Six years since this project / report, and no changes at all to report...
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The Criminal Justice Assistance Project, funded by the Australian government, is helping to turn around a dysfunctional force. James East reports
A Cambodian Buddhist monk is behind bars for murder thanks to the gift of fingerprint test kits donated to the country's cash-strapped police. It may not seem much of a gift, but it is, in a Southeast Asia nation where policing is little more than basic. While Cambodia's police force has a core of well-trained and disciplined officers, the remainder have few skills and almost no equipment. This is due to decades of civil war and the havoc wrought by the 1975 to 1979 Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot in which lawyers, police officers and judges were executed.
International criminal justice experts from Australia are now helpingthe Royal Cambodian Police to build a force that can keep pace with crime syndicates that are increasingly using the country as a base from which to traffic drugs, arms and to organise the kidnappings of wealthy businessmen to be held for ransom.
In the three years that the team has been working it has helped put in place basic operating procedures and an appreciation of the value of human rights as part of an overall drive to change the culture of policing. The Cambodia Criminal Justice Assistance Project, funded by the Australian Government to the tune of US$8.75 million, is a wide-ranging programme designed to improve the quality of justice across the board. In five provinces, including the capital Phnom Penh, investigating judicial police, the courts and prisons are receiving support and advice from the team of 10. The advisers have their work cut out.
The 67,000-strong national and 6,000-strong judicial police forces are massively bloated thanks, in part, to an influx of former Khmer Rouge and militia officers, given jobs in a government amnesty to end civil war. Not all police are independent. Many senior officers are alleged to be linked to Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party. Officers earn a paltry $10-20 and corruption and bribery is so rampant that it has turned most Cambodians against those supposed to enforce the law.
To top it all, Cambodians have been so brutalised by years of war that the modus operandi of police officers when dealing with a suspect has typically been to extract a confession with a beating and then submit the paperwork to a judge. A conviction is secured with little or no corroborating evidence.
One of the advisers sums up the difficulties as:
A lack of trust in the police, some of whom are linked to powerful criminals
Senior positions being taken by party men with no policing experience
A lack of forensic gear, vehicles, and equipped police stations
Political infighting among government ministers resulting in confusion.
'We are trying to take the police out of politics but this is an old problem and will not change overnight. It is not just a question of planning but of changing the mindset of senior officers,' the adviser said. Against this backdrop the Australian team is working with officers to change the way they view their jobs, to restructure the top-heavy force, and to bring in ranking based on merit.
Eventually some 20,000 police will be retrenched - through a retraining and resettlement programme - over a five-year period. Future selection, promotion and retirement of officers will be based on guidelines currently being reviewed by the advisers and police chiefs.
Senior officers and Interior and Justice Ministry chiefs have already put in place reforms to ensure investigations are better handled and that suspects and criminals are dealt with fairly in courts and prisons. The team has also embarked on an ambitious programme to upgrade police stations, prisons and courts, rebuilding crumbling offices and cell blocks and supplying such basic equipment as tables and chairs as well as vehicles. So far two new provincial police stations have been built and one upgraded at a cost of US$185,000.
Around US$1.6m has been spent on courts and prisons.The advisers are also training police instructors in everything from crime scene investigation to obtaining arrest warrants and from suspects' rights to filing a proper court report. The project has led to the formal training of in excess of 450 officers and on-the-job training is now underway. Eventually 25 police instructors will be trained on how to share their skills and on what to teach.
Police adviser Stephen Woodall says the new operations manual is the key document in laying the foundation for future reforms. Drawn up after consultations with senior officers it has been sent out to officers across the country. The project is also helping to improve record keeping.
Basic database and indexing systems are being implemented. In addition, there has been a massive fingerprinting exercise of prison inmates and suspects with records being kept on cards at national police headquarters. More than 4,000 prints have been taken in 12 months.
Establishing a simple paper-based system is a priority, but Mr Woodall is also looking to bring in computers, helping officers to leapfrog into the 21st century. With training, officers will eventually be able to access a database of crime information and even create photofit pictures of suspects. Naturally not everyone is happy with the reforms.
A more independent force challenges traditional party political strongholds and corrupt practices. But the Australians are careful to steer clear of politics. They believe, in the long term, that the adoption of the operating procedures will change the culture of policing. Mr Woodall said: 'We have deliberately remained apolitical. It is really the only way that we could remain here. Putting the procedures in place and educating top down provides a pretty sound basis for the future and creates an awareness of good policing practice at all levels.'
Training tailored to the local environment is also key to officers understanding the need for the operation procedures. Mr Woodall said: 'I use the comparison of buying a new motorbike and introducing new ways of doing things.
To look after the motorbike you need to look at the operations manual.' He also encourages officers to talk about policing issues in small groups. They are nervous at first but soon open up. The approach is very different from the Cambodian way where subordinates do not question their seniors and from previous training sessions run by some Western block countries who lectured their audiences.
Improved case file management and training already seems to working its way through the system. Judges have praised the police for an improvement in the quality of case files presented to the courts. The number of convictions has also risen as police enforce the laws.
In the last 12 months the number of prisoners has risen by more than 500. The pace of the implementation of the reforms depends, for the most part, on the will of the country's political leaders, but the Australian team says establishing relationships is key to winning over senior officers.
Now police officers are hungry for the training sessions and are begging the Australians to pump in more funds and assistance and a further three-year project is being considered. Although the advisers are working in only five provinces the operating procedures and training have so impressed police chiefs that it is now filtering out to more remote regions and there are plans to establish three regional training centres.
Colonel Monh Kamsan, deputy director of the Scientific and Technical police, is frank about the help the Australians have given. 'Before the project came we did not have any professional skills at all. We were not active because we did not have any equipment and our officers had not been trained,' he said.
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