Community Policing: interaction between the police and the community on the basis of partnership. Experience of Chernihiv

Before the Revolution of Dignity, local internal affairs bodies (OABs) were almost not accountable to the community and conducted autonomous activities, guided only by internal instructions and instructions of the police leadership. This led to the emergence of a desire among the population to take care of security on their own, in particular, through the independent self-defense units that were formed.

In September 2015, the process of forming a new patrol police started in Chernihiv, and in December the last stage of selecting law enforcement officers was completed, in which representatives of the Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights (CHGKZPL) also participated. The first 250 patrol officers began their duties in February of the following year. Their activities required an independent public assessment, and therefore the creation of relevant bodies of public and municipal control, and an information campaign to increase public awareness and trust in the department from the population.

For its part, the ChGKZPR during 2016-2021 implemented

a number of security initiatives

. First of all, during December 2016-January 2017, as well as May-June 2018, with the support of the Renaissance Foundation, the committee surveyed Chernihiv residents regarding their satisfaction with the work of the local police, during which information was collected and analyzed regarding the effectiveness of police activities, the level of trust in it by the Chernihiv community, the safety of the city, the state of citizens’ readiness to cooperate with the department in the field of ensuring public order and security, and possible forms of interaction between the police and the community. The purpose of these studies was to identify and form priorities for protecting public order in the city.

In 2018, the CHGKZPR conducted an information campaign and implemented

School Understanding Services

in four pilot Chernihiv schools. In August of the same year, with the assistance of the NGO “Institute of Peace and Understanding”, a strategic session was held with representatives of the city police, deputies of the Chernihiv City Council, employees of educational institutions and public organizations, the result of which was the development of ideas that will form the basis of a relevant local safety program, in particular in the city’s schools.

However, at the same time, at the Chernihiv community level, a number of urgent problems in the field of public safety and law and order remain.

Bullying and teenage violence.

Today, Ukraine faces many challenges. Among the most serious are intolerance, aggression and crime among children and youth. They are more vulnerable than adults due to their age and lack of experience and are often unprepared to solve acute problems. Thus, girls are more at risk of becoming victims of sexual violence, and boys are prone to unreasonable risks associated with crime and drugs.

In 2017, the whole country was shocked by several cases of fights between schoolgirls in Chernihiv. Unfortunately, these facts have a continuation in other cases – already in October 2021, the city once again attracted attention with teenagers beating two police officers, one of whom died on the spot. These facts indicate a lack of preventive work and mediation on the part of both law enforcement agencies and local government bodies and educational institutions in student and youth environments. This is also the opinion of the Commissioner of the President of Ukraine for the Rights of the Child, following a visit to Chernihiv in April 2017, on whose instructions a corresponding committee was established under the Chernihiv Regional State Administration, which also included a representative of the ChGKZPR.

Prevention.

Ukraine still lacks systematic prevention of offenses, drug abuse and risky behavior among adolescents, in particular by the police. Effective prevention of this in schools and communities will contribute to the development of preventive technologies that will be used at the national level. Thus, the project will be useful for both local communities and society as a whole due to the introduction of reasonable standards and an approach from the position of protecting human rights.

According to the World Health Organization, our country ranks fourth among European countries in terms of the level of adolescent aggression: 67% of children in Ukraine aged 11 to 17 have encountered the problem of bullying. And in the global context, Ukraine ranks seventh in terms of the number of persecutors (aggressors) and ninth in terms of the number of victims of bullying.

Bullying

of one child by another, aggressive harassment, often common in schools, has several reasons: the need for adolescent aggressors to be respected by peers and adults, their desire for leadership, inability to communicate and manage their emotions. To achieve the desired leadership in a children’s team, they use the method they know – the law of force. When such situations are identified, teachers, parents, social workers, school psychologists and police officers provide assistance only to victims of bullying, and only various repressive measures are applied to aggressors. Therefore, the situation does not change, but only worsens, because for such adolescents, adult methods are confirmation of the effectiveness of the law of force.

Aggressive

adolescents have remarkable leadership potential and, in fact, are already informal leaders of their classes and schools. They are able to act decisively and achieve significant results. Therefore, it is these boys and girls who can become those who will unite others around them for changes in society and protection of the interests of youth. The participation of trained police representatives in the prevention of risky behavior among children will contribute to increasing the authority of law enforcement officers and trust in them in the city community.

At the same time, the creation of

School Safety Committees (Councils)

, the training of

School Police Assistants

from among high school students, teachers and school psychologists, as well as the appropriate

support and supervision of these bodies and activists by the local police

will activate students to implement security initiatives in their educational institutions and communities, will allow them to cultivate respect for the dignity and rights of their peers, and will also unite and strengthen the resources and efforts of the city authorities, educators, public activists and police bodies to ensure security in educational institutions and in the youth environment. This should also have a positive impact on the overall level of security in Chernihiv.

Police representatives support their involvement in preventive and educational work in educational institutions of the city on an ongoing basis, especially within the framework of the experiment on the implementation of the institute.

Neighborhood Watch.

Today, about 100 associations of co-owners of apartment buildings (OSBB) have been created and are operating in Chernihiv. With the assistance and initiative of the ChGKZPL, a relevant information campaign was carried out in 2017-2018, as well as a number of meetings with representatives of self-organization bodies of the population (OSN) to establish communication and cooperation on issues of security and order in the city, training was organized for heads of OSBBs and representatives of the local police. As a result, in 2018, pilot “Neighborhood Watch” units were introduced in condominiums, and along with them, a communication platform based on the Telegram mobile application was launched with the participation of representatives of condominiums, the police, and the State Committee for Housing and Urban Development.

In turn, law enforcement officers draw attention to the need for communication with representatives of self-organization bodies of the population and the police on a more systematic and public level, in particular, due to staff reductions or turnover: due to the reform of the department of district inspectors in 2016-2017, only 45 employees remained out of 120 district inspectors in Chernihiv. Such cooperation, according to the police, would contribute to the prevention and detection of offenses. In addition, there are proposals to introduce the institution of “public inspectors,” who would be assigned to a particular building in the city, which would help with communication.

Thus,

the continuation of the introduction of the “Neighborhood Watch” institute

in Chernihiv is relevant for establishing effective interaction between the Chernihiv community and the police to ensure public safety at the local level.

During 2016-2021,

the ChGKZPL established close and fruitful cooperation

with the Patrol Police Department in the Chernihiv region, specialized units of the Chernihiv City Council and the Main Police Department in the region (Memorandums of Cooperation have been signed), as well as self-organization bodies of the population. In 2016, in cooperation with the Patrol Police Department, other NGOs, volunteer and self-defense initiatives, and local libraries, a number of educational events were held for various target groups (people with disabilities, children and youth, the elderly, etc.) within the framework of “POLiS” (“Police and Community”).

Representatives of the committee continue to actively participate in the recruitment of new police officers to the Patrol Police Department and the recertification of employees of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Chernihiv region.

The publication was prepared by the Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights within the framework of the implementation of the project “Public Control over Law Enforcement Agencies in Chernihiv Region” with the support of Freedom House Ukraine.