According to investigators, the scheme operated systematically. Owners of so-called “porn offices” – premises used for the illegal production and distribution of erotic and pornographic content through internet platforms – paid police commanders 20,000 US dollars per month. The intermediary retained an additional 5,000 dollars. In exchange, the officials undertook not to take any enforcement action, not to document violations, and to provide advance warning of inspections.

At least several documented episodes of money transfers were established: 45,000 dollars in February 2026, 25,000 dollars in April, and a further 25,000 dollars in May – at the moment of detention. Searches yielded a fleet of luxury vehicles, five Swiss watches, weapons, and cash in various currencies totalling over UAH 22.6 million. This is not a personal success story of the suspects. It is materialised impunity.

LEGAL QUALIFICATION

The actions of the police commanders were charged under Part 4 of Article 368 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine — receipt of unlawful benefit in an especially large amount by an official holding a responsible position, committed by a group of persons pursuant to a prior conspiracy. The sanction provides for imprisonment from eight to twelve years with confiscation of property.

The qualifying element of “prior conspiracy by a group of persons” is of fundamental importance. This is not a technical detail – it is evidence of the organised, rather than spontaneous, character of the corruption. The multiple documented episodes of money transfers point to an established criminal practice, not a one-off incident.

Separate attention should be paid to the atypical architecture of the criminal group: only commanders and a driver – i.e. the highest and lowest tiers – without an intermediate level. This either reflects a carefully constructed scheme of insulation, or signals that the middle tier has not yet been identified. This structural dissonance merits separate investigative attention.

OFFICIAL STATISTICS AS A MIRROR OF LATENCY: THE CRIME IT IS PROFITABLE NOT TO RECORD

An analysis of official police statistics concerning two core articles – keeping brothels and procuring (Article 302 of the Criminal Code) and pimping or inducing a person into prostitution (Article 303 of the Criminal Code) – reveals a stark paradox. Official data shows a steady decline in registered crimes against the backdrop of widely documented growth in the underlying practices. This is not evidence of a successful law enforcement system – it is an indicator of the system’s institutional interest in keeping this market segment invisible.

This is precisely why these categories of crime are traditionally classified as “ancillary” offences relative to human trafficking: their true scale is structurally absent from official statistics, because registration runs contrary to the interests of those tasked with registering.

The peak figures were recorded in 2014 – 509 registered crimes and 379 notices of suspicion. A sustained downward trend followed, with several characteristic deviations. In 2022, following the start of the full-scale invasion, only 61 crimes of this category were recorded – a reduction of 88% compared to the peak. In 2025 the figure stood at 54.

If interpreted literally, these data would suggest that the sexual services industry in Ukraine has virtually disappeared. Reality, as documented by investigative journalism, tells the opposite story: frontline cities have become regional hubs for sexual services, with clearly structured pricing – from 30–40 euros for a “massage” to 200 euros for trips to the combat zone. Demand has grown, the market has transformed, yet none of this appears in official statistics. Because it is profitable for other people in uniform.

The dynamics under Article 303 differ somewhat but follow the same logic. After notable growth in 2017–2018 (412 crimes — the maximum for the entire period studied), figures fall again: 195 crimes in 2022, 244 in 2024, 171 in 2025. The temporary increase in 2023 (348 crimes) can be explained by a partial restoration of law enforcement functions and the dislocation of criminal networks to safer territories, but by no means by any genuine increase in this type of crime.

LATENCY AS A STRUCTURAL PHENOMENON: CRIMES TURNED INTO BUSINESS

Crimes in the sphere of sexual services are classic examples of structural latency – a condition in which crime is systematically not recorded not because it is absent, but because its registration is contrary to the interests of law enforcement. Classical criminology distinguishes natural latency (the victim does not report) from artificial latency (law enforcement conceals the crime). In the case of the “porn-rent” corruption exposed on 20 May 2026, we are dealing with the second type – institutionalised and monetised.

The mechanism is simple and robust.

First, the victims and participants in such crimes have their own interest in avoiding police attention – they are either themselves administrative offenders, or they depend on “protection”.

Second, police commanders, receiving regular payments for “non-interference”, do not merely look the other way passively – they actively suppress any attempts by subordinates to document these violations. Official statistics reflect not the actual state of crime, but the result of this active filtering.

