An initiative of
the National Academy of Public Administration, 
and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
and the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice, 
Princeton University




Oral History Program 	Series: 		Policing
				Interview no.:	B2






Interviewee: 		Superintendent Doug Coates
			Royal Canadian Mountain Police			

Interviewer:		Arthur Boutellis

Date of Interview:	15 January 2008

Location:		Ottawa
			Canada			



Innovations for Successful Societies, Bobst Center for Peace and Justice
Princeton University, 83 Prospect Avenue, Princeton, New Jersey, 08544, USA www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties

BOUTELLIS:	My name is Arthur Boutellis. I'm an interviewer with the Institutions for Fragile States at Princeton University. I am now sitting with Doug Coates at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Gendarmerie royale du Canada, in Ottawa, Canada. Today is the 15th of January, 2008. Thank you for your time, Doug. Before starting the interview, can you please confirm that you've read, understood, and signed the informed consent as well as the legal release forms?    

COATES:	Yes, I have.

BOUTELLIS:	All right, without further ado, I'd like to start by asking you a little more about your personal background, and particularly the jobs you've held, the positions you held, your work overseas, and how did you come to be involved in reforming police internationally, and your exposure in general. 

COATES:	Sure. I have been involved in international policing since 1993, at which time I was deployed as a member of the U.N. advance team into the United Nations mission in Haiti. Unfortunately, the security situation in that theater of operations deteriorated to the point where a decision was made by the Canadian government to evacuate the contingent; and we were evacuated and were on standby for the following year until such a time as the environment evolved and became conducive for redeployment. In 1994, October 1994, I deployed back to Haiti as a member of the advance team under the leadership of Police Commissioner Neil Pouliot. In that capacity, I was responsible for conducting profiles, regional profiles, and gathering information that formed part of the Security Council submission, made by Mr. Pouliot, that resulted in the development of the mission mandate and subsequent U.N. mission in Haiti.

	I stayed on with the mission and was a regional commander in the Grand'Anse region. I was responsible for the development of policing services, training of the (at that time) interim security force-because the Haitian National Police hadn't been formed-and maintenance of law and order throughout the region that had five cities, population of about 800,000 people, 210 interim protective security force personnel, and about 45 international police. That was in 1995.

	I came back, and in 1996 I was transferred to the position of being in charge of the peacekeeping department for the RCMP; and from 1996 until 2001, I managed the program.  

BOUTELLIS:	At the Royal Canadian Mounted Police?

COATES:	With the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In 1996, I was responsible for the management of one mission in Haiti, and by the time I left we had close to 170 Canadian police from some 30 different police partners, deploying to seven different peacekeeping operations around the world. I left in 2001 and went back to the field. I worked in the area of international money laundering proceeds of crime, and in 2004 was seconded initially as the Director of Police Programs, and then the chief operating officer to the Pearson Peacekeeping Center, which is a private, nongovernment organization based out of Ottawa. In that role, I was directly involved in the development and implementation of military police and civilian programming in Canada around the world, as it relates to participation on peace operations; most specifically involved in the development of African capacity-building programs for police.   

BOUTELLIS:	All right.

COATES:	We're not quite finished yet. I was then asked by the director general of international policing, Chief Superintendent Dave Beer, if I would be interested in taking over this past year as director of the RCMP International Peace Operations program. Prior to doing that, however, I was seconded to the Australian Federal Police, where I worked with the International Deployment Group executive, developing an understanding of how they are managing their program, exchanging lessons learned, best practices; and while there, had the opportunity of traveling to the Solomon Islands, where I conducted an evaluation of the Ramsey Mission; and to Vanuatu, where the AFP (Australian Federal Police) are managing a bilateral peace operation. 

	I should also add that while I completed my master's degree, I studied the management of violent conflict, looking at international intervention into violent conflict around the world, and wrote specifically on police involvement in those engagements. I also have studied and written at the master's level on issues related to Canadian police deployments to peace operations, beginning with the Boer War right through to Kosovo. And, as I mentioned, I am currently the director of international peace operations, responsible for the deployment of Canadian police to international peace operations around the world, of which we currently have over 100 people deployed to, I believe, nine different missions in 12 different operations.

BOUTELLIS:	Thank you. From this brief overview of your career so far, you've been exposed to a variety of police reform efforts in a number of different regions, of course, on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police side, but you also got exposed to the work done by the Australian police, as I understand. It is often said that the key to effective policing is situational awareness. Is that something-a context-is that something you've been really aware of? How different and how similar were some of these experiences? Also, I'd like to ask you about the issue of language in working with various national police forces.  

COATES:	You have to give me some clarification in relation to situational awareness-situational awareness from a strategic perspective or from an individual perspective?

BOUTELLIS:	Ah, from a mission perspective. How did the mission gather information in the different environments, basically? 

COATES:	Well, obviously, situational awareness is critical. It's imperative that on the front end in mission planning, that planners take into consideration that they do a thorough environmental scan, looking at the mission environment, the region, and the various political, social, economic, environmental issues impacting the region and how those influence activities within the mission itself. Without doing that kind of thorough analysis on the front end planning, mistakes will be made, and we as an international community won't be able to respond effectively to the challenges in the mission area. 

	Within the mission itself, it's imperative that there be ongoing gathering of information relative to those same factors; and from a policing perspective, taking it further beyond simply threat, and looking at criminal activity and ensuring that there is very effective analysis and generation of intelligence that allows decision makers to make informed decisions-timely and informed decisions.  

BOUTELLIS:	In terms of your personal experience in being deployed under a U.N. mandate in Haiti, as well as your exposure especially in your role in charge of peacekeeping for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, I was wondering if you could tell us about the kind of training you did have prior to deployment-or that some of your colleagues did have? And what, also, you wish you would have known being deployed, or what could make deployment more effective in these far regions.

