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Executive summary

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Identification

Analysis

Alternatives

Recommendation and action plan

After joining the National Police of Haiti (NPH), I worked sometimes as a team leader ensuring the security of the President of the Republic sometimes as an instructor within the National Police Academy. This experience allowed me to experience some realities about the experience of this National Police.

The inability of the police to curb and put an end to acts of banditry, coupled with the multiple cases of abuse by law enforcement officers, and the reprehensible actions of police demonstrators or former National Police officers of Haiti who have become bandits, undermine public confidence in the institution.

Cases of injustice are legion. In May 2018, David Duverseau experienced this in Nazon. Because he honked several times at a policeman, obviously in no hurry, the young man ended up in police custody at the Carrefour de l'Aroport sub-police station, with a report saying that he was pursuing the policeman "from Saint- Marc in order to kill him". Which is wrong, maintains Duverseau.

The man will obtain his release thanks to the interventions of a lawyer friend who had to appeal to the government commissioner.

Other victims are less fortunate. In 2019, Frantz Kerby Mathieu witnessed a violent scene when a police officer hit a seller of prepaid phone cards with his weapon, in Delmas 33. The seller's only fault was to ask the "super police chief" to wait before being served. Other police officers present did nothing to protect the victim.

Very often, the PNH is instrumentalized for political purposes. No regular poll comes to specify the popularity rating of the PNH. But a USAID-funded study by Vanderbilt University put public confidence in the institution at just 57.9% in 2014. Those numbers were an improvement from 49.3% in 2006.

The National Police of Haiti has a violent past. From its creation in 1994, the police institution, which held in its ranks veterans of the army, was denounced for multiple abuses. "More than fifty recruits with too easy triggers, responsible for serious blunders which had undermined the confidence of the population, were removed from the executives", wrote Jean-Michel Caroit, in the newspaper Le Monde, in December 1996.

A year later, the lawyer Mireille Durocher Bertin, opponent of Jean Bertrand Aristide (former President of the country) is assassinated. According to the FBI, senior officers of the HNP, particularly Dany Toussaint, director general, would have their hands soaked in this murder.

According to Amnesty International, for a long time, a lot of brutality has been observed within the HNP. Even today, the abuses and blunders continue. Very often, the HNP is instrumentalized for political purposes. Several opposition demonstrations were severely repressed as bandits marched through the streets, heavily armed, without any intervention from the police.

Moreover, several former police officers have become members of gangs that terrorize the population. Jimmy Cherizier leads the G9, a coalition of nine criminal groups. Long before, he was a member of the HNP. The so-called "Barbecue" had to flee to escape the consequences of his involvement in the massacre that was perpetrated in Bel Air.

The HNP requires a lot of needs. Over the years, the institution has received academic and logistical support from countries such as the United States or Canada. The workforce has increased, but the professionalization of agents still seems incomplete.

According to the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti, the budget allocated to the institution does not correspond to its needs. According to a UN mission report released in 2017, without a considerable increase in funding, the basic functioning of the HNP will be compromised.

In truth, the police are short of arms. In June 2020, the institution had 15,172 police officers. This number represents a ratio of 1.3 police officers per 1,000 inhabitants, which is below the international standard of 2.2. In addition, the HNP only registers 1,517 women in its ranks, i.e. 10%.

In addition, the police force is segmented into a multitude of units. Some agents are assigned to political figures, while others lend their services to private companies.

Also, there is a high concentration of agents in the big cities. "It's been years since I left Port-au-Prince to work in the countryside," says Joseph, a 10-year-old police officer. I took an oath to protect the population, not a group. I'm tired of parking in front of companies, businesses, while in some areas there are no police officer.

Added to this, agents do not have effective insurance coverage nor regular psychological support. The police do not have a hospital, despite the millions of dollars taken from the PetroCaribe program that Venezuela has offered to Haiti for its reconstruction. Another structure that must provide care to police officers and their families was inaugurated in La Plaine in 2019. Even today, it still does not work.

The effectiveness of the PNH is an important pillar for building public confidence. For 2020, the Collectif Dfenseur Plus had listed around 3,000 cases of kidnapping. Several other cases are already registered for the new year.

Often the dysfunctions of the judicial institution are blacklisted. "How to tell a police officer today not to wear a balaclava/hood in the street, while often after the arrests, because of a political acquaintance, the offender person is released", asks Chantale, a policewoman from the Gender Violence Department at a police station in Port-au-Prince. "Police officers do not want to expose themselves; we cannot blame them for that", continues the agent.

Last year, Lon Charles took the reins of the HNP for a second time, while in 2005 he was replaced because he was unable to solve the problems related to the insecurity of the time.

Research demonstrates the need for deep and radical changes within the institution, which is already resistant to in-depth modifications. For Pierre Esprance, a human rights defender, it takes a real "political will from the leaders" to solve the problems of the Haitian National Police.

On condition of anonymity.