Consider the “suspicion rate” indicator – the share of registered crimes for which a notice of suspicion has been issued. Under Article 302, it fluctuates between 64.3% (2016) and 94.4% (2025). This means that those cases which do make it into the statistics are investigated with reasonable effectiveness. The paradox lies elsewhere: only a small fraction of actual crimes are registered – predominantly those arising from competitive conflicts between market actors.

The statistical collapse of 2022 – a drop to 61 registered crimes under Article 302 – is telling. It coincided not with the disappearance of the market, but with Russia’s full-scale invasion. Law enforcement resources were redirected, traditional “protection rackets” were partially disrupted. But the market was not. The Kramatorsk hub, described in detail by investigative journalists, emerged precisely as an adaptation to new geographical and social conditions.

QUANTITATIVE DIMENSION OF THE HIDDEN SCALE

The true extent of latency can be estimated by cross-referencing several indicators. According to research estimates, the latency coefficient for prostitution-related crimes ranges from 1:10 to 1:50 in various countries – meaning that for every registered crime, between 10 and 50 go unregistered. Even applying the conservative multiplier of 1:10 yields a picture sharply at odds with official data: if 54 crimes under Article 302 were registered in 2025, the actual number of such instances may have reached 540 to 2,700 per year.

These estimates are consistent with the demographic logic: Ukraine in 2025 has over 25 million residents in government-controlled territories, a significant proportion of whom are internally displaced persons – predominantly women in extremely precarious economic circumstances. The combination of large-scale demographic vulnerability and weakened institutional control is a classic environment for the expansion of an unregulated sexual services market. Official statistics do not capture this process – they capture the size of the corruption shield that conceals it.

A further indicator is the structure of the online market. According to market participants’ estimates, approximately 90% of online sexual services advertisements are fraudulent (scams), which itself evidences the broad presence of organised criminal groups in the online segment. Organised crime, oriented towards large-scale and systematic profit, requires systematic “cover”. This is precisely the corruption rent we observe in the case of 20 May 2026.

THE CORE THESIS: PROHIBITION AS A GENERATOR OF CORRUPTION RENT

The systemic bribery exposed on 20 May 2026 is not a consequence of the personal immorality of particular police officers. It is a direct and foreseeable consequence of the state’s prohibition on the legitimate operation of adult content online platforms.

Any prohibition of profitable but technically feasible activity in conditions of mass demand creates a rent space: the market moves underground but does not disappear. Platforms such as OnlyFans are publicly accessible without registration, operate around the clock, and any person can use them without any real restrictions from the state. The prohibition, in other words, is de facto non-operational and incapable of operation.

Instead, it creates a legal lever for coercion: since the activity is “illegal”, law enforcement officials acquire the monopoly power to decide – to prosecute or to “overlook”. This discretion converts into money. This is precisely how corruption rent arises – a regular payment for non-prosecution of that which the state formally prohibits but is factually incapable of blocking.

Here an entirely absurd paradox of public administration emerges. On the one hand, the state attempts to tax women engaged in such activity. On the other hand, it classifies this very same activity as a crime and prosecutes the same women criminally. The result is the creation of ideal conditions for unlimited police racketeering. Would such systemic bribery have occurred if the operation of such platforms had been legalised? Obviously not. The state itself created the conditions for the commission of these crimes.

The criminalisation of online erotic platforms, contrary to its declared objective of eradicating them, effectively pushes them deeper into the shadows – to a place where there is no legal oversight whatsoever, where women are left entirely unprotected, and where the preconditions for direct sexual exploitation arise. Law enforcement officials occupied with collecting corruption rent objectively have neither the time nor the motivation to combat genuinely dangerous forms of crime — trafficking, forced prostitution, child pornography.

THE SYSTEMIC DIMENSION

The intermediary in the scheme was the personal driver of the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs. This is not a peripheral detail – it is a structural node of the entire construction. A driver is a person with constant physical access to a senior official, with unrecorded informal contacts, and with the capacity to conduct a parallel business life in the shadow of an official status. The question that inevitably arises: how far does the chain extend? No public suspicion has been directed at the Deputy Minister himself, but the mere fact that his immediate entourage proved to be the hub of a multi-oblast corruption network raises obvious institutional questions that cannot be ignored.

