The recent Global Commission on HIV and the Law included a blogspot
Link to the e-discussion here!
Here is a look at LEAHN’s submission regarding the Commission’s ‘Relationship to Law Enforcement and Police’
The Global Commission on HIV and the Law clearly recognized throughout its report and Recommendations that reform of policy and law has to be matched by reform of law enforcement and implementation of policy and law by police, and that these are different activities requiring different focuses. For instance, “In many countries, the law (either on the books or on the streets) dehumanizes many of those at highest risk for HIV”.
Police are the key group translating ‘law on the books’ to ‘law on the street’ (or often acting without reference to the law at all). In many if not most cases, police are the major determinants of the risk environment for people at risk of HIV.
There are three common strains of thought – we would say almost ‘fallacies’ – among many involved in the HIV response, from civil society and from NGOs and agencies:
- that police are merely passive implementers of the law; so that if the law is reformed, police attitudes and behaviours towards MARP communities will automatically fall in line;
- that police are the enemy, and that their behaviours are not amenable to change without confrontation; and/or
- that training and sensitization of police is adequate to change behaviours of police towards MARP communities.
It must be recognized that policing forms a culture, one that is often closed to the influence of outsiders, and subject to a variety of influences that are difficult for an outsider to discern. In many countries, this culture is often male-oriented and male-dominated, self-protecting, and embodying the prejudices and attitudes of the wider society from which the police come. Changing behaviours is secondary to changing the culture; culture, through peer influence, is a far stronger determinant of behavior than is training.
Police are not passive in implementing the law: in even optimum circumstances, the exercise of discretion by police is fundamental in their work, in choosing what action to take in a particular situation. In many situations globally, police act with little reference to the law, or use existing law judiciously to meet more pressing community or political pressures. In most cases, it is police, as frontline responders, who are the gatekeepers to access to justice. And in some instances globally, changes in police behaviours have been in advance of law reform, through partnership with the HIV sector and beneficial exercise of discretion.
One of our biggest remaining challenges is reform of police culture …
In many situations, police are the enemy of a human rights-based approach to HIV prevention and care among vulnerable populations; however, this is not at all a necessary condition – some HIV programs around the world have found that working with police, rather than against them, has achieved more in ameliorating the hostile environment on the street which drives HIV risk among many other risks to MARP communities. “Police can be your worst enemy, or your best friend” is a truism to the HIV program manager. In Malaysia, for instance, after being approached by NGOs in Kuala Lumpur, the police decided to ignore their own Standard Operating Procedures that stated two condoms in possession of a street sex worker was sufficient to charge them with a prostitution offence, and actually dropped possession of condoms as a charge altogether. Another example is patrolling near Needle Syringe Programs – police in many jurisdictions worldwide now have SOPs that recommend no targeting of needle exchange. In Ghana, police not only stopped harassing women carrying condoms as sex workers, but began carrying condoms themselves for distribution to sex workers. There are many more examples to add to this growing list.
Implementing training within police academies on human rights, on harm reduction policing, on HIV and the necessity for a partnership approach – all this is good and necessary, but not by itself sufficient to change police behaviours. On leaving the academy, the new police officer enters a closed culture which determines every aspect of his or her behavior on the job; and if this is not a culture supportive of human rights and partnerships in the HIV response, the academy training is useless and forgotten.
Similarly, one-off sensitizations and training workshops have little impact if the participants return to an unchanged culture and work environment. To engage police in the response to HIV, it is necessary to understand the world from their point of view, to appreciate the multiple pressures on them, and to ask “what’s in it for them?” Too often, advocacy to police from the HIV sector sounds to them like “help us do our job”; the usual police response is “we’re busy doing our job” – as they perceive it.
Police agencies worldwide are undergoing budgetary cutbacks, as a result of economic stringencies; everywhere, they are subject to the same mantra: “focus on the traditional role of policing, that of identifying and catching criminals; ignore the marginal activities such as partnering with public health”. What this imperative forgets is that police have always had a critical partnership role in public health – in road trauma, violence and other crime prevention, dealing with mental health crises and many other issues; this role is not marginal, it is central to the police mandate . The fact that this role is under-recognised and under-rewarded means that police do not immediately understand that their partnership role in HIV prevention and care is part of a normal and central contribution police make to a healthy and safe society.
In many countries, there are structural drivers of counter-productive police behaviours, such as low pay and status and inadequate training. The global move towards professionalization of police is founded on the understanding of the critically important role they have, in partnerships, across the widest range of health and welfare issues, and that if they are adequately paid and trained they will be more amenable to learning new roles and attitudes – and more accountable. None of this is to be read as excusing adverse police behaviours in relation to people and communities at risk of HIV; rather, without an understanding of the drivers of this behavior, attempts to change it will be unsuccessful.
The Commission has clearly recognized the potential positive role of police, and the urgent need to harness this force to the cause of HIV prevention:
“The legal environment—laws, enforcement and justice systems—has immense potential to better the lives of HIV-positive people and to help turn the crisis around.”
“There are instances where legal and justice systems have played constructive roles in responding to HIV, by respecting, protecting and fulfilling human rights. To some such an approach may seem a paradox—the AIDS paradox. But compelling evidence shows that it is the way to reduce the toll of HIV.
Given this background, The Law Enforcement and HIV Network (LEAHN) has been established to help build informed, trained and supportive police forces as strong allies in the fight against HIV. The Commission’s findings and recommendations clearly outline the need for reform of policing practice, and the opportunity to recruit as partners, facilitators and even leaders in HIV prevention strategies.
Culture change in a closed culture is best achieved by peer-led interventions – modeling, peer education, creating and sustaining a supportive environment. LEAHN has been established by police to help create such an environment – advocacy for harm reduction approaches to policing vulnerable communities is carried out by police to their peers, a much more credible and authoritative source of information and influence than anyone outside the police world.
For instance, LEAHN through its International Police Advisory Group, has published a Statement of Support by police for harm reduction approaches to policing vulnerable populations. This Statement has been signed by almost 5,000 police worldwide, and continues to accrue more support. It was launched by a delegation of police from LEAHN at the most recent UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in Vienna in April 2013. It carries a strong message, both to police – that this is not a foreign idea to policing, it is in fact policy among many police agencies already, and it has enormous support among your peers and colleagues; and to the HIV community, that there are many police ready and willing to engage in a partnership to confront not only HIV but the underlying human rights issues affecting MARPs.
There is a pressing need for more and more sustained engagement with police around HIV prevention and care; it needs to be better framed as culture change, and integrated with global movements to professionalise policing; and it needs to be driven as much by HIV managers as by police and police reform.