OSCE Mission to Skopje helps build dialogue and trust to prevent crime

"It will take some time for the community to understand that the police is not there to intimidate, but to create and maintain security and safety within the community," says Jordan Kuzeski, a police officer at the police station in Kavadarci, a town of almost 40,000 residents located in the Tikves region in the south-eastern part of the country.

Kuzeski is an Officer of Prevention, a position created by amendments to the Law on Police adopted in 2006 designed to build trust and confidence between the police and communities by finding local solutions to local problems. He has just concluded a four-month specialized training course preparing him for his new post, delivered by the Police Development Department of the OSCE Spillover Monitor Mission to Skopje.

Another 160 of Kuzeski's colleagues from throughout the country will finish this course before the end of the year. Aside from extensive theoretical instruction, they will receive training in practical skills ranging from media communication to the drafting of project proposals.

Police Training Centre active since 2001

The course for Officers of Prevention is taking place at the OSCE Mission's Police Training Centre, located at the Police Academy in Idrizovo, near Skopje. The Centre has been offering training to police officers since the end of the armed conflict in 2001, when the OSCE Mission was asked under the terms of the Ohrid Framework Agreement to assist the host country in the redeployment of police to former crisis areas and in the training of new police officers.

In the development and implementation of the courses it offers at the Centre, the OSCE Mission works closely with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, assisting the Government in executing its national police reform strategy.

"Assisting in professionalizing the police is one of the Mission's key objectives," says Ambassador Jose Luis Herrero, Head of the OSCE Mission. "Our approach is considered an important factor in ensuring long-term peace and stability in the country for all citizens."

The OSCE Mission's Police Development Department trained 1,000 police officers from non-majority communities in 2001 and 2002.

Since that time, the Department has delivered more specialized and in-service training. Particular attention is paid to areas such as community policing, human trafficking, human rights, drugs, forged documents identification, organized crime, crime scene investigation, border police and road safety.

The Department has also helped to develop a modern training capacity within the police service based on international police standards.

"Through its numerous projects, the Mission has helped to bring the police substantially closer to the community," Herrero observes. "As a result, confidence in the police has increased and the perception of the public has changed."

Forging a new link between police and communities

Kuzeski's training as Police Officer of Prevention is an important step in this direction. All communities are represented among the participants in the training, which aims at giving local police another tool for facilitating contact with the people they serve.

"This new position is integrated into police tasks and duties, and the Officers of Prevention create a direct link between local communities and the Inspectors of Prevention as their supervisors in community policing," explains Jerry Owens, a community policing expert from Ireland who was engaged by the OSCE Mission to Skopje to conduct the training.

Kuzeski and the other graduates from the first round of the course who have returned to their respective police stations are finding that in addition to the skills they learned, their new duties are requiring not a small dose of dogged perseverance. As an example he explains how he acted preventively in a potential domestic violence case. It took him a long time to persuade the spouses that "punishment can never have the effect the rights words do," as he puts it, and convince them to resolve their misunderstandings through dialogue.

"It really takes patience to deal with such sensitive issues, but the results are rewarding," he says.

Kiro Nikolovski, a newly-trained Officer of Prevention from the Kriva Palanka police station admits that although he and the other new officers learned many useful things, it will take time to put it all into practice, and that dealing with real-life difficulties takes patience and endurance.

Lumnije Memishi, an ethnic Albanian female police officer from Kumanovo, who was just recently appointed as Officer of Prevention, agrees. She finds the new role very enjoyable but also challenging.

What she likes best is her work with schoolchildren when she visits schools and teaches the children about road safety.

"It will take further efforts to increase confidence between police and the local population, but things are going in the right direction," she says.