Enhancing alternatives to incarceration and provision of legal aid through mentoring a cohort of police, prosecution and prison officials in Sindh

27 - 29 October, Karachi - UNODC Country Office in Pakistan is committed to enhancing the capacity of senior officials from the Criminal Justice Institutions, particularly, the police, prosecution and prison departments to improve alternatives to incarceration and provision of legal aid. To this end, a Training of Trainers (TOT) Programme is being implemented under the Legal Aid Programme for Sindh through the support of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL). In continuation of this, a TOT was held recently in Karachi that brought together a cohort of 27 male and 3 female officers, building their capacity to further cascade the same modules to officials from the relevant institutions. 

The TOT was aided through techniques of adult learning to ensure the participants follow a self-directed pathway of learning to connect and actively engage with the basic tools of learning and enhance their knowledge and abilities to further act as mentors to their staff.

The innovative methodology of TOT followed a two-pronged path of enhancing the mentoring and training skills of the participants as well as preparing them for the next stage of assimilating hard-core technical subjects such as Police-Prosecutors cooperation and alternatives to incarceration including bail.

Learning materials of the TOT handed over to the participants incorporate the latest concepts and techniques and would serve as effective teaching aids to cascade the training. The language formats have also been improvised to deliver the content in Urdu to ensure efficiency and clarity in the transfer of key concepts as well as build a culture of continuous learning.

The TOT provided an excellent opportunity to build a pool of knowledgeable and motivated instructors, including prison superintendents to serve as assets for their respective organizations. UNODC plans to take the momentum forward through mentoring sessions through its ‘Master Trainers’, which would ensure sustainability and long-term impact in the human capacity building within the ranks of criminal justice institutions.

The participants highly appreciated the interactive learning opportunity, which will go a long way  to develop a foundation for building and sustaining a process of acquisition of learning and enhancing the performance of police, prosecution and prison departments in Sindh.

 

 

 

Training of Trainers Programme is being implemented under the Legal Aid Programme for Sindh through the kind support of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL)