Feature

"I like Zecir very much," Jovana says, while her friends play with his police hat. "He is our friend."

Tafic is a contact officer in Ulcinj, the southernmost city on Montenegro's Adriatic coast. He is one of 28 officers in an OSCE-supported pilot project on community policing implemented in three Montenegrin cities: Podgorica, Ulcinj and Niksic. Community policing puts the emphasis on police working with the community to solve crimes.

"No one respected my work of police officer before," Tafic says. "But after my success in solving the kindergarten's problems, things are different. People know me and appreciate the results of my work. They respect me and listen carefully to what I have to say."

Working together on crime prevention

"Community policing is a philosophy, not simply a methodology or a public relations tool. It is a style of policing focused on working together with the community. It's an important tool for crime prevention and the major element of police reform in Montenegro," says Hakan Altunay, Chief of the OSCE Police Training Centre in Danilovgrad.

The OSCE report on police reform in Montenegro for the period 2001-2005 recommended integrating community policing into the overall police reform strategy as it would affect the training, structure and management of the force. The Mission and the Police Directorate launched the pilot in May after a community policing working group, which included an OSCE Mission police trainer, finalized the National Draft Strategy on Community Policing.

The OSCE Police Training Centre's international staff taught all contact police officers various topics such as problem-solving techniques, mediation, stress management, sociology and community partnership. The Centre, together with the Police Directorate, also monitors the implementation of the project.

Examples of successful joint work

Jovana's kindergarten, one of 14 participating in the pilot project, offers a good example of the benefits of this type of policing.

When the programme started, the kindergarten had been suffering from petty thefts for more than six years. Vera Kostic, the director of the kindergarten, says she was dissatisfied with police efforts to stop the pilfering and was skeptical about the pilot programme.

But based on information from the kindergarten's managers, Tafic guessed that the perpetrators were the juveniles who hung out in the kindergarten's playground. Tafic started to talk to them, developing a rapport. They played football together. Soon after, all the missing toys reappeared at the kindergarten's front door, along with the battery stolen from a car used to distribute food.

"Now these youngsters greet me every time they see me," Tafic says, a smile on his face.

Tafic also set in motion the refurbishment of the kindergarten, by reporting the school's broken heating system, leaky roof and lack of furniture to his supervisors. To deal with the problems, the OSCE, police, kindergarten and the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA) formed a partnership. TIKA will donate the funds to rehabilitate the school, which is the only kindergarten in the city centre attended mostly by children of the Albanian ethnic minority.

Expanding the pilot nationwide

Tafic is enthusiastic when he talks about the children from the kindergarten, what they ask him and how he explains his job to them. Many enquire about his gun and baton. "There are still kids who keep a certain distance from me. The main reason is probably that parents disciplining children have threatened them with police officers and frightened them away."

Zeljko Pekovic, Higher Commissioner at the Police Directorate, which is monitoring the pilot project in the three municipalities, says, "This project is running better than expected, but citizens still need more time to get used to community policing."

The pilot project will be expanded next year. In 2008, the Mission will train an additional 150 contact police officers who will implement the project across the country. The Mission will also monitor the implementation of the project throughout Montenegro.