Key issues in police training : lessons learned from USAID experience

interest in international law enforcement carries with it the weight of past efforts and public uproar in this area. Public safety programs, Vietnam, human rights abuses, and the "tainting" of USAID programs with security issues threaten to overwhelm the regular development focus of many USAID staff. To provide information for better law enforcement programming in the context of sustainable development, this report reviews lessons from past USAID assistance to foreign police forces. Two policy issues of particular relevance to today"s context emerge from the review. (1) There is a need to clarify differences between assistance to sustainable development countries and assistance to non-sustainable development countries (or "failed states" and special cases). (2) There is a need to distinguish between institution building and operational support. Several cross-cutting themes also emerge. (1) Throughout USAID"s assistance to foreign police forces, human rights issues have persisted in both the policy and programming decisionmaking processes. (2) Coordination of the programs has been problematic, both between U.S. government and other donors and among the various U.S. agencies involved. (3) The tendency for program slippage from the original objective(s) to other activities has dogged U.S. assistance to foreign law enforcement entities. This report was part of a larger USAID evaluation of the role of the U.S. government in police training. It first presents an overview of the key issues mentioned above, then looks at specific lessons learned -- divided between policy decisions and program/project decisions. Finally, a bibliography draws attention to important supporting documents from USAID"s Public Safety Programs, the International Criminal Investigations Training Assistance Program (ICITAP), and various Rule of Law and Anti-Narcotics programs. (Author abstract, modified)