COATES:	I think there's a tremendous gap in the region of preparing police, not only from Canada but around the world, to effectively function in international peace operations environments. I will speak from a Canadian policing perspective first and from my own personal experience. When I was deployed in 1993, I had a very quick, mission-specific briefing-what was the political situation, what was some geographic information, environmental information, threat information, a bit about the mandate-and off we went. 

	In 1994, when I went back, I had a quick one or two-day refresher-and off I went. As I came into the position of being responsible for Canadian police deployments, I felt that there was a gap and tried to address it effectively through communications with the U.N. and other agencies to try and determine what were the requirements, where were the gaps, and how could we effectively respond to that. What's important from a Canadian perspective is that Canadian police, generally speaking, having had the opportunity of traveling to missions around the world and meeting with police who were working in peace operations from around the world- when I compare Canadian police, Canadian police, generally speaking, are quite well educated-as part of our selection process in selecting Canadian police, they're quite well educated-they have extensive training in the various fields that they are working in. That training, that kind of in-service training is continual throughout their careers, and so they are often at the leading edge, and that they have tremendous experience. 

	So as far as policing, and policing in Canada, Canadian police are very well prepared to deliver those kinds of services within a domestic environment, and that serves as a good foundation for what is required in a mission. However, it's important to realize that there are certain competencies and a body of knowledge that are necessary to function effectively in an international police operation that working effectively in a domestic environment don't include. And so whatever training program police-contributing countries put into place, it has to enable police to effectively transition those policing skills that they have into this international policing environment. 

	And there has been ongoing analysis of that. We did that in the late 1990s here within the RCMP program and developed, in partnership with the Pearson Peacekeeping Center, a two-week training package. Unfortunately, that package wasn't implemented. I was transferred, and my boss was transferred, and the subsequent management didn't implement that learning package. And so up until this point in time, what Canadian police are receiving is really a briefing, or a mission orientation. I believe that there is a need to take it to another level, and we are working on the design and development of an entire new learning package for Canadian police that I hope will be implemented. The first phase of that will be implemented in February.  

BOUTELLIS:	Prior to deployment overseas, basically?

COATES:	Correct.

BOUTELLIS:	Can you go a little bit more into details? First, maybe talk about this training package that was unfortunately not applied, but that you're working off of for this future training package. Which are the priority areas that are covered within this training package? Second, you mentioned collaboration between the Pearson Center and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on this project. Were there any interactions also with maybe the U.N. Police, or other national polices around the world, that have interest in preparing their officers prior to overseas deployment?  

COATES:	I can tell you that we invested a tremendous amount of time, money, and energy in the development of the two-week package that was called "In the Service of Peace, Canadian Civilian Police, and Peace Operations." It was a comprehensive program that was the result of extensive consultation with the Canadian government, NGOs, the U.N.  It was as a result of that consultation that we identified the needs and designed the learning package. As I mentioned, it wasn't used; however, when I went to the Pearson Peacekeeping Center in 2004, I spoke with the Director of the International Peace Operations program with the RCMP and asked him if we could use that as a foundation for the development of training packages for African police, because the Pearson Peacekeeping Center since 2004 has been-actually even before that-has been engaged in the training of police in Africa, and are currently engaged continentally in the development of African police capacity to more effectively participate in peace operations. So that course was used as a foundation for the development of a training package in West Africa and has now been developed in both French and English and is being delivered throughout the continent in Africa.

BOUTELLIS:	So is it too early to evaluate the effectiveness of this training, or do we already have examples of actual cases?

COATES:	I don't think that there has been-other than level one evaluation, I don't think that there has been any further evaluation to determine the effectiveness of the training.

BOUTELLIS:	Can you specify what is level one? 

COATES:	Just strictly in classroom.

BOUTELLIS:	Pre-tests, post-tests, knowledge base? 

COATES:	Yes. 

BOUTELLIS:	All right. Well, I'd like to move into- 

COATES:	If I can go back to the training question, though -

BOUTELLIS:	Sure.  

COATES:	Because I think we've touched on one elementary issue, and that's predeployment training-what kind of training is necessary to ensure that police are prepared to effectively function in international peace operations. And there is a predeployment element, but police rotate in and out of peace operations throughout their career. Many today in our organization have deployed two, three, or four times. We need to be looking at professional development, in-service training; that is, not just pre-deployment, but that actually prepares them to function at more senior levels, to provide them with an improved understanding of the complex issues that they will deal with as station commanders, regional commanders, senior executives within international peace operations. So there's a whole series of professional development ongoing in-service training that needs to happen over and above the simple package of pre-deployment training. 

	The other thing that's important when we look at training and the effectiveness of police on the international peace operations, is that baseline-what are the core competencies that are necessary for police to function effectively in an international peace operation? The military has done this with soldiers, but we in the policing world haven't looked at: What are the policing skills? What do you need to have as that body of knowledge and those core competencies to function effectively as a police officer, before we even look at transitioning those skills into an international peace operation?

	I think that there needs to be some time spent around evaluating that baseline level of knowledge, skills and abilities, experience, that is necessary to function effectively. As it currently stands, the U.N. criteria are that you have a minimum of five years' experience in a policing organization; that you can speak the language of the mission; you can drive a four-wheel drive; if in an armed mission you can shoot a gun; and you can use a computer. Well, if we're sending police officers in to 1) do policing in an executive mission, to actually be the police of jurisdiction; and 2) to conduct complex international investigations-because that's what they are in these environments in the 21st century-then they've got to have the skill set necessary to do that. If, as the indigenous police service has been developed and we're training and developing, mentoring, coaching these new police officers to be effective police in this environment, the people that are coaching them have to at least be at that level or above; otherwise they have no credibility and actually will retard the process versus advance it. 

