OSCE Centre in Bishkek supports training for 1,000 police officers on community policing
BISHKEK, 27 April 2011 – A series of two-day training courses on community policing for some 1,000 police officers across Kyrgyzstan began today with the support of the OSCE Centre in Bishkek in co-operation with the Interior Ministry of Kyrgyzstan.
Police officers from the Naryn, Talas, Chuy and Issyk-Kul provinces and Bishkek city will take part in the courses, led by trainers from Kyrgyzstan’s Interior Ministry, Police Academy, the Secondary Police School and local civil society. The courses will be held for a wide spectrum of police officers, including neighbourhood and juvenile delinquency inspectors, patrol officers, detectives and managerial staff, all of whom are required to apply community policing principles in their everyday activities.
Community policing promotes partnerships between the police and the communities they serve to proactively address issues affecting public safety and contributing to crime.
Ambassador Andrew Tesoriere, the Head of the OSCE Centre in Bishkek, said: “The OSCE is pleased to support the delivery of large-scale training across Kyrgyzstan for police officers, working in different functions to develop their skills in community policing. Wider global experience has found that good community policing is a key factor in preventing crime and promoting public trust. This particular series of training courses precedes the opening of a Community Policing Training Centre in the south of Kyrgyzstan later in 2011, which will provide further comprehensive training courses to police officers and will be supported by the OSCE alongside other partners.”
Interior Minister Zarylbek Rysaliev said: “The training on community policing, aimed at strengthening capacity and building up the professionalism of the officers implementing community policing principles, will help shape the image of the police as a true partner at service to society.”
The training courses cover both theory and practice on such topics as observation of human rights, crime and conflict prevention, ethics in police work and law. By request of the local police administration, special attention will be paid to ways to implement global best practices in preventing and detecting cases of domestic violence, bullying and inter-ethnic problems. The managerial-level training courses will cover administrative aspects of community policing, co-operation between different actors, and criteria and methods of evaluating the results of police activities.