Police seminar on behavioral reform
The seminar is part of an initiative by the Iran police to increase satisfaction among people with behavior of the disciplinary forces. The idea came in mind following a survey of the calls made to the police feedback hotline, 197, revealed that the first two complaints of the people were, respectively, misbehavior and lack of sense of accountability of the police forces. Therefore the leadership of the disciplinary forces decided to start an initiative which aimed to reform and standardize the behavior of the police.
The essence of the reform is that you can expect a minimum manner from any of the disciplinary forces. A steering committee has been formed, led by Brigadier General Jazini, deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Iranian police. The committee has tried to improve the status of the police behavior through various means of communication, internally or externally, such as films, booklets and brochures. According to the statistics, the initiative has had great success so far, increasing people’s satisfaction dramatically.
UNICEF, as an international entity, which is also a reference in case of behavior standards for children has had a close cooperation with the Iranian police form the very beginning to standardize behaviors on juvenile justice. UNICEF Iran has helped familiarize the police with conventions on behavior towards children such as Riyadh guidelines and Beijing rules.
Based on this profile, UINCEF Iran’s representative, Christian Salazar Volkmann, was among the lecturers at the conference. He started his speech by emphasizing Iran’s exceptional population pattern, including 47 percent under 18 and 70 percent under 29 years of age which can bring about various challenges for the police force. He added that this leads to high-risk behaviors because of the unique psychological attributes of children and youth. “There has also been emergence of new crimes against and by children which didn’t exist before such as child abuse, child trafficking and child pornography which calls for new rules and attitudes.” He mentioned the national and international environment which make expectations higher than ever.
Iranian police has done a great job in this respect so far. Its strategy is to create a more expert behavior, create dialogue with children and youth and provide preventive rather than punitive mechanisms. UNICEF is pleased with the efforts and looks forward to further collaboration.