	Mark Kroeker spoke of Q1, Q2: quality versus quantity. Well, the demand for civilian police participation on international peace operations is growing at a very rapid rate. Andrew Carpenter from Police Division, their strategic policy and planning division, recently stated that the demand has gone up 30% since 2006, and they're anticipating a 60% increase over the next two years, resulting in a requirement for 16,000 police on U.N. operations around the world-and that's only U.N. That doesn't count the coalitions of the willing or the bilateral operations, just the U.N.: 16,000 police. There's a Q1, a quantity reality. At the same time, as Mark Kroeker said, there's a Q2-  

BOUTELLIS:	For the audience, Mark Kroeker is a former police adviser-?

COATES:	Former police adviser to the police division of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations with the U.N. And we, as the international community, need to look at the Q2. And Q2 begins with: What are those core competencies, the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary for police to function effectively in their home environment before they deploy? Just dealing with the courses that will assist people to transition into international environments is not enough. It's a good step, it's a good first step; but we've got to make sure that people are able to provide contemporary policing services in the 21st century, and select people that are able to do that, before we look at getting them to go off as coaches and mentors of new police services. So, we have some work to do, because that's not the case with a number of police contributors from around the world. 

BOUTELLIS:	Right. Can I follow up on the Q2, the qualitative core competencies you're talking about, that make international police reformers effective in these new environments? I'd like to ask you two things. First, in your opinion, based on your broad experience, what are these core competencies? And do you think it is the responsibility of the national police? Or do you think it should be done at the U.N. Police level prior to deployment? And how realistic is this, budget-wise and technically?

COATES:	You brought up a couple of really good points. First off, it's the responsibility of the United Nations to establish the criteria, to set the standards, and in consultation with police-contributing countries, member states, to formulate standards that are accepted. Very clearly, working within the U.N. environment, it's a highly political environment, and getting agreement across all 192 member states is always a challenge. But that's the role of the U.N. Police Division. It's to identify what those core competencies are, bring those forward through the various mechanisms that they have, and get some agreement as to: these are the core competencies necessary. 

	Selection, training, preparation of police is a member state responsibility. And so finding that balance between Q1, Q2, between what member states can actually do and realistically expect them to do-and what is the ideal state-are two things. So, where's that middle ground? Where can we find a place where we are actually strengthening police-contributing countries' contributions through heightened preparation of their personnel in the core competencies-how to conduct a criminal investigation; how to do an interview; how to arrest, detain, process somebody through a criminal process; how to secure a crime scene; how to process evidence from a crime scene. 

	There are police that come from many countries around the world who will never have managed a crime scene, yet they're going to be put into an international peace operation where they will be tasked to go to a crime scene. It could be a war crime, it could be a crime against humanity, a very serious offence; and they have no experience, no training on how to deal with that. How to supervise police, how to manage police, issues around international standards, various international covenants dealing with things like human rights and international humanitarian law-those are the foundations we need to have on the front end before we can then send people abroad. 
  
BOUTELLIS:	The initiative you mentioned that will start in February of this year, of pre-deployment training for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police members of a peacekeeping mission, is that a groundbreaking initiative? Or do you have any knowledge of other programs, whether in Canada or other countries, that did that?

COATES:	I think the Australians have a tremendous program. They have a 35-day training program in which they invest a tremendous amount of time preparing their people. We won't be doing something like that; we can't afford that kind of time commitment. They actually transfer their people permanently into the international deployment group, so they have that kind of flexibility around time. In the Canadian example, we draw people from the field, and so they still are working at home. So, every month or every week that they're away from the field, they're away from their domestic duties. So we have to find that balance between making sure that the training packages we develop respond to the actual learning needs but don't overtax domestic policing. 

	So, we won't be doing a 35-day program. We're starting off with a two-week package that is moving towards dealing with the skills that we believe Canadian police need to function effectively, and those are: how to be an effective coach, mentor; how to be a trainer; understanding what is institutional capacity-building, and what's their role within institutional capacity-building; understanding a bit more about security system reform, the rule of law, and the application of those principles; DDR (disarmament, demobilization and reintegration), and the police role in those different areas; understanding who are the partners that working on the ground, whether they're military, police, or civilian, and how to effectively work with those different elements in order to: 1) identify needs; 2) design plans; and then 3) implement them.

	So those are some of the things that we're going to be dealing with. We're looking a little more at spending some more time around cultural issues, language issues.    

BOUTELLIS:	Maybe one last question before we move into the technical areas of the actual police-performed work in post-conflict countries. On the Canadian level, in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, is overseas experience encouraged? Is it valued? And do you think, comparing Canadian experience from other experiences, how does that play in the actual quality and investment of resources, human and financial, in having your national police involved in peacekeeping operations?

COATES:	First, I'd like to say it's not just our national police. The RCMP is responsible for the management of this program, but the program since 1995 has involved the participation of over 30 different Canadian police services at the municipal, regional, and provincial levels. So, the federal, or national police, the RCMP, has played a significant role in contributing large numbers of police to it and managing the program, but the program is truly a Canadian police program dependent upon the contribution of Canadian police expertise from services across the country. 

	To answer this question, I would suggest that there is a lack of understanding in Canada, in police services and in government, on the impact that insecurity-resulting from conflict countries or countries who have recently experienced conflict, failed or fragile states- has on Canadian security. Because there is this lack of understanding, I would suggest that the focus has largely been on policing in Canada. I think that there is some movement on that; I think that we are starting to see a higher level of understanding. Because of the transnational nature of crime, because of globalization, people are beginning to understand that we, as Canada's policing community, need to develop strategies that go beyond our national boundaries and really address the root causes of organized crime, of terrorism, at their source. That is often beyond our national boundaries. 

