You may already know that government has fulfilled pre-election pledge to de-politicize police structures and implemented the most important system changes in 2015. State Security Service has been separated from the Ministry of Internal Affairs which has defined new tasks for us.
Alongside my team I conducted in-depth research and analysis of the system, defined strategy and action plan in order to transform police into more effective, pubic-oriented system. Our path is irreversible towards- western standards. Despite the fact that Ministry of Internal Affairs has fully accomplished commitments undertaken within the frames of the VLAP, the European choice of the country and concern for better future, sets additional challenges for which I’ve already defined specific action plan.
Reforms are still underway at the Ministry of Internal Affairs which will ensure the further development of the police and the establishment of effective, accountable, reliable and modern institutions. In particular:
- Police will continue to further modernize, which will improve opportunities for the police in terms of combating and preventing crime;
- To me one of the key priorities is to strengthen crime prevention components, for which we plan to promote the expansion of camera surveillance system;
- New approaches will be introduced, aimed at establishing closer relations with community;
- Besides the mentioned, we are in the process of forming Analysis-led policing system. We plan to set up the bank of DNA to enhance investigation opportunities and strengthen crime prevention mechanism. I was an investigator and I am fully aware that these innovations will be a progressive step in the history of criminology;
- Areas of international police cooperation will be further increased as well as cooperation with European police agencies. Next year Ministry of Internal Affairs will sign high-level agreement with Europol, which would be a significant progress in terms of the Euro integration;
- Special attention will be paid to deepen cooperation on the regional level;
- Infrastructure of police units will be further developed and equipped with contemporary standards;
- Reform of the border management system will continue, in accordance with the modernization, standardization and unification five-year program;
- New concept for the district inspector has already been developed, introducing district inspector as the family members, who will not have the function of investigator and operative worker;
- Special attention will be paid to the illegal migration and related risk management, in terms of capacity building and raising the level of coordination with other agencies;
- The final phase will include reform of emergency and emergency management system, which will significantly improve coordination, technical preparation and rapid response capability. At this stage of the reform, alongside the technical equipment, professional education of a firefighter rescuers will become an important component as well as their social guarantees;
- Services of the Ministry of Internal Affairs will be further improved, including availability, new technologies. In addition servicing process will become even more customer-oriented.
- Traffic safety program will be implemented which will enhance efficiency of the patrol activities in terms of ensuring protection for drivers, passengers and pedestrians;
- New system of human resources management will also be developed within the frames of which we have to study what amount of forces will be needed for specific area of operation based on which MIA staff will be redistributed;
- Police and civilian functions will be separated, which will facilitate the introduction of modern management model, stable, growth-oriented career system for policemen and optimal utilization of the state resources for providing police education in terms of social protection, which will bring us closer to European standards;
Of course, the reforms will not be effective, if not permanently improve policemen’s qualification. To this direction, we plan to strengthen the capacity of Police Academy by converting it into a regional center of education. New programs as well as distance learning will be introduced at the Police Academy. Activities will be implemented in cooperation with American and European partners, with the aim to provide not only Georgia, but also neighboring countries with highly trained and qualified officers oriented on the western standards and values which, in turn, will be one of the important preconditions for the regional security.
It is remarkable that following issues are included in the priorities of the Ministry:
- Domestic violence against women and respond to the crime;
- Fight against organized crime – preservation of the achieved results and further improvement;
- Trafficking-related risk analysis and prevention, as well as detection of specific crimes and response;
- protection of human rights at temporary detention centers standards and further improvement of the existing conditions for persons being in administrative detention;
- Uncompromised fight against drug related crime, drug trafficking prevention, preserving the index in the fight against pharmacy drug abuse, control of the new psychotropic substances, to reduce impact;
- Preservation of achievements in the field of personal data protection to further police the approaches of the Ministry in this regard;
- Prevention of the violations and misconduct committed by policemen, detection and suppression of such actions by increasing internal control mechanisms;
I attach great importance to raising public awareness on the regular basis in order to involve people in crime prevention. The accomplishing the mentioned tasks and after implementing reforms, Georgia will have more society-oriented policing, effective emergency management office, an Integrated Border Management System and the modern services, which, ultimately, ensures more protection of the public and civil security.
My goal is to make police more reliable for the society, so that policeman could feel support from the public.
