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Can Haiti's Police Reforms Be Sustained?

IV. HNP Institutional Weakness

a. Leadership problems and lack of professionalism

As we noted in our last report, the HNP was first deployed with almost no leadership in place at mid and senior levels.(25) This was unavoidable as Haiti was creating a new force from scratch. Early appointments were made on political criteria and the result was disastrous. Following Pierre Denizé's March 1996 appointment as director general of the HNP, a massive leadership-recruitment effort was undertaken. However, leadership remains weak. In Denizé's characterization, "our priority was to eliminate the leadership void. It will be some years before we have a command structure."(26)

As we noted earlier, most regional and central leadership posts are now filled. While this is an important step forward, the posts have not always been filled by individuals with leadership skills. This is partly because recruitment was based on academic criteria, and leadership skills (or lack thereof) have only become apparent as supervisors have moved into the field. One problem has to do with seniority. HNP officers all received less training than the agents under their command. The departmental directors received only four weeks of training, and the longest training of any of the current leadership was three months. Deployed a year and a half after the first agents, commanders have less experience than their subordinates. HNP Director General Denizé notes that: "some agents look askance at commanders with less experience; they have developed their ways of doing things and it is hard to break out of this and obey orders."(27)

Many officers have never held leadership roles in the private or public sectors. Consequently, they have few management skills, are extremely inefficient, and "lose themselves in details that subordinates ought to handle."(28) Another widespread phenomenon is officers who appear only rarely and erratically at their posts, spending more time on "personal business" and commandeering police vehicles for their personal use. Observers note dramatic differences between police stations, indicating that despite the institution-wide weaknesses, a central issue is the capabilities of individual officers.(29) For example, the police station in Pétionville was widely regarded as well-run. Since a recent change in leadership the administration of this police station clearly and rapidly deteriorated.

The United States Department of Justice's International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) has drafted guidelines, regulations, and codes of discipline for the HNP. The guidelines are not currently being implemented by police commanders. Most HNP commanders have no capacity or desire to take disciplinary actions against the agents under their command and simply send disciplinary issues up to the IG. Departmental directors have the authority to suspend agents for up to 20 days, but rarely exercise it. There is only a very weak system of sanctions in place when mid-level officers fail to perform their functions.(30) A further hindrance to efforts to correct these problems is the lack of a system of participative command, with no systematic feedback or reporting other than on individual incidents, which has very limited value.(31) Supervision, oversight, and information flows urgently need to be systematized and consolidated.

Director General Denizé and Inspector General Eucher Joseph are both aware of the problems they face developing police leaders who will responsibly direct their commands. They are trying to install management procedures and increase accountability to instill more discipline and control in regional commanders. Denizé said that all command centers now had direct radio communication with headquarters and he expected his departmental directors to be in daily contact with him on activities within their sectors. He is also implementing basic written reporting systems for each department which he estimates will be in place in the next few months.(32)  

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b. Specialized units

International donors and Haitian authorities responded to early human rights violations by the HNP by creating specialized crowd control and rapid reaction units. HNP Director General Denizé defined this as "a necessary response to a period of development which confronted the need to build up the police and function simultaneously."(33) Denizé says that these units are under HNP control and there is no issue of autonomous action as there has been with other units in the past.(34) However, the procedures and guidelines for their use in specific situations are not clear to outside observers or indeed to many HNP agents who report receiving no response from the CIMO on several occasions when they called for assistance. As noted above, there are concerns about the heavy-handedness and use of inappropriate tactics by these units and their illegal possession of heavy weapons.

Other specialized units are currently being trained and have started to deploy. These include a Coast Guard unit with 150 members and an Anti-Narcotics Squad with 46 members. Specialized training in criminal investigative techniques is now starting for the judicial police, the equivalent of detectives in the United States, who work with judges on criminal investigations. Given the extreme weakness of criminal investigations and the credibility issues this raises for the HNP and the judiciary, training and deployment of the judicial police must be an immediate priority.

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c. Administration and equipment

While the police are far better equipped than they were 18 months ago, the administrative ability of the HNP to track, maintain and resupply equipment is horrendous, another serious indication of HNP management problems. Maintenance is appalling, with equipment, including guns, lying around in unsecured piles. Control systems for equipment and materials remain embryonic. Many police do keep track of major equipment, but do not tally smaller items such as bullets, nor account for the condition of their materials.(35) Police report that there is no administrative procedure to request additional bullets for their pistols through the HNP, forcing agents to buy bullets on their own.(36) CIVPOL commanders believe that many commissaires have no idea how many weapons their agents possess.(37)

Communication within the force remains poor, particularly in rural areas. There now is radio communication between Port-au-Prince and the departmental directors and major urban areas, but it is used only for operations, not administration (although Denizé said this is now changing). Regular reports and information flows on institutional issues are extremely limited. HNP agents interviewed at several police stations said that they have no idea how to apply for specialized training, nor do they know the criteria and procedures for promotions; one group of police agents said that they assumed that you needed a "godfather" (parrain) among the police chiefs to move up in the force.(38)


25. In late 1996, only some 50 percent of the roughly 140 commissaires were in place. See "The Human Rights Record of the Haitian National Police," NCHR, WOLA, and Human Rights Watch/Americas, January 1997, p. 26.

26. Denizé interview, October 20, 1997.

27. Denizé interview, October 20, 1997.

28. Laparra interview, October 17, 1997.

29. There is "wide variation among the nine départments, which can be attributed for the most part to differences in leadership provided." Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Transition Mission in Haiti, New York, October 31, 1997, paragraph 19.

30. Denizé interview, October 20, 1997. A September 25, 1995 decree of the CSPN corrects this problem and sets punishments for police commanders who fail to exercise discipline in their units, ranging from loss of rank to dismissal from the force. Document on file at WOLA.

31. Laparra interview, October 16, 1997.

32. Denizé interview, December 18, 1997.

33. Denizé interview, October 20, 1997.

34. See "The Human Rights Record of the Haitian National Police."

35. Laparra interview, October 16, 1997.

36. A police agent in Cité Soleil, one of the most conflictive zones in Haiti, said that he received 18 bullets two years ago and nothing since. He reported that bullets for police-issue .38s are very hard to find now.

37. Laparra interview, October 16, 1997.

38. Interviews with HNP agents at Grand Goave, October 17, 1997, and Cité Soleil, October 19, 1997.

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CAN HAITI'S POLICE REFORMS BE SUSTAINED?
  Executive Summary
  1. Police Progress in 1997
  2. Continuing Human Rights Leadership and Management Problems
  3. Conclusion
  4. Recommendations

I - Introduction: The Haitian National Police

  1. Organization of and international support for the new police force
  2. Findings of the January 1997 report

II - Police Progress In 1997

III - Continuing Human Rights Problems

  1. Excessive use of force
  2. HNP disregard of constitutional due process protections
  3. Police arrogance: the "chief" mentality
  4. Police involvement in crime and corruption
  5. Police politicization
  6. Police shortage

IV - HNP Institutional Weakness

  1. Leadership problems and lack of professionalism
  2. Specialized units
  3. Administration and equipment

V - The Inspector General

  1. Attention to police beatings
  2. Reporting on police abuse
  3. Institutional audits
  4. Lack of external complaint mechanisms

VI - Community-Police Relations

VII - The Judicial System and  Impunity for Police Killings

VIII - Conclusions And Recommendations

Acknowledgements

 

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