	So, by developing a capacity to manage international police programs, and as part of that, the deployment of Canadian police to international peace operations, we're being strategic in our approach to close the security gap that is the result of failed and fragile states or countries in conflict. The reality is that those environments are fertile grounds for criminal organizations, be it organized crime or terrorists, to lump them both into one group of criminal organizations, to become entrenched and to engage in illicit activities-moving money, drugs, and other illicit commodities through those environments to different places around the world. And so if we as internationals don't effectively deal with closing those security gaps and building indigenous capacity to effectively deal with those challenges there, in their back yard, then we will have to deal with the results, the impacts, in ours. 

	There has been some change in the level of understanding, the appreciation of that. I think there's still a lot of work to do in Canada to truly heighten that level of awareness and get the kind of commitment, the engagement necessary to see a significant increase. I can say that the government of Canada takes this matter very seriously. They have, since 2006, committed permanent funds to the RCMP to create the capacity to have 200 Canadian police deployed abroad, supported by a 600-person rapidly deployable pool. We have been mandated with the creation of a robust international program management capacity, and we are in the process of developing that. So I think that there is a lot of work to do, but the Canadian government definitely has seen the importance of Canadian police engagement, has provided some leadership in that; and we, as a police organization, are trying to balance it with the other pressures that we're facing domestically. So it is a bit of a challenge. 

	I think that our role as managers within the international policing environment is to ensure effective communications of the importance, the value added, and clearly demonstrate the impact that Canadian police engagement abroad has on domestic security.    

BOUTELLIS:	All right. Now I'd like to move into technical areas, moving away from the actual international police and training they might receive to the building of the indigenous capacity, as you were just mentioning. First, I'd like to start with recruitment and effective strategies-if you have been involved yourself or been exposed to this through your experience-effective strategies for recruiting police in these countries. How do you sort out the good applicants from potentially dangerous ones? Do you have experience in designing recruitment strategies? When in the U.N. context, to what extent did you have procedures coming from the U.N. that you had to follow? And to what extent, on the other side, you had to come up with your own-or have you witnessed any of this?  

COATES:	I had to deal with it myself in Haiti in 1994-95. We were developing our own program as we went, with some guidance from New York, but largely it was mission expertise that was responsible for the designing of the recruitment program. Recruitment is a huge challenge in these environments, because often you're dealing with years of conflict or instability. The data retention or data information systems that would normally retain information relative to criminal activity aren't necessarily in place. There are issues related to corruption and intimidation that are hard for the international community to understand, get a grasp on, and actually have the tangible evidence necessary to refuse entry to somebody. So, setting up a recruitment strategy in which you identify the needs and different target groups, and that you have a vetting process in place that is truly effective and that is sustainable and defendable. Because when you refuse somebody entry into a police organization, you have to be able to defend your decision. 

	The impacts of refusing people are significant because often people are unemployed. They have no source of income, and by not enabling them to work within the police service you're preventing them an opportunity of supporting themselves and their families. The other side of-

BOUTELLIS:	Excuse me. 

COATES:	Yes, go ahead.

BOUTELLIS:	Can I ask for some specifics maybe about this vetting process? How much did you work with government and local communities in establishing this vetting process? Maybe if you have any specific examples in Haiti of refusing or- 

COATES:	I wasn't directly involved in the implementation. There were teams that came out and traveled around the country that did that, who we worked with. What I recall is them just having very, very little data to work with. Often people were engaged who over time had to be released because problems were identified that we didn't have the information on the front end to do effective vetting. So, while there was some interviewing on the front end of a large mission, where you're trying to create a 6,000, 8,000, 9,000, maybe 12,000-person police service and do it in a very short period of time, the flow is huge. To try and do the kind of security screening that is necessary-in Canada, it takes weeks or months. Probably on average, if you were to talk to our personnel security unit, it probably takes five or six months to do the security screening necessary to have a member of the RCMP accepted to go into our training program. Well, it's done in days or weeks in a mission.

	The information is often not available, and when it is available, is it valid? Was it collected during an autocratic regime? Why was it collected? There are just huge challenges around that.

BOUTELLIS:	Was the U.N. collecting the information directly, or did they use the communities?

COATES:	No, they used the communities. On the front end of a mission the U.N. has only just arrived, so they have no data. They have to use existing data, and they're dependent upon existing data and the credibility, reliability of that data. From my limited exposure while I was in Haiti, and while managing this program from Ottawa and traveling to different missions and monitoring the activities and researching, writing on police participation in peace operations, I would say that this is a huge challenge for us. It will continue to be a huge challenge because of the simple fact that the U.N. is coming in on the very front end. The systems, the structures necessary to capture the kind of information necessary to make informed decisions often don't exist, or they're questionable even if they do exist. 

	The people that you have, the international police that you have coming in to do the vetting don't necessarily have the investigational experience commensurate with the need to do thorough security investigations. So you do the best you can. You set out a framework, you work within it, and you screen people; and where you can identify defendable information that will enable you to prevent that person from proceeding further, you use it. You do the very best you can, realizing, of course, that there will be problems. Realizing, of course, that within that vetting process it needs to be an ongoing process, and so, as people get in and they're cleared and trained, that there needs to be follow up investigation. And as that organization, the indigenous organization, develops an enhanced capacity, that that further vetting shouldn't be done by the international community but should be done by the police organization itself.      

BOUTELLIS:	Were there any obstacles-or success-in this specific mission, in this case of Haiti, with regard to recruitment, that you'd like to share in this specific case? Also, related to this, were there any mechanisms of evaluation at the time? You mentioned that now you've been involved in evaluation, which I assume is evaluating different components of the actual police reform at the time, in Haiti. Were there any in place? And how was it done?