The scheme covered three regions simultaneously. This is not a local phenomenon and not a coincidence. It is either evidence of centralised coordination through a single intermediary, or – even more worrying – a sign of a widespread market practice in which regional police commanders independently and separately enter the market for protecting illegal businesses.

The case unfolds in the context of a full-scale war, and this gives it a qualitatively different dimension. Regional police department heads are not merely administrators. They are officials with access to operational information, accounting systems, security chains, and contacts with the SBU and military administration. A person who takes bribes and is dependent on a criminal business is a vulnerability in the country’s security system. In wartime, this is not merely corruption – it is a threat to national security.

The statistical data presented above confirm the systemic, rather than episodic, character of this phenomenon. If “protection rackets” were an isolated deviation, we would observe chaotic fluctuations in the statistics. Instead, we see a smooth downward registration trajectory with a clear correlation to general system stresses (the 2020 pandemic, the full-scale invasion of 2022) — and rapid recovery thereafter. This is structure, not accident.

A REGULATORY ALTERNATIVE

It is necessary to move away from artificial moralising and to frame the question in its real dimension: what specific moral harm has the existence of the relevant web platforms inflicted on Ukrainian society – and what moral harm has their protection by police inflicted? The answer is obvious.

The legalisation and regulation of online sex platforms is not a moral choice. It is an anti-corruption strategy. Its logic is simple: lawful activity does not require protection from the police — it is protected by law. The rent space disappears, and with it the corruption incentive.

Regulation, rather than prohibition, makes it possible to protect the rights of industry participants, introduce age and consent verification, tax revenues, and refocus law enforcement resources on real crimes — trafficking, coercion, child pornography. To speak of prohibition and criminal prosecution of something that exists completely openly, that requires no registration and operates 24/7, is entirely absurd. The state has discredited itself through the exposure of this scheme.

Statistical analysis confirms this conclusion methodologically. If over 13 years official statistics show an unvarying decline in crimes in a sphere that is clearly not declining in reality – this is not a problem with the offenders. It is a problem with the legal model, which generates structural latency and corruption rent instead of genuine protection.

One can predictably expect that, once the initial resonance fades, yesterday’s moralists in uniform will begin to speak of the need for legalisation – precisely because their own system for protecting illegal businesses has proven vulnerable. Society should take note of those voices and verify whether real reformist will stands behind them.

CONCLUSIONS

This case is more than a criminal scandal. It is a mirror of a systemic crisis generated by the convergence of three factors: an artificial prohibition that creates a corruption market; the structural latency of crimes that serves this prohibition; and the absence of real internal oversight within the law enforcement system.

Statistical data for 2013–2025 testify not to the success of efforts to combat crime in the sphere of sexual services, but to a persistent and systemic practice of concealing it from registration. The 88% decline in registered crimes under Article 302 of the Criminal Code and the 58% decline under Article 303 occurred in conditions where actual market volumes, by all independent estimates, were not shrinking — and in certain sub-periods were growing. This is materialised latency.

The true test of intentions will not be the arrests, but the verdicts. Even more telling will be whether this case prompts a systemic review of oversight mechanisms for regional police commanders, or whether it remains another signal after which the system reverts to its customary state.

Without structural changes — decriminalisation of online platforms, audit of the internal oversight system, refocusing of law enforcement resources on serious crimes, and a methodological revision of approaches to measuring latent crime — the next such scheme will be only a matter of time. And society will again pay for it — in money, security, and trust in the state at its most critical hour.

On October 28, 2025, a large-scale police operation took place in the Complexo do Alemão and Complexo da Penha communities, reportedly aimed at enforcing some 100 judicial warrants against individuals linked to organized criminal groups. According to official information, at least 121 people were killed, including four police officers. Some 81 people were detained.

For decades, the high lethality associated with policing in Brazil has become normalized, particularly in areas like Rio de Janeiro, where it has recently increased significantly. Brazil must break the cycle of extreme brutality and ensure that law enforcement operations comply with international standards regarding the use of force.

Türk called for prompt, independent, and effective investigations into Tuesday’s events and for a comprehensive policing reform.

Independent mechanisms should also be established to support the families and communities affected to help them access justice and reparation.

Türk urged the authorities to adopt a national policing strategy rooted in a human rights-based approach. Any use of potentially lethal force must be aligned with the principles of legality, necessity, proportionality, and non-discrimination. Lethal force may only be used when strictly necessary to protect life or prevent serious injury from an imminent threat.

