Can Haiti's Police Reforms Be Sustained?

II. Police Progress In 1997

The HNP gained experience and confidence in 1997, its second full year of operation. It has become markedly less dependent upon CIVPOL, conducting operations without prior consultation or notice. The international police have been kept increasingly separate from regular HNP staff and no longer have access to sensitive files.⁽³⁾ While this has brought some increased tensions into the HNP-CIVPOL relationship, agents we interviewed were mostly appreciative of CIVPOL visits.⁽⁴⁾ Haitian government authorities say that: "CIVPOL has been doing everything we could not do, especially filling in for our lack of management capacity. It has helped with police confidence knowing that there was someone they could turn to. It has provided an important element of stability."⁽⁵⁾

On management and administrative issues, we noted a number of improvements. Most regional and central leadership posts are now filled. There are departmental directors in every region, commissaires in all towns and most of the inspecteur posts have been assigned. Police are far better equipped than they were one year ago -- HNP stations we visited had typewriters, paper, filing cabinets, riot shields and, frequently, bullet-proof vests. Most police stations in larger towns now have radio connections to police headquarters.

The Office of the Inspector General has expanded significantly over the last year, moving from its initial two-room office to its own building next to police headquarters. Inspector General Eucher Joseph is supported by five inspectors, eight HNP officers, and several investigators. With support and security staff, he has a total of 72 personnel, and that number is supposed to grow in 1998 as the office hires technical staff to conduct administrative audits of departmental and local police stations. High-profile cases, many police killings, and serious police crimes appear to be investigated and sanctioned quite efficiently. According to HNP statistics, police and Ministry of Justice officials had fired 63 police personnel and officers between January and mid-October 1997, continuing a trend of firing some 60 officers a year since the HNP's June 1995 deployment. At least 20 members of the HNP have been arrested since mid-October 1997 on a range of charges. The inspector general said in December that some 60 officers were then in jail in Port-au-Prince. The director general and inspector general appear committed to purging the HNP of abusive and criminal elements, and can do so more easily now under a grant of authority from the Superior Council of the National Police which permits them to dismiss officers on reasonable suspicion of inappropriate behavior.⁽⁶⁾

Finally, training programs at the police academy have expanded. The basic course for new recruits now lasts nine months, rather than four. And officers in the field are being brought back to the academy for additional short-term skills training.

While the HNP has made real progress in these areas, however, serious problems identified in our last report remain unresolved. Police excessive use of force, particularly beatings, continue at a worrisome level -- the HNP seems to have reached a plateau in its efforts to reduce daily, non-fatal police abuse. The inspector general's lack of focus on this form of abuse is a great concern, as is the uncertainty about resource demands as his office begins conducting administrative audits. While most supervisory posts have been filled, management systems that would hold officers accountable for the performance of their police units remain very weak. Police arrogance toward the population continues, and the community policing programs which might address that problem have not been a priority of the HNP leadership. The absence of progress in judicial reform has led to weaker respect by the HNP for certain legal procedures required by the Constitution and by international law. New concerns include violations of constitutional due process guarantees in searches, arrest warrants, habeas corpus proceedings and detention restrictions; corruption in the force (principally from the drug trade); and the efforts of political forces to gain influence over appointments and operations. We address these problems below.

Before turning to our critique, however, we do wish to acknowledge the tremendous challenge involved in building a new police force from the ground up in the midst of ongoing political and economic crises and without prior models of appropriate police behavior in Haitian history. We would also like to stress that in spite of the problems with the new HNP noted in this and the January 1997 reports, the police still seem to enjoy a reservoir of goodwill among Haitians. While heavily criticized, the force is viewed as a vast improvement over the prior military corps. Haitians continue to demand more police officers on patrol, but officers more respectful of the citizenry and better trained and controlled. We hope this report contributes to the development of that kind of a force.

3. Interview with Colonel Laparra, Commissioner of the United Nations Civilian Police, Port-au-Prince, October 16, 1997.

4. HNP agents in Cité Soleil expressed some irritation that CIVPOL visits daily but for ten minutes only and appears afraid of the neighborhood where local people had once set on a CIVPOL unit and stole a weapon from them. Visit to Cite Soleil police station, October 19, 1997.

5. Interview with Robert Manuel, Secretary of State for Justice, Port-au-Prince, October 21, 1997.

6. Interview with Inspector General Luc Eucher Joseph, Port-au-Prince, December 18, 1997.

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