More than 1400 employees of the Dirección Nacional de Investigación Criminal (DNIC) returned to work on Monday after super-Minister Arturo Corrales reversed himself (he had said their jobs were suspended) and ordered them to return to work.
An unnamed agent told La Tribuna that probably Minister Corrales was being badly advised because you can't suspend the investigative work in a country where there are an average of 20 murders daily, over 7000 a year. Each of the investigators manages an average of 300 open cases at a time.
Its also likely that Corrales did the math.
The first 100 DNIC agents will take the confidence tests this week, and they hope that 200 can take the tests next week. If they can continue on that pace (and they never have) it would take a full 7 weeks to test all the DNIC agents, and if you think about it, you really can't allow all crimes to go uninvestigated for 7 weeks. That would create more impunity, causing more crime.
Once a sufficient body of DNIC agents have passed the confidence tests, they will be assigned to the new Fuerza de Tarea Policial de Investigaciones (FTPI) along with agents of the Dirección Nacional de Servicios Especiales de Investigación (DNSEI).
Agents of the DNSEI have not undergone the confidence tests and Corrales has not ordered them to be tested before they join the new FTPI.
Anyone else see a problem here?
Showing posts with label DNIC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DNIC. Show all posts
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Friday, June 7, 2013
Civilian Policing "Reform" Consolidates Power
Investigation of crimes came to a screeching halt Tuesday in Honduras as Security and Defense Minister Arturo Corrales ordered the suspension of all 2,200 members (approximately 1400 police and 800 employees) of the Dirección Nacional de Investigación Criminal (DNIC).
Corrales further ordered that organizationally the DNIC should be merged with the Dirección Nacional de Servicios Especiales de Investigación (DNSEI). Corrales is calling the merged group, the Fuerza de Tarea Policial de Investigacion (FTPI) which loosely translates as "Police Investigation Working Group".
This is basically a take-over of the resources, personnel, and equipment of the DNIC by the DNSEI whose head is now in charge of the merged organization. It is a further step toward militarization of civilian policing, which began with the centralization of military and police under Corrales.
Yesterday DNSEI personnel examined the offices and equipment of the closed DNIC offices and made plans for their use.
Members of the ordinary police arrived at DNIC facilities across the country and escorted all employees from the building and padlocked them.
Citizens are now supposed to report crimes to this new working group, but Corrales forgot to order the dissemination of that information to the public, or tell them the new locations to do so.
Corrales explained his action as derived from the fact that the DNIC was leaking information to organized crime. All 2200 employees, country wide, are suspended until they have submitted to, and passed, the police confidence tests.
Not that those tests have been ordered or scheduled.
The result was that DNIC police and employees staged public rallies Wednesday and Thursday asking to return to work while they wait for their confidence tests to be scheduled. They issued a public statement applauding the decision to ask them to submit to the confidence tests but asked that their rights be preserved, including the right to an assumption of innocence. They called the current plan "improvised" and said that criminals currently held will go free because of the lack of investigation. They further suggested that Corrales should have created a schedule for their testing and allowed them to continue working until the tests can be done rather than suspending all of them, "denying justice to Hondurans."
On Thursday several hundred of the protesters took over the former DNIC offices by force, throwing out the DNSEI officers who were there including the man who nominally is their new boss, Alex Villanueva Meza, the head of the FTPI.
A lawyer for the officers arbitrarily dismissed began legal action to get them reinstated because their suspension violated their rights to due process and presumption of innocence.
A sargent with 26 years of experience in the DNIC said:
In Honduras, the reference to the 1980s would resonate: this was the last time that civilian policing was linked to the military.
Corrales further ordered that organizationally the DNIC should be merged with the Dirección Nacional de Servicios Especiales de Investigación (DNSEI). Corrales is calling the merged group, the Fuerza de Tarea Policial de Investigacion (FTPI) which loosely translates as "Police Investigation Working Group".
This is basically a take-over of the resources, personnel, and equipment of the DNIC by the DNSEI whose head is now in charge of the merged organization. It is a further step toward militarization of civilian policing, which began with the centralization of military and police under Corrales.
Yesterday DNSEI personnel examined the offices and equipment of the closed DNIC offices and made plans for their use.
Members of the ordinary police arrived at DNIC facilities across the country and escorted all employees from the building and padlocked them.
Citizens are now supposed to report crimes to this new working group, but Corrales forgot to order the dissemination of that information to the public, or tell them the new locations to do so.
Corrales explained his action as derived from the fact that the DNIC was leaking information to organized crime. All 2200 employees, country wide, are suspended until they have submitted to, and passed, the police confidence tests.
Not that those tests have been ordered or scheduled.
The result was that DNIC police and employees staged public rallies Wednesday and Thursday asking to return to work while they wait for their confidence tests to be scheduled. They issued a public statement applauding the decision to ask them to submit to the confidence tests but asked that their rights be preserved, including the right to an assumption of innocence. They called the current plan "improvised" and said that criminals currently held will go free because of the lack of investigation. They further suggested that Corrales should have created a schedule for their testing and allowed them to continue working until the tests can be done rather than suspending all of them, "denying justice to Hondurans."
On Thursday several hundred of the protesters took over the former DNIC offices by force, throwing out the DNSEI officers who were there including the man who nominally is their new boss, Alex Villanueva Meza, the head of the FTPI.
A lawyer for the officers arbitrarily dismissed began legal action to get them reinstated because their suspension violated their rights to due process and presumption of innocence.
A sargent with 26 years of experience in the DNIC said:
Our families feel bad; they [the government] consider us a bunch of criminals; they should give us the confidence tests and those that they have to fire, they should fire....The objective [here] is to mark us as criminals without paying us a lempira of the funds they legally have to and go back to the 1980s, fire the police to put the military in our place.
In Honduras, the reference to the 1980s would resonate: this was the last time that civilian policing was linked to the military.
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