Can Haiti's Police Reforms Be Sustained?

In January, NCHR and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) released a report analyzing the performance of the Haitian National Police during 1997. The 26-page report identifies areas in which the Haitian National Police (HNP) has made progress, examines problems that were raised in a NCHR/WOLA January 1997 report which have not been adequately addressed, and raises a number of new concerns that came to light this year. The report is also available in French. For a copy, please contact NCHR's office in New York City.

The HNP gained experience and confidence in 1997, its second full year of operation. The HNP has become markedly less dependent upon the guidance of the United Nations Civilian Police (CIVPOL). On management and administration issues, we noted several improvements. Most regional and central leadership posts are now filled. There are departmental directors in every region, police commissioners in all towns, and most of the inspector posts have been assigned. Police are far better equipped than they were one year ago. Most police stations in larger towns now have radio connections to police headquarters.

The Office of the Inspector General (IG), responsible for investigating and sanctioning police abuse, has expanded significantly over the last year. High profile cases, many police killings, and serious police crimes appear to be investigated and sanctioned quite efficiently. The director general and IG 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. After a year in which the IG's reporting on police abuse declined in quality and frequency, he now appears to be committed to producing comprehensive monthly reports in 1998.

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.

Continuing Human Rights, Leadership and Management Problems

While the HNP has made real progress in areas such as human rights, leadership, and management, serious problems identified in the January 1997 report remain unresolved. Most problematical, excessive use of force, particularly beatings, continues at a worrisome level. HNP personnel killed some 46 people between January and October 1997, about half of which appear to have been human rights violations. This brings the total number of killings by the HNP since its first deployment in June 1995 to at least 92 and possibly closer to 137, as many as half of which were human rights violations. Beatings and other forms of mistreatment, while not systematic or routine, increased in 1997 after dropping sharply in the second half of 1996.

HNP leadership and officers have evidenced a troubling lack of respect for constitutional due process guarantees regarding searches, arrest warrants, and pre-trial detention (garde-ˆ-vue). We find this cavalier attitude toward fundamental constitutional protections, highlighted by the arrest and detention of a former head of the HNP, Leon Jeune, in November 1997, alarming and unacceptable, and we urge immediate, remedial action to enforce respect for these norms within the HNP itself.

While high-profile cases, many police killings, and serious police crimes appear to be investigated and sanctioned quite efficiently by the IG, he has not sanctioned many cases of police beatings. The IG appears particularly concerned by police criminality and is focusing resources on those issues. However, we believe that neglecting police beatings on the grounds that they are relatively less important sends a message of tolerance for abuse which may be contributing to its stubborn persistence in the force today.

We are also concerned that the IG not reduce the already-stretched resources now dedicated to investigating allegations of human rights violations in order to conduct the administrative audits which are also part of the office's mandate. These audits are important for improving the management of the HNP and generating the accountability, responsibility, and control on the local level needed to reduce ongoing human rights abuses, but should not be conducted at the expense of the IG's investigation work.

While most supervisory posts have been filled, management systems that would hold them accountable for the performance of their police units remain very weak. Commanders, chosen on the basis of academic records and exams, have often turned out to have poor leadership and administrative skills in the field. Communication within the force remains poor, particularly in rural areas. Regular reports and information flows on institutional issues are extremely limited. While the police are far better equipped than they were 18 months ago, the administrative ability of the HNP to track, maintain, and re-supply equipment is terrible. Maintenance remains appalling, with equipment, including guns, lying around in unsecured piles.

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 HNP disbanded a community policing initiative in Cap Haïtien.

The Justice System and Impunity for Police Killings

The judicial system has made no progress at all in prosecuting cases of police abuse. Although the IG has now referred a total of 36 cases to the courts for prosecution, including more than a dozen cases of human rights violations committed between mid-1996 and mid-1997, there has still not been one successful prosecution for a police killing and only some five or six criminal cases for non-deadly police abuse. In fact, judicial impunity for police abuse was aggravated in June 1997, when a judge released six HNP agents accused of participating in summary executions. As of late November, some 65 police agents were in detention for a range of offenses, mostly criminal, according to a survey done by the Organization of American States/United Nations Civilian Mission in Haiti (MICIVIH). Only seven are awaiting trial for human rights violations, far fewer than ten months ago. In April 1997, MICIVIH submitted proposals to improve judicial action against police abuse, including draft terms of reference for a special prosecutor for police abuse.

Every analysis of police reform in Haiti has noted the dangers posed by the lack of progress in judicial reform. From the perspective of the HNP, the concern continues that judicial incompetence and corruption, particularly the release of prisoners handed over by police, will lead to frustration and to the police punishing detainees preemptively.

The judicial system remains largely dysfunctional although some small improvements are evident. For example, criminal courts are now holding sessions in most areas although there are many problems with no-show witnesses and jurors. Experts think that there are some competent judicial authorities who could do more if they received institutional support. At the national level, however, the Ministry of Justice is barely functioning and a new commission has worked on judicial reform proposals for over a year now and has yet to adopt a concrete plan of action. Moreover, the Ministry of Justice's own inspectorate unit lacks resources and has barely functioned.

The weakness of police preparation of cases for prosecution is also leading to the acquittal of defendants. HNP agents rarely write reports and frequently have no evidence to give to the judge, including basic details on the detainee. Evidence submitted almost always consists of confessions and eye-witness accounts, never material evidence -- even producing the weapon in cases of killings. Defense lawyers now petition judges to acquit on technical grounds. Poor case preparation forces judges to comply.

Few steps have been taken to institutionalize links between the police and judicial authorities, a problem made painfully evident by the way in which both institutions handled the Leon Jeune case (please refer to HAITIInsight Vol. 7, No. 6). International donors are coordinating a training sequence for the judicial police and trying to clarify the division of labor between the police, who initiate the investigation, and the investigating judge, who continues and oversees the investigative process.

Summary

Haitian government officials and senior HNP leaders remain committed to creating a professional and effective police force. The police force is clearly more experienced and confident and its capabilities have improved over the last year. With ongoing well-targeted and coordinated international assistance, the HNP should be able to continue to strengthen itself as an institution. However, the HNP's ability to stand up to external threats -- crime, anti-democratic provocation and attack, international drug traffickers, and efforts to corrupt or politicize the police -- will depend on building and reinforcing professional standards, solid administrative and disciplinary controls, and consolidating a new code of ethics and way of doing business.

NCHR is preparing to hold a public meeting on its new HNP report. The event will be held in Port-au-Prince. Please visit NCHR's Web site for details.

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