COATES:	I'm not aware of any evaluation that was going on while I was there or immediately after. It's important to remember that this was in the early 1990s-1993, '94, '95. Modern police engagement and peace operations really only began in 1989 with the deployment to Namibia; so we were really on the front end of what's happening today. The police division in the U.N. was made up of three or four people, so there was very, very little research going on. I don't even think the Best Practices Unit within DPKO (Department of Peacekeeping Operations) existed at that time. So we were developing things as we were going. I can't speak to whether or not there was thorough evaluation of the vetting process in Haiti in the '90s; I'm not certain. It was a challenge, and there were some issues that we discussed at that time and that I've seen repeated in other places around the world; and that is, it links into the DDR process. What do you do with these people, whether they're armed military, militias, insurgents, or just street gangs? 

	But these armed elements that have been manipulating the environment have a certain position of power within the society, and all of a sudden you're trying to take it away from them. You take away their arms. You take them away from the pay that they got, the position of authority they had, their ability to function within the society, and what background do they have? The only thing that they potentially could do is work in security, maybe not policing but in security, and then you don't accept them. So what do they do? Their power base is taken away, they're disenfranchised, the whole security structure that was in place for them is gone; and now you say that there's no future for them because they're not going to be accepted as a police officer. What do they do? Well, they become reengaged in criminal activity-that's what they do. 

	And so this issue of vetting is quite complex. Not only do we need to make sure that we are vetting people out, but that as we're vetting people out, we're looking beyond that to say, just because you're not going to be a police officer, doesn't mean that we, the international community, don't want to take care of you. So, we need to look at what are the education programs, the job creation, the training initiatives that are potentially available for these people that have been vetted out-and as we develop vetting strategies, that's an important part of it. 

	So for me, one of the lessons learned over time is ensuring that we have an effective, robust vetting capacity-that it's done quickly and effectively, that there's follow-up to it down the road because you're going to miss some-but that on the other side of that, is that the people that you are vetting out, you need to deal with them. Because if you don't deal with them effectively from a developmental perspective, you'll deal with them from a security perspective.

BOUTELLIS:	I'd like to move to the next functional area, and I'd like to discuss the training and development of professionalism within the indigenous police force, and ask you about efforts you've been involved in or you've witnessed in developing training and professionalization of local and national police services. The first question would be asking if you could describe some of these training programs that you may have been involved with.   

COATES:	No one training program is the same as another. Every professional development program requires comprehensive needs analysis on the front end. If you have no existing police service, such as the case in East Timor or Kosovo-or Haiti in the '90s-there was the former military and they were ousted, and there was an interim protective security force put into place, but really they had no foundation in policing. So, in Haiti you could say that the PNH, Haitian National Police, was created as a new entity. The training and development package, the professionalization program that you put into place for those brand new police services, is going to be different than one that you're going to put into place, say, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where there had been a police force functioning for many, many years.

	Look to Afghanistan, where there has been a police service in place, but 70% of the police service is illiterate and have had no training other than: Here's a gun or here's a stick, and your job is to react to violence.   

BOUTELLIS:	Do you have any specific examples of how adequate or inadequate some of these training programs were in different countries? You mentioned again that you were evaluating some of these reform programs. Were there any instances where training programs were simply transferred from other countries? Or did they actually take into account the local context? And were they based on need assessments, as you mentioned?

COATES:	I think that we, as the international community, need to get a lot better at needs analysis and coming to grips on-we talked earlier about core competencies. What are the core competencies necessary for police to function effectively within the 21st century? What's that baseline that we need to have? And how do we get there? We need people who are deployed on the very front end, in the planning phase-and they may not be police-but who are trained in learning needs analysis. Somewhere along the line, we need to have that foundation: what's the baseline? In Haiti in the '90s, we were reacting quickly, and there was very little analysis that went on. We, the broader community, said, "This is sort of what we need, and this is what we've got." And so, Canadians came, and Canadians were working at the academy, and Americans were working at the academy, and French were working at the academy, and other countries, and said, "At home we have this. OK, we have a need? We need investigation skills? Well, we have a course for that, and here it is. Let's put it into place."

	The reality is that you can't take a course off a shelf from Canada or from the United States or France and say, "This is the answer to your problem," and put it into place in the peacekeeping operation in another country. The legal system, the cultural differences, the judicial structure-all of those things impact what that learning product needs to be. So, again, it goes back to the base. What are the core skills that police need, and doing an analysis that enables the international community to design a learning package that responds to that-and it has to be done quickly, there's not a lot of time. There's an expectation, one from the host country, the citizens and the government, that things will happen quickly, and from the broader international community, the member states, that things are going to roll, we're going to be pumping out police and getting them out. At the same time, we want a professional product.

	We look at Afghanistan right now as a pretty good example, where the Germans several years ago went in, mandated with the lead on police. They took a very strategic approach and said, "We need to start from the top down and develop the hierarchy, develop the senior leadership, get the multi-year training packages into place." The American approach to it was, "We need to work from the bottom up, we need to get people in, and we've got to have a two-week training package and get these guys out into the field." So there are different approaches, and we need to analyze which are best, or perhaps it's a hybrid approach to it. As we look at the situation that's going to approach us in Darfur, who is examining the abilities of the Sudanese police in Darfur? Who is doing the analysis to actually determine what are their needs, their learning needs, and designing a learning package now, while we're waiting to get in there-with them or at least in consultation with them-around what's the front-end package? What can we do on the very front end to try and respond to this? 

BOUTELLIS:	Maybe one specific question, as we've just been discussing Afghanistan, and you just mentioned Darfur. Some people have suggested that training in basic reading and writing skills is an important and often neglected part of the police training. What's your take on it, and should that be integrated through a curriculum or the other priorities? How would you prioritize the training components?

