Fighting police corruption

This course, organized in collaboration with the Department of International Cooperation of the French Ministry of the Interior, included participation by police officers and delegates with expertise in foreign affairs and drug trafficking-related corruption in the project’s beneficiary countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Peru.

Training was conducted by members of the departments of Internal Affairs of the Gendarmerie and French Police and the Spanish National Police Force and Civil Guard.

Among other issues, it addressed the concern shared by all the participating countries about criminal actions by corrupt police agents in relation to narcotics trafficking, kidnappings, extortion, score-settling and violent robberies. Actions they linked to organized crime.

The conclusions of the symposium established that corruption cases in each of countries need to be combated decisively using all available legal and law enforcement instruments. Another common aspect is that all the participating nations are developing police corruption PREVENTION policies to address controls on admission to the police function, as well as in relation to raising awareness of proper professional ethics for conducting police activity, with different bodies being responsible for control and development of these functions.

Lastly, a series of concrete measures were proposed for fighting corruption in police forces more effectively. These measures are centred around improving personnel selection, professional status and development, training, the organization of domestic security units, the chain of command, internal control, complementary professional activities, the elective terms of officers and control procedures by citizens.