Addressing systemic racism against people of African descent in Brazil is paramount.

According to the International Independent Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and Equality in Law Enforcement (EMLER), the killing of people of African descent by law enforcement in Brazil is not only generalized but is also carried out in a systematic way. An estimated 5,000 people of African descent are killed by the police each year. Young men of African descent living in impoverished areas are the main victims.

“It is time to end a system that perpetuates racism, discrimination, and injustice,” said the UN Human Rights Chief.

“Reforms are urgently needed to avoid repetition. Violations cannot go unpunished. Proper accountability processes must lead to truth and justice to avoid further impunity and violence.”

African Americans and police brutality

Americans of all races, ethnicities, ages, classes, and genders have been subjected to police brutality.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, for example, poor and working-class white people expressed frustration over discriminatory policing in northern cities. At about the same time, Jewish and other immigrants from southern and eastern Europe also complained of police brutality against their communities.

In the 1920s many urban police departments, especially in large cities such as New York and Chicago, used extralegal tactics against members of Italian-immigrant communities in efforts to crack down on organized crime.

In 1943 officers of the Los Angeles Police Department were complicit in attacks on Mexican Americans by U.S. servicemen during the so-called Zoot Suit Riots, reflecting the department’s history of hostility toward Hispanics (Latinos).

Regular harassment of homosexuals and transgender persons by police in New York City culminated in 1969 in the Stonewall riots, which were triggered by a police raid on a gay bar; the protests marked the beginning of a new era of militancy in the international gay rights movement.

And in the aftermath of the 2001 September 11 attacks, Muslim Americans began to voice complaints about police brutality, including harassment and racial profiling. Many local law-enforcement agencies launched covert operations of questionable legality designed to surveil and infiltrate mosques and other Muslim American organizations in an effort to uncover presumed terrorists, a practice that went unchecked for at least a decade.

Notwithstanding the variety among groups that have been subjected to police brutality in the United States, the great majority of victims have been African American. In the estimation of most experts, a key factor explaining the predominance of African Americans among victims of police brutality is antiblack racism among members of mostly white police departments. Similar prejudices are thought to have played a role in police brutality committed against other historically oppressed or marginalized groups.
Whereas racism is thought to be a major cause of police brutality directed at African Americans and other ethnic groups, it is far from the only one.

Other factors concern the unique institutional culture of urban police departments, which stresses group solidarity, loyalty, and a “show of force” approach to any perceived challenge to an officer’s authority. For rookie officers, acceptance, success, and promotion within the department depend upon adopting the attitudes, values, and practices of the group, which historically have been infused with antiblack racism.

Because African Americans have been the primary — though certainly not the only — target of police brutality in the United States, the remainder of this article will deal mainly with their experiences, both historically and in the present day.

The Great Migration

Interactions between African Americans and urban police departments were initially shaped by the Great Migration (1916–1970) of African Americans from the rural South into urban areas of the North and West, especially following World War II.

Most white communities, including white police departments, were unaccustomed to the presence of African Americans and reacted to their increasing numbers with fear and hostility, attitudes that were exacerbated by deeply ingrained racist stereotypes. Reflecting the beliefs of many whites, northern police departments acted upon the presumption that African Americans, and especially African American men, possessed an inherent tendency toward criminal behavior, one that required constant surveillance of African Americans and restrictions on their movements (segregation) in the interests of white safety. Accordingly, by the mid-1950s many urban police departments had implicitly reconceived their missions as essentially that of policing African Americans — i.e., protecting whites against Blacks.

The forms of police brutality to which this situation gave rise were variable and generally not limited to physical assault (e.g., beatings) and excessive use of force. They also included unlawful arrests, verbal abuse (e.g., racial slurs) and threats, sexual assaults against African American women, and police homicides (murders of civilians by police). Police were also sometimes complicit in drug dealing, prostitution, burglaries, protection schemes, and gun-smuggling within African American neighborhoods.

Although police brutality against African Americans had become a serious problem in many urban areas by the mid-20th century, most whites remained unaware of it until about the mid-1960s, in large part because most large-city newspapers (whose readerships were primarily white) did not consider it newsworthy. In contrast, incidences of police brutality were regularly covered in the Black press from the early 20th century, frequently in front-page articles. Likewise, local and national civil rights organizations collected thousands of affidavits and letters from African Americans documenting their direct experiences of police brutality.