COATES:	My personal belief is that police need to be able to read and write. They need to be able to read the legislation, the legal framework within which they work, and be able to interpret that and apply it. Where you have a situation where someone isn't able to actually read it, then they're dependent upon what somebody else tells them. And that just leads to the potential for corruption and manipulation and what's the term-misjustice-where people believe they're doing the right thing but they're not doing the right thing, because they haven't ever been able to look at the legal framework and apply it. So I think reading and writing is principally just a basic requirement. 

	Writing-part of what police do is conduct investigations and compile reports. Whether you're working through the intermediary of a juge d'instruction (person who exercises a judicial role in the pre-trial supervision of investigations) or you're actually the primary investigator, you need to be able to capture what's going on. Some of that you can do with cameras, if you have that equipment, but at least you need to be able to write out notes, write out reports that then become pieces of evidence that are presented in a criminal or judicial procedure once you've identified somebody, because how else does that person have the right to defend themselves? 

	Under the rule of law, you need to have the right to a free and fair defense. If there is no written evidence to present to the courts, and it's just simply anecdotal, it makes it difficult. I'm quite certain that people have good memories, but often these court processes take years before they happen, and if you've not captured anything in writing, how the heck do you ever present it to a court in the future? Especially on some of the more serious crimes that we're dealing with, crimes against humanity or war crimes, the horrific things that are happening in conflict zones around the world; and indigenous police services are required to handle it. 

	So, I spoke earlier of the fact that in Afghanistan the figure that has been published is that there is approximately 70% of the Afghan National Police that are illiterate. So in that environment, it's a huge problem. In the Haitian environment, it was different. When we did the recruiting strategy and set the selection criteria, there was a certain educational requirement, and people needed a certain level of high school before they could even apply. So they could read and write. That goes back to my comment that no two missions are the same, no two needs analyses are the same, and so you have to look at each mission independently. But definitely it forms part of, I believe, that baseline of core competencies that police need to function.

BOUTELLIS:	Based on assessment? 

COATES:	Reading and writing-they're core skills.

BOUTELLIS:	They're core skills, aside from the local context assessment. 

COATES:	Yes.

BOUTELLIS:	Last question on training, maybe-it's often perceived that the international community funds very expensive training programs that are not necessarily sustainable for the communities and the countries. With respect to the subject we're discussing, training, can you think of some cost-saving suggestions?

COATES:	International development is a long-term investment, and to think that we can be early in and early out and have developed sustained capacity for the host country to maintain their ability to deal with the implemented changes is fundamentally wrong. If I may repeat myself: International development is a long-term investment. So the international community must be prepared to engage for the long term, otherwise they potentially can cause more harm than good. And so, looking at your question, yes, it costs money. In the 21st century it costs money-looking specifically at police, it costs money to develop policing structures that enable law enforcement agencies to effectively deal with the complex challenges associated to criminality. And crime is transnational. We can't think that OK, well, we can just give these people the very basic, and then we'll leave them alone, because organized crime groups will quickly infiltrate those environments and exploit them to their advantage. Laundering money, moving commodities through those environments-and those organized crime groups are making billions of dollars doing this, so they have the latest technology, they have the best of lawyers, they understand the legal structures in that country, that region, and around the world. 

	So if we abandon the new police service and say, well, all you need is this very elementary level of policing skills, they will be unable to respond to the resulting levels of criminality. The international community has to invest, and invest for the long term, and make sure that as they develop those new police services or strengthen existing police services, that the investment is over the long term and enables them to truly function effectively and become a partner in the broader international policing community, dealing with the challenges associated to maintaining law and order in the 21st century. 

BOUTELLIS:	All right. Another issue we are especially interested in learning about is your experience, if you have any, with integrating and amalgamating different types of security forces or police services in a coherent unit, maybe in Haiti.

COATES:	Sorry, I don't understand.

BOUTELLIS:	Integrating, amalgamating different types of security forces, existing security forces into some coherent national police service.  

COATES:	OK, in my experience in Haiti, there was the former military and there were several interim security groups that were formed by the international community that were then brought together in the new Haitian National Police. So I saw that happen there. I'm not certain what I could provide, in relation to where you want to go with this question. 

BOUTELLIS:	What are some of the challenges? I mean, you mentioned earlier the issue of different groups, the ones that were not integrated into the police that potentially became other, potentially competing groups to the national police.

COATES:	Well, there are situations, I mean, look at Africa, look at C™te d'Ivoire, where you have a Gendarmerie Nationale, you have the Police Nationale, you have the militia and the security forces that were formed in the north. How do you bring them together into one or two security-because in that French model you're going to have a Police Nationale and Gendarmerie Nationale. But how do they join to provide the policing services necessary for the entire country when, you know, their positions are diametrically opposed? It's a huge challenge, and I think the solutions are political. I don't think that there's very much that can happen at the police level; it has to happen at the track one, track two level. It's through that kind of negotiation, dialogue at the senior levels, that you're able to reach agreements, and that those agreements are then cascaded down through directives to police leadership.

	Now, where those directives have been given to police leadership and there's still opposition to it, then the international community can respond; and that's through observing, reporting, having dialogue with people in authority to try and ensure compliance with established political agreements. But largely, to make it effective, decisions have to be made at the political level.   

BOUTELLIS:	In the Haitian case, maybe, before we move on to the next question, the fact that their national army had been disbanded, did that affect in any ways the core mandates of the police you were working on reforming there, and its reach? This is a pretty unique case where you do not have a national army, right?

COATES:	That's correct. Yes, well, the national army was responsible for the defense of the country, and they were engaged in offshore, what would be traditional coast guard type of work, boarder security, and interior security; and the Haitian National Police, when they were created, had to assume all of those responsibilities. It has been interesting to watch. The FAd'H (Forces ArmŽes d'Ha•ti), which was the former military organization, there are still a number of members, people who were senior leaders within FAd'H who are still within the Haitian National Police. There was a transition. People were vetted and trained and placed strategically into key positions within the organization, provided leadership to the Haitian National Police over the last ten years.    

