The people’s confidence in the police force has increased. Some 30.5% of the people trusted the police in 2008, whereas in December 2019 the figure rose to 39.5%, shows a report on the civic monitoring of the police reform presented by the Promo-LEX Association, IPN reports.

Mihaela Duca, analyst of Promo-LEX, said the replacement of three governments led to changes in the administration of the General Police Inspectorate and its subdivisions. This shows the police force is dependent on the political factor.

Referring to positive aspects of the police reform, Mihaela Duca said the first professional formation course for beginner police sub-officers was held in 2019 and 55 police sub-officers were trained. Also, 200 police officers were trained in the area of community police.

At least 250 police officers were also instructed in ethics and anticorruption measures. Two information and awareness-raising campaigns were carried out to prevent corrupt behavior in the police. There were staged training courses on the prevention of corruption-related phenomena.

Nine remand prisons were reopened in 2019 after renovation and they now meet the minimum standards on police detention places. Twenty-six old remand prisons stopped work. The Criuleni Police Inspectorate and the Teleneşti Police Inspectorate were refurbished and the subdivisions of the General Police Inspectorate were outfitted with TETRA equipment. Fourteen police stations were repaired and opened officially.

The expert of Promo-LEX noted that the number of women in the police force continues to be low and the objective to increase the number of female police officers by 18% wasn’t achieved. However, the number of women promoted to executive posts in the police in 2019 increased twice.

In general, the action plan for implementing the police development strategy was 24.5% carried out by December 31, 2019.

The Head of the EU Delegation to Moldova Peter Michalko in the presentation of the study said the Moldovan police force still suffers because of the bad reputation related to the past, insufficient training, equipment-related problems and corruption. “What should be done is to change public perception of the police from an organization that only exercises power to an institution that aims to serve the citizens of the Republic of Moldova. That’s why we should start to look at the police not like at a force, but like at an entity at the service of the population,” said the ambassador. “We must admit that investments in the basic salaries could be needed so as to better motivate the police personnel and to fight petty corruption, corruption in general.”

Promo-LEX program director Pavel Postica said that even if 2019 was rather difficult for the whole country, especially for the public authorities, as two election campaigns were organized and the political crisis affected the work of the central public administration bodies, particular progress was made in achieving the objectives set by the authorities.

“The partners’ support for the central public administration, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the General Police Inspectorate wasn’t affected by the political crisis. For us, it is not important who manages these institutions. We had an open communication, cooperation regime with all those who managed the Ministry of Home Affairs, the General Police Inspectorate as we focused on the objectives that should be achieved by these strategic documents that were voluntarily undertaken by the Moldovan authorities and for which the development partners, especially the European partners, come with particular budget support too, if they are implemented,” stated Pavel Postica.

The report is an annual document and represents a synthesis of the police reform implementation level in 2019.