Police brutality after World War II

For a variety of reasons, incidences of police brutality against African Americans became more frequent and more intense throughout the country in the decades following World War II. First, the victory of the forces of democracy in the war overseas created among African Americans expectations of greater freedom and democracy at home, especially as many of them had served in combat in the U.S. armed forces (albeit in racially segregated units).

As Black Americans began to assert their formal rights and liberties, demanding that they be respected by local governments, judiciaries, and law-enforcement agencies, their demands had the effect of reinforcing the tendency of white police officers to view themselves as protectors of white communities.

Second, the migration of rural whites to nearby cities in search of better economic opportunities encouraged police to view their own violence against African Americans as a more acceptable means of control than the mob hysteria that rural whites had been accustomed to and that urban spaces simply did not allow. In effect, police brutality replaced lynchings as a means of oppressing Blacks.

During this period, white supremacist and terrorist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens’ Council operated openly in Southern cities, where police brutality against African Americans was abetted by government and political leaders, district attorneys, and judges, among others.

Third, in other cities, especially in the North, the flight of whites to the suburbs and the natural growth of the African American population made African Americans more visible and allowed them to be more mobile within formerly white areas.

Such demographic changes made African Americans as a group appear more threatening to white police officers and allowed the latter to more easily justify extralegal tactics as a means of controlling African Americans’ mobility and limiting their use of public spaces.

Fourth, beginning in the 1970s, African Americans who had joined local police forces in large numbers as a result of aggressive recruitment and affirmative action programs themselves committed serious acts of brutality against African American civilians, in part because they wished to be seen as “good cops” and to be otherwise accepted within their departments.

Finally, the escalation of urban crime rates in the 1970s and ’80s, including in predominantly African American and other minority neighborhoods, strengthened the perception among white police officers and whites generally of African Americans as inherently criminal, a trend also reflected in a newly racially charged political and policy discourse, referred to by critics as the criminalization of the Black poor and working class.

Police brutality and race riots

From the 1960s, police brutality was a catalyst for many of the race riots (riots caused by racial dissensions or hatreds) that took place in urban America, including the Watts Riots of 1965 and the Detroit Riot of 1967. In 1980 the Liberty City section of Miami erupted over the police killing of an unarmed African American man.

During a period of three days, 18 people were killed and some 1,000 arrested, and more than $100 million in property damage was committed.

Twelve years later the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers and their subsequent acquittal on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and excessive use of force triggered the Los Angeles Riots of 1992, still considered the worst race riots in American history.

During a period of four days, more than 50 people were killed and more than 2,300 were injured, and property damage was estimated at about $1 billion.

In 2014 the fatal shooting of an unarmed African American teenager, Michael Brown, by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, and a grand jury’s subsequent decision not to indict the officer on criminal charges provoked rioting in that city.

Later race riots (along with peaceful demonstrations) followed the deaths in police custody of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland (2015), and George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota (2020), both of whom were African American.

Antibrutality campaigns

Most victims of police brutality, including not only African Americans but also whites and other ethnic groups, have come from the ranks of the poor and low-income working classes. They have consequently lacked significant political influence or the financial resources that are sometimes necessary to effectively publicize complaints of police brutality.

Nevertheless, antibrutality campaigns have been mounted in nearly every major U.S. city with a sizable Black population. In sometimes large demonstrations, members of victimized communities have demanded, in addition to an end to police brutality and accountability for guilty officers, major reforms including the hiring of more African American police officers and the placement of more African American officers in supervisory positions, racially integrated patrols or Black-only patrols in African American neighborhoods, civilian review boards, and federal investigation (e.g., by the Justice Department) of egregious cases of police brutality. Their tactics have included sit-ins, boycotts, picketing, and close monitoring of police activity, including (from the late 20th century) by means of videos taken with handheld cameras and mobile telephones.

In 2013 the acquittal of George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Florida, on charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager, led to the founding of a powerful social movement, Black Lives Matter. The movement subsequently played a prominent role in nationwide protests following extreme acts of police brutality against African Americans. In retaliatory attacks in 2016, five white members of the Dallas, Texas, police department and three police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, were shot and killed.