BOUTELLIS:	So you're saying that some of the former FAd'H, some of the former military, were integrated into the new responsibility of the Haitian National Police over coast guard and border security?

COATES:	Yes. Well, throughout the organization, they remain throughout the organization. 

BOUTELLIS:	Let's move to the next technical area, which is internal management. I mean by internal management the core elements which include the promotion system, the disciplinary system, record keeping, accounting, and other systems that help the force respond to directives and policies basically. Have you ever assisted the local and national forces in countries in finding ways to strengthen the internal management, and how did you go about it?

COATES:	No, I haven't.

BOUTELLIS:	I'd like to move to the next area, which is external accountability and effectiveness. Enhancing accountability to the community and to policymakers includes improving the capacity to collect and analyze information about performance and outcomes. We're talking now about some way to evaluate, basically, as well as improving responsiveness to government and to community needs in a broad sense.

	Have you worked in any of these contexts? Or have you been exposed to this type of development of external accountability, particularly vis-ˆ-vis the communities? I'm thinking in cases where national police maybe lack credibility in post-conflict settings, and so on. 

COATES:	Well, I can speak to you of my experience in Haiti, where the first thing that we did upon arrival was to conduct a community profile. We put together a team that went out and met with various elements of the community to identify the security priorities for the community. Then, in partnership with the community, we developed community consultative groups, which were initially chaired by the international police, but very quickly, within the first meeting or two, identified community chairs to take over responsibility for those in which community solutions were identified. With support from the broader international community police and the NGOs, others that were working in the area, we designed and implemented the solutions. So, this went a long way in establishing an improved level of credibility of the police because they actually consulted with the community as to what were their security priorities. It brought the community together with the police to identify solutions and to implement those solutions. 

	Many of the activities that were put into place were non-police but had a direct impact on security within the environment. 

BOUTELLIS:	What are some of these activities, specifically? Do you recall a few?

COATES:	In JŽrŽmie-JŽrŽmie is an isolated area. The Grande-Anse region of Haiti is like a province, it's a region in Haiti. It's quite isolated, and many of the communities are accessible by road through the mountains, but many of the goods are brought in by ship into ports. In JŽrŽmie, there's a large port facility, and the community said that this was a real problem because ships were coming in, and every time the ships would come in there would be large numbers of people that would go down to the port, and they'd set up stalls to try and sell their goods. There was a lot of, too much traffic, so the ship owners and the transport people were not able to get their stuff in and out; it was impeded traffic. There was violence; there was theft of goods from the ships. People were actually getting on the ships and stealing things, and the ship owners, the transport companies, were threatening to not come because it became such a problem.

	So the community came up with a solution to get these people out, to create another place, another market where these people could set up their stalls, and put up a barrier where they actually controlled the flow of people in and out. Very quickly it resolved the problem. So, the police were involved in moving the people out. The community was involved in identifying another place where they could have their markets-and once they were gone, there was improved, immediate reduction in violence, in thefts, in traffic problems. It just changed the environment very, very quickly, and so the police gained a lot of credibility through that.  

BOUTELLIS:	Was there any communication strategy along with the actual success on the ground that was put in place to communicate these successes?

COATES:	No. I mean, longer term we may have, but we were dealing with the immediate term. So, people in the community knew immediately that things were going better. Ships were coming in. They didn't need to communicate that. If we had been dealing with a broader initiative, a country-wide initiative, we may have wanted to look at communications, but at that particular point in time we were just kind of in survival mode. So, communications of successes wasn't something that we were really too concerned about. We advised the police commissioner of it. He was very well aware of the fact that we had done some of this work; and what he did with it, I don't know.

BOUTELLIS:	In Haiti, or in other contexts, what were some of the major obstacles that you may have faced in enhancing accountability, as well as some successes? You were giving one specific example, that was not only specific to Haiti, but to a specific problem in a specific region. Can you think of any examples, maybe, that can be lessons identified that you'd like to share? 

COATES:	I'll go back to our initial discussion around competencies. One of the biggest challenges I faced as the person responsible for this policing unit was having international police officers working with me that had the core competencies necessary to do the job. I can tell you that there was a contingent, ten people that arrived from a particular country, who couldn't speak the language of the mission. They didn't speak English or French. They were unarmed, and it was an armed mission. Only one or two of them could drive. Yet, I had these resources in a geographically isolated region of Haiti. So they were of little value to me, and in actual fact I talked with the police commissioner and had them withdrawn from the region because they were a security threat-a security threat to themselves and to the rest of the contingent. 

	I couldn't even put one of them in a car and send them out on patrol because if they broke down or came under attack, they couldn't communicate on the radio back to say that they were having problems. They couldn't drive the car. If it was a situation where they needed to use a firearm, they didn't have a firearm. So this is a very basic example of ensuring that people you deploy can speak the language of the mission and meet the baseline requirements. Since that time, I think the SAT team (Selection Assistance Team) process started in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the large numbers of police were rotating through that mission and then in the Kosovo mission. It became very, very strong, where they said there were selection assessment teams that went out around to different countries in the world, police-contributing countries, and tested the contingents before they came to make sure they could drive; they could speak the language of the mission; if it was an armed mission, they could shoot a gun; they could drive a car or a truck, read and write, use a computer-and where they couldn't, they weren't sent. So, from my perspective, one of the fundamental things is making sure they have the core competencies. 

	Make sure that they're adequately trained before they come into a mission area, so that they can transfer those policing skills, domestic policing skills, into an international policing environment. Make sure that they have the equipment necessary to be able to do the job. There are contingents that show up and they don't have uniforms, they don't have any equipment, and as they arrive, they're looking to the international community to provide them with that. 

