Dmytro Yagunov: How to Return Trust to the Police in Postwar Ukraine

During the war, the Government had the priority to combat against Russian occupiers, where a traditional peace-time issue of human rights ​approach has been replaced with humanitarian law. There are grounds to believe that Ukraine will have a generation of police officers grown up on the long distance from procedural justice and human rights. We can also presume that even after the War the police will face a post-war echo and focus on harsh crime prevention policies aimed at organised crime and gang activities.

Therefore, it can be presumed that even the second generation of police officers will have a punitive style of thinking. It is clear that these generations of police officers will need more time to adapt themselves to peacetime policing based on human rights standards of the Council of Europe and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture. Considering the time limits and a lack of material resources on the police, the issue of the training of police officers can be very problematic.

Moreover, we have all grounds to presume that not only time and financial resources should be considered. One of the sharpest aspects of postwar Ukrainian policing has a purely psychological nature.

It is obvious the police force of Ukraine will be recruited mostly from the former military officers and soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In addition to the absence of proper knowledge and skills on how to communicate with people in the post-War society, they are expected to rely on the autocratic and harsh style of policing rather on the dialogue with citizens.

Consequently, such a situation will lead to a bigger gap between the police and the society.

Moreover, one more aspect must be considered here.

The majority of police officers – regardless of their age – will be former military officers or police officers directly involved in the military actions. Even now, many police officers participate in military actions on the basis of regular rotation.

Even those who are not involved in military actions participate in joint actions with military staff of the military recruiting centres, performing purely punitive actions with a zero level of trust by the population.

In the case of former military officers and police officers involved in direct armed hostilities, it is obvious that they will be reluctant to follow traditional methods of police training. Moreover, there is a real danger that such police officers can even sabotage human-rights oriented police strategies in the postwar Ukrainian society.

Consequently, such a situation shapes a problem which has to be solved ​w​ith new innovative methods of training of police officers adapted to the needs of the last two generations of police officers.