UGANDA POLICE FORCE

Background

Professor Bruce Olson Director of personnel and security for Brighton Enterprise in California USA defined Police Research and Planning department/Directorate as “The center for Police that fosters the analysis of problems faced by law enforcement, collect and disseminate such research to appropriate persons and agencies and thereby aid in improving administrative procedures and techniques in law enforcement”.

Faced with the need for such a center, the Uganda Police Force established the department of Research and Planning in 1989 and later in 1992 was assigned an extra role of Inspection and renamed Research, Planning and Inspectorate headed by an ACP.

As time progressed, it was realized that the Department was too big and its activities too demanding and because of that, in 1998 the Department was split into two independent but closely linked units viz.

Department of Research and Planning

Department of Inspectorate.

In January 2009, the Directorate was further upgraded to a Directorate, naming it the Directorate of Research, Planning and Development. It is headed by an Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIGP)

Mandate of the Directorate:

• To develop and coordinate strategic planning and policy formulation for UPF
• Coordinate Justice Law and Order Sector (JLOS) activities with other stake holders and development partners
• Make sure that UPF plans are in line with national’s thrust and objectives.
• Plan, monitor and implement UPF review processes
• Oversee and advise on implementation of UPF institutional plans and projects
• Coordinate the mobilization of resources for UPF
• Carry out applied research and advise UPF on the best policing practices and systems
• Participate and spearhead the preparation and production of annual budgets and performance plans and other relevant manuals
• Develop planning processes and analytical techniques that support the development and evaluation of strategic options.
• Ensuring effective management of the force’s resource centres for example, Libraries, Databank etc.
• Coordinate Police projects which are under the Office of the Prime minister (OPM)

The Directorate has got 3 Departments;

• Research and Development
• Strategic planning
• Police review

Department of Research and Development

To carry out research and advice on the best policing practices and systems to UPF

Key tasks/schedules of duty

• Coordinate statistical and applied research to keep the Force abreast of issues at hand
• Determine, monitor and evaluate performance indicators for functional areas in the UPF
• Evaluate and undertake periodic review of the implementation of policies and accomplishments
• Collect and analyse data on various projects with a view of establishing relevant information
• Create and manage the UPF Data bank
• Prepare periodic reports for the department and forward them to the IGP

Department of Strategic Planning

To develop and coordinate planning and policy formulation for the UPF

Key tasks/ Schedules of duty;

• Develop and coordinate strategic plans for UPF
• Identify strategic issues relevant to the Force and help other departments incorporate them into their micro plan.
• Spearhead the budgeting process in the Force
• Secretariat to the management meeting in the UPF
• Help the institution identify priority areas and attach resources accordingly
• Prepare both departmental/institutional work plan and forward them to relevant authorities
• Promote and coordinate collaboration linkages with both national and international institutions for purpose of enhancing useful planning in UPF

Department of Police Review

To plan and conduct police review

Key tasks/ Schedules of duty;

• Implement plans, strategies for carrying out police review
• Advice UPF on policies and systems for review
• Monitor and evaluate strategic plan implementation for UPF

RESOURCE CENTRE

Within the Directorate, a resource centre has been developed. Its main purpose is to;

1. Stock relevant books and Journals about UPF and Forces in other countries so that readers can compare and learn from their experience.
2. Acquire Newspapers and magazines both local and foreign for information and educational purposes
3. Store and disseminate in-house publications to users for timely decision making
4. Constantly acquire and update reading materials on a day to day basis
5. Store all researches materials, reports, Thesis and dissertations in reference to UPF and also borrow documents to researchers.

One of the biggest challenges of the resource centre is the limited space for people to work, read and research from. The entire environment needs to be improved to ease its activities.

Furthermore, there is great need to fully computerise the centre though this is slowly being achieved

Activities at hand: what are we currently doing?

PEACE RECOVERY AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN (PRDP)

Drawing of this plan was accomplished at departmental level with a lot of input from Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIGP) office and consultation with field commanders. The plan aimed largely at “consolidating the Police Presence in northern Uganda through a sector wide support in order to ensure enforcement of law and order”.

Objectives are;

• To improve the population’s accessibility to Police Protection services.
• To up hold and enforce laws of the country in the region
• To improve on the capacity for crime prevention and satisfactory disposal of cases
• To improve on the living and working conditions of Police Officer

In the previous two financial years Police as an institution has largely benefited under this program.

The Directorate of Research, Planning and Dev’t drafts annual work plan, with the help of Deputy Inspector General of Police and submit them to the Office of the Prime Minister through which funding is channelled.