Antibrutality campaigns tended to be led by activists at the grassroots level and by other members of the communities directly affected rather than by more-established civil rights organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Urban League, whose memberships were drawn primarily from the Black middle class.

Indeed, Black middle-class support for antibrutality protests was often limited, largely because, like their white counterparts, middle-class Blacks generally favored tough crime-fighting measures to protect themselves and their property from Black criminals. Because they were relatively inexperienced as leaders, however, antibrutality activists often used direct and confrontational methods, preferring street protests over negotiations.

And because they generally lacked an institutional base and a clear strategy, they were often reactionary, acting in an ad hoc fashion and creating organizations and developing constituencies as the need arose.

Despite such limitations, they were usually effective, because they articulated the anger of their constituencies, who were generally suspicious of electoral politics (“the system”) and who had no faith that Black politicians would adequately address their concerns.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the detainees were arrested under administrative law for attempting to obstruct traffic illegally. A young woman who reportedly climbed onto a police car and verbally confronted officers was charged with hooliganism – a criminal offense.

Administrative penalties are a fast-track form of justice left over from the Soviet Union’s which after a recent amendment allows quickly imprisoning someone for up to 15 days.

The protest, which began around 8 pm, saw demonstrators lying down on the street and chanting “Fire to oligarchy”, as police repeatedly ordered them to move to the sidewalk. Officers formed a cordon in front of the parliament building to prevent further attempts to block the road. Traffic was later restored, though the rally continued on the adjacent sidewalks.

Despite its widespread acceptance this paper asserts that there are conceptual limitations that emerge when applying the theory to the policing of crowd events.

This paper contends that this problem with PJT is a result of specific assumptions that are highlighted by two studies using a novel experimental approach. Study 1 systematically manipulated the social categories used to describe crowd participants subjected to police coercion.

The experiment demonstrates how these social categories dramatically affected participants’ perceptions of the same police action and that it was participants’ relational identification with the police, rather than a superordinate category, that mediated the association between judgements of procedural fairness and intentions to cooperate.

In Study 2, using a quasi-experimental design, we then replicated and extended these findings by demonstrating how perceptions of procedural fairness are also influenced by levels of in-group identification.

The paper concludes by exploring the implications of the data for reconceptualising the social psychological processes mediating these judgements and impacts of police legitimacy.

Source

The government will declare a state of emergency in Lima within hours and is preparing a package of measures to tackle rising insecurity, Prime Minister Ernesto Alvarez said late on Thursday in a press conference.

The protest on Wednesday night, called by young Gen Z protesters, transport workers and civil groups, was the latest in a series of demonstrations against corruption and rising crime, which led to the dramatic midnight ouster of former President Dina Boluarte last Thursday.

Police chief says officer carried out shooting

Thousands of protesters amassed around the country, with hundreds clashing with police outside Congress in Lima. Police fired tear gas while some protesters hurled fireworks, rocks and burning objects.

“Everyone must go!” protesters chanted when they reached Congress and tried to tear down metal barriers protecting the building, leading to clashes.

A 32-year-old man, Eduardo Mauricio Ruiz, was killed during the protest and his death will be investigated. Peru’s prosecutor’s office said Ruiz died after being shot.

Later on Thursday, the head of Peru’s National Police (PNP), Oscar Arriola told reporters that Luis Magallanes, a member of the force, had been physically assaulted and carried out the shooting. Arriola added that Magallanes was being treated in hospital and had been removed from his duties.

Jeri expressed regret over Ruiz’s death in a post on X, saying the death would be “objectively” investigated. He blamed violence on “delinquents who infiltrated a peaceful demonstration to sow chaos.”

New interior minister promises police reform

After attending a meeting about the protests at Congress Thursday afternoon, Jeri told reporters he would ask Congress for “authority to legislate on public safety issues”.

Jeri said one focus would be prison reform, but did not elaborate on what those powers would entail.

Speaking to Congress soon after, newly-appointed Interior Minister Vicente Tiburcio, said the government would push for comprehensive reform to the national police, adding that 89 police and 22 civilians had been injured during the protest and 11 people were detained.

The Interior Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the police reform or Jeri’s request for expanded legislative powers.

Despite recent scholarship in this area, the associations between internal and external procedural justice, and the intervening mechanisms at play, are still not well understood.

Using survey data from new police officers in England and Wales, we test the direct association between internal and external procedural justice, and indirect connections through self-efficacy, job satisfaction, and well-being.

