NewsWhore
06-18-2009, 04:20 PM
In today's Hoy, investigative reporters Minerva Isa and Eladio Pichardo write about the aborted Police Reform project. The reform was conceived 10 years ago when the crime rate began to rise. The reform project proposed modernizing the National Police to turn it into a competent and trustworthy organization, but this was rejected by powers that be and was ignored by the PRD and PLD administrations that followed. "The reform was designed but not implemented, and the Police is still obsolete," conclude the reporters.
Retired General Pedro de Jesus Candelier, a former chief of Police and commission member, said that the reform sought a total overhaul, including infrastructure and internal divisions, to equip and professionalize the Police, train personnel, change recruitment methods and decentralize the resources into regions. He says that as this took place 10 years ago, there is a need to review the project, and more than ever to implement it now. He says that if it were in place, "we would have police with a different mentality."
"The PRD and PLD governments, which the nation hoped would strengthen its institutions, allowed the Police to drag behind with inefficiency and corruption inherited from the Reformist administration and the repressive and military government of dictator Rafael Trujillo," they stated. They state that with very few changes, today's Police force is a continuation of the Trujillo police structure. The reform that was prepared in 2000 sought radical changes in Police vision, methods and procedures to turn it into a civilian, community organization, committed to strong institutions and human rights. It proposed ridding the institution of its centralization, its military character, and the impunity granted to policemen in the police code, as well as an increased budget, continuing education, and a code of ethics and supervision of police actions.
The journalists point out that when Fernandez returned to government in 2004, as part of the modernization of the state programs, Police reform was revisited as an important issue in the light of the increase in drug trafficking and crime.
The president of the National Human Rights Commission Porfirio Rojas Nina tells Hoy: "Reality is very much divorced from the modernity that President Fernandez speaks of," he says. For him the obsolescence of the police ruling has led to the present situation. "It is like an old tank, or with old boilers, you can patch a hole here and there, and it will explode somewhere else. We have lived in those conditions from 2000 to 2009," he says.
In his opinion, the failure to approve the new law for the Police brings us to where we are now. "That cannot continue in a society where we speak of globalization, of modernity and what's worse, one does not know where the Police is headed," he says.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#8)
Retired General Pedro de Jesus Candelier, a former chief of Police and commission member, said that the reform sought a total overhaul, including infrastructure and internal divisions, to equip and professionalize the Police, train personnel, change recruitment methods and decentralize the resources into regions. He says that as this took place 10 years ago, there is a need to review the project, and more than ever to implement it now. He says that if it were in place, "we would have police with a different mentality."
"The PRD and PLD governments, which the nation hoped would strengthen its institutions, allowed the Police to drag behind with inefficiency and corruption inherited from the Reformist administration and the repressive and military government of dictator Rafael Trujillo," they stated. They state that with very few changes, today's Police force is a continuation of the Trujillo police structure. The reform that was prepared in 2000 sought radical changes in Police vision, methods and procedures to turn it into a civilian, community organization, committed to strong institutions and human rights. It proposed ridding the institution of its centralization, its military character, and the impunity granted to policemen in the police code, as well as an increased budget, continuing education, and a code of ethics and supervision of police actions.
The journalists point out that when Fernandez returned to government in 2004, as part of the modernization of the state programs, Police reform was revisited as an important issue in the light of the increase in drug trafficking and crime.
The president of the National Human Rights Commission Porfirio Rojas Nina tells Hoy: "Reality is very much divorced from the modernity that President Fernandez speaks of," he says. For him the obsolescence of the police ruling has led to the present situation. "It is like an old tank, or with old boilers, you can patch a hole here and there, and it will explode somewhere else. We have lived in those conditions from 2000 to 2009," he says.
In his opinion, the failure to approve the new law for the Police brings us to where we are now. "That cannot continue in a society where we speak of globalization, of modernity and what's worse, one does not know where the Police is headed," he says.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#8)