Through PRDP, a number of activities has been done in the north and eastern parts of the country and Police as an institution has greatly benefited. This additionality funds has been used for;

• Construction of both residential and non-residential Police structures.
• Purchase of transport equipment ie. Motor vehicles & motor cycles
• Purchase of machinery and equipment eg. Hydraform machines

CAPACITY BUILDING AND HUMAN RIGHTS TRAINING IN UGANDA POLICE FORCE.

This Project is funded by European Union and was developed to target mainly institutional strengthening of the training capacity of the Uganda Police Force in the area of Human Rights observance, Community Policing and empowering police officers to understand human rights issues and principles of humane policing.

The Directorate developed a Project Estimate (PE) in consultation with the key departments like legal, community affairs, Training planning unit and Finance. Though implementation is done by different departments, Research, Planning and Development does the coordination role between the Police and the donors.

Police projects carried out under this program include;

• Improvement on the conditions of detention facilities for women and juveniles. Mattresses, Blankets and sanitary pads were distributed to the regions of Southern, South Eastern, North western and Kampala metropolitan.
• Stake holders’ workshops on Human Rights awareness were held in the regions of Southern (Mayuge) and Mid-western (Buliisa).
• Training of middle managers of former Local Administration Police (LAP) in Human rights and constitutionalism
• Training of middle and senior managers of central police in Human rights issues. This took place in the regions of North Western, Western, South Western, Southern, South Eastern, Central and Kampala metropolitan
• Rolling out of the police Human rights  and complaints desk
• Enhancing community Policing programme

Legal reference materials were produced to assist Officers. These were compendia of Police related laws and Human Rights pocket books for police officers. They included;

• The constitution
• Police Act
• Penal Code
• Magistrates Court Act
• Criminal Procedure Code Act

PLAN FOR NATIONAL STATISTICAL DEVELOPMENT (PNSD)

The Directorate is also involved in implementation of PNSD launched by his Excellency the President in October 2006.The PNSD covers 5 years (2006/7-2010/2011) and provides a framework and mechanisms for reform of the NSS and acceleration of statistical development in Uganda.

This covers all ministries, Departments and agencies targeting the following areas of statistics improvements; Statistical Advocacy, Physical and statistical infrastructure, IT strategy, Human Resource Development, Data Dissemination, Organizational and Institutional development and Monitoring and Evaluation.

Through PNSD, Police has managed to among others;

• Develop her basic statistics
• Supporting the operationalisation of central statistical unit as part of Directorate of RP&D.
• Facilitating KMPA Statistical office
• Training in database administration

TRANSPORT POLICY

The Directorate was also tasked to develop a draft fleet management policy by the Police council and we have just accomplished that task and submitted a copy to PAC for further management.

POLICE REVIEW

That Force is undergoing review to enhance its efficiency and effectiveness and again our Directorate is spear heading the same activity which is now at its final stage. The outcome of this review will see the Uganda Police Force address the policing need in a “community focused” manner.

The directorate is also developing strategies for monitoring & evaluation of the implementation of the Strategic Investment Plan (SIP) of the UPF.

Challenges:

• The Directorate is purely a technical unit mandated to handle Research, Planning and Development functions in UPF.  This requires adequate training in Research and Planning skills which is still lacking.
• Planning is not yet appreciated by the majority of the Force members, and the work of Research and Planning is not yet well understood by other Police Departments.
• There is still a gap between other Directorates and this one in coordinating planning activities.
• There is a problem of recording and documenting police activities at all levels.  This makes it difficult to obtain reliable statistics to build up a Force Data Bank which would be a source of information, necessary in planning.
• The Force Library as a resource centre is not yet given the priority it deserves in planning.  We still need trained Police officers with qualifications in information science and librarianship.
• There is still a challenge for all Departments and Directorates to create and manage their own Data Banks as a basis for proper planning.
• The Directorate has a problem of harmonising plans from various units that are normally unrealistic and inconsistent resulting from lack of acceptable guidelines.
• Being a new Directorate, R, P & D is still under funded but we are still building capacity slowly

Conclusions and recommendations:

The Directorate of Research, Planning and Development is a bit unique from other directorates in that it performs a central role in terms of overseeing and coordinating all activities of the Force.

It is therefore supposed to be fed with information on all activities in other Directorates, then integrate them and communicate to the end-users.  There is a great need for other Directorates to support Research, Planning and Development as a centre of information for the entire force.