Self-efficacy, but not job satisfaction or well-being, was found to partially mediate the relationship between internal and external procedural justice. In other words, perceived internal procedural justice promoted external procedural justice through (in part) cultivating greater confidence in officers’ abilities to perform their job effectively.

The International Day of Police Cooperation highlights the importance of working together for public safety, crime prevention and human rights. Through its community security work in over 40 crisis-affected areas, UNDP has shown that transforming police to focus on people’s needs makes the biggest impact.

In Gambisara, The Gambia, community policing, supported by UNDP, has made a real difference. “Not a day went by without theft, rape, or domestic violence before the initiative,” said Ali Bongo, a leader of the community policing volunteers. Now, crime is down, and life is safer.”

Across all regions, especially in crisis- or conflict-affected settings, it is essential for police to operate in partnership with communities and build trust. Achieving this requires integrity, transparency and accountability within law enforcement. People need to trust that police officers will be held responsible for excessive force or human rights violations, and that requires strong oversight.

In countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Lebanon, Nigeria, and Venezuela, UNDP is helping governments build digital platforms, design codes of conduct and policies that are a must to ensure police accountability. In DRC, a new provincial oversight department is responsible for control and internal investigations, while in Lebanon, over 390 municipalities are part of a reform that promotes community policing, oversight and accountability.

In Iraq, model police stations offer “one-stop shop” services that are accessible and people-centred. In these locations, UNDP-commissioned surveys revealed that these innovations have boosted public trust and doubled crime reporting, including cases of violence against women and children. UNDP has trained 2,290 police trainers, including 120 female trainers, to foster effective policing and community engagement. The trainings cascaded engaging over 6,000 officers across the country.  

Digitalization when smart and human rights-based, can also improve the delivery of police services, optimize resources and combat impunity. UNDP supported the digitalization of police departments in DRC, The Gambia, Grenada, Honduras, Nigeria, Pakistan and beyond.

In Honduras, UNDP supported a new digital platform to analyze risk factors and indicators of v*iolence and insecurity across 298 municipalities. In Grenada, UNDP and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) championed the Police Force Goes High Tech initiative. A new information system is helping police shift from paper-based to digital reporting, improving crime monitoring and data management.

Partnerships and an integrated approach are essential for the success of police reforms. Together with the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, UNDP co-chairs the UN Global Focal Point for the Rule of Law (GFP). The GFP provides expertise and catalytic-funding and reinforces a One-UN approach to reduce violence, protect human rights, restore justice and security for people affected by crisis and conflict. 

Through the GFP, UNDP is driving reforms in DRC, Haiti, Mali, Somalia and South Sudan. In Haiti, where armed gangs control 80 percent of the capital, Port-au-Prince, UNDP supports the Haitian National Police (HNP) in partnership with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the UN Integrated Office in Haiti. This initiative enhances citizen security, aims to expand police presence and strengthen its capacity to control armed gangs, as well as to improve border control. 

People-centered policing brings real change, even in the toughest situations. When accountable and professional police represent communities they serve, they can build trust, improve safety, and pave the way for sustainable peace and development.

Finally, he encourages the government to reconsider certain protest-related provisions in the Crime and Policing Bill currently before the House of Lords, specifically the proposed new offence of concealing one’s identity, as well as restrictions on assemblies in the vicinity of places of worship.

Situation of trans people

In a separate letter addressed to the Chairs of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Women and Equalities Committee, the Commissioner shares observations on human rights standards that must be upheld in further steps following the UK Supreme Court’s judgment in For Women Scotland. 

He sets out key elements of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights that should be taken into consideration in this process. 

The Commissioner warns against measures that could exclude trans people from many areas of life. He also cautions against tendencies to view the human rights of different groups as a zero-sum game, noting that this approach builds on prejudice against trans people. 

The new Network, which is co-convened by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) and the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the University of Galway, fielded a team of seven legal observers to observe the policing of a pro-Palestine demonstration. 

The observers monitored gardaí as they, without justification, restrained and dispersed protesters using force and incapacitant (pepper spray). The report finds that actions of members of An Garda Síochána were in violation of garda policies and also Ireland’s international human rights obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights. 

This is the first report produced by the Network, established this year to monitor the policing of protests around Ireland. The report is published on the ICCL website and can be found here.