UNODC supports efforts to strengthen police oversight

Law enforcement institutions are entrusted with a diverse set of tasks requiring a high degree of integrity within police agencies and their oversight. Where this does not function well, law enforcement officers may become vulnerable to acting unlawfully and outside their remit.

UNODC's Program for Central Asia 2015-2019 acknowledges that in Central Asia, as in many other parts of the world, long-term efforts are required to establish frameworks for police oversight and accountability in order to strengthen integrity within systems of policing.

In Kyrgyzstan, UNODC has adopted a comprehensive approach to police oversight, which includes both support to the Ministry of Interior (MoI) to improve its internal accountability and integrity mechanisms, and capacity development for independent oversight bodies, such as the MoI's Public Council, a dialogue platform composed of civil society activists and academics.

On 28 April 2016, UNODC held a joint meeting with the MoI's Public Council to present two independent monitoring reports developed with the support of the UN Peace Building Fund. The first report analyzed the mandate and functions of the MoI's Internal Oversight Department with a focus on complaints handling in relation to alleged misconduct of police officers. The second report presented the results of a survey amongst citizens and police officers on the functioning of the patrol police and temporary police holding facilities. Members of the Public Council discussed the two reports and made recommendations to the MoI and other State bodies on further improvement of work in the area of internal oversight and police patrolling. These are   topical given that the MoI recently established a new unified police patrol service, which also incorporates the traffic police.

  • In 2014, 2132 citizen complaints were brought directly to the police (of which 358 were confirmed). This is up from 1727 in 2013
  • The number of police officers sanctioned for misconduct rose by 20% in 2014 compared to 2013.