by the displacement of illegal armed groups, and holistic reform of, and international support for, the legal system.
Topic:
Crime and United Nations
Political Geography:
Caribbean and Haiti

4. Policing Iraq: Protecting Iraqis from Criminal Violence

Author:
Robert Perito
Publication Date:
06-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Public opinion surveys show that Iraqis feel the greatest security threat they face is not the insurgency or sectarian conflict but pervasive criminal violence. For a people accustomed to a stifling regime security presence under Saddam Hussein—and the correspondingly safe streets—the post-intervention upsurge in murder, home invasion robbery, kidnapping, carjacking, and rape is fundamentally disturbing.
Topic:
Security, Civil Society, and Crime
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East