	We're asking our police to create or strengthen police services. If you don't have the ability to do that yourself-if you're there to learn, yourself, to be a police officer-then that's a problem.     

BOUTELLIS:	All right, moving on to the next sort of challenge that commissioners often encounter, it's to basically, we would say, depoliticize a national police force. A police force might have been associated with specific political groups, might have been instrumentalized especially through conflict times. So, I was wondering if you had experience in this sort of depoliticizing the police force, and if it was perceived as a stand-alone challenge, or if this is related to the whole vetting process that we were talking about earlier? 

COATES:	I have no actual experience in the area of depoliticization. I can say that it is a huge challenge and goes back to my comments I made earlier, when we were talking about how do you deal with issues within the police service and bringing together different police services; and that these are largely political decisions. There needs to be agreement at the senior level. And then most police in these environments are paramilitary or have some kind of military orientation, so they're task-driven-they will react, they will take orders, and they will react according to the orders they're given. If the senior leadership is given direction by their political leaders to react in a certain way, that's going to cascade down through the police organization. So to be effective in this process, you need to deal at the strategic level, at the political level, the senior police management levels, and get buy-in from them, and the rest will happen.     

BOUTELLIS:	We touched briefly earlier in the context of Haiti on non-state security groups. I was wondering if you could tell us about your experience-if these non-state security groups were present, and if you could describe them briefly, maybe; and then what form did they take, what service they provided, who used their services, and if there was any relationship between the police and these groups and your attempt to work with those groups. 

COATES:	Not in my personal experience. I'd like to go back to the previous question if we could.

BOUTELLIS:	Certainly.

COATES:	My answer to your question was that the solutions are largely political, and that needs to cascade down. At the same time, at the tactical, grassroots level there are situations that occur. If people within the police service, the new or developing police service, feel that they are being paid adequately, if they feel that they are being trained and supported, and that there's a future; and they understand, and that there are accountability mechanisms in place, oversight mechanisms in place, to ensure accountability, then they're far less likely to step out into areas or engage in behavior that is unacceptable because of political association with groups that are perhaps trying to destabilize the environment.  If police aren't paid properly, they don't have the equipment they need, they're not being adequately trained, they don't feel that there's long-term engagement by the international community, that they're going to be on their own, then they will tend to, or they will be susceptible to influence by these destabilizing factors, political factors. 

	So I think that, while the solution, as I said, starts at the top and cascades down, at the grassroots level it's important to make sure that police personnel in the organization are treated properly. When I see examples in missions around the world where police go months without a paycheck, where they don't have pens, pencils, paper at their detachment, where there are not vehicles or radio communications or fuel for their vehicles, where they're not provided adequate housing, where they're largely dependent on the state providing housing-those kinds of circumstances create an environment in which people are susceptible to step out and be influenced by these other organizations or other factors within the mission.   

BOUTELLIS:	Well, now that we've talked about a number of different functional areas, I'd like to take a step back and look at the broader challenges, talk about reform process in the broadest sense and efforts to build or reform a police institution. We talked about the fact that it's rare that a person will have all the skills that they need to carry out the job effectively, but in an imperfect world, how would you prioritize some of these areas we've discussed? And are there some tasks that should be done before others, that should have priority? Can you maybe detail some of the- 

COATES:	Which group are we talking about? Are we talking about international police?

BOUTELLIS:	No, for the national police and the reform effort of the indigenous police services.  

COATES:	Well, I think to build an effective police service you need to begin with your selection process, and establish selection criteria that are going to be bringing in people that have the foundations necessary. So, there are psychological behavioral factors that need to be taken into consideration before you look at education and experiential factors. 

BOUTELLIS:	How do you, in the context of U.N. missions or other police reform efforts-how can you evaluate this psychological factor? Is it visible? As you were mentioning earlier, you were talking about how it's done, how the recruiting process is done in Canada, for instance. Do we have the resources to do this kind of selection process when working with overseas reform efforts?

COATES:	Pay me now or pay me later. If you don't invest on the front end to ensure that you have effective selection, you're going to have to deal with the problems later. It is a balancing act, and I think that as we move ahead, and as the U.N. becomes more proficient in the management of police operations around the world, that doctrine needs to be developed around the creation of new police services or the selection of, or the strengthening of existing police services; and selection, vetting, need to be framed. I said earlier, each mission is different, so they need to be flexible processes; but I think that there are certain psychological, behavioral indicators, as well as educational and experiential requirements, that should be set up for different missions.

	Each mission is going to be different. When you're dealing with an Afghanistan where 70% of the existing police force is illiterate, you're not going to say that everybody needs a minimum of a grade-10 education. You won't have any police. But you need to have some selection criteria; and where the vast majority of people within the existing police service don't meet those criteria, you need within your strategy to build something in that is going to get those people up to that level before they become certified. And you have a certification process that there are rewards associated to moving through the process, so that their people buy into it. 

BOUTELLIS:	Are there any innovations-or experiments, let's call it-that you know about, that you've come across in the past 30 years, which you think merit more attention? Not necessarily because they're transferable, but just that are of interest in any of these areas that we've talked about previously? 

COATES:	I'm not aware of ongoing research into these areas. 

BOUTELLIS:	I'm talking about practical experiments that have been tested in the field that you might have come across through your evaluation work.

COATES:	No. There are some real needs, I can say, stepping away from the actual mission-but the sustainability of the international community's contribution to international police participation on peace operations means that we're going to need to focus on demonstrating value added. Why would police-contributing countries want to continue to send police? Why would the governments, why would the citizens of these countries want to invest in sending their domestic police abroad? Many countries around the world are dealing with shortages in police. They don't have large numbers, and the numbers that they have are designed to meet domestic requirements, not to meet the 16,000 that the U.N. is going to require. 

	So, if we're going to get support for an expanded police participation in international peace operations, we need to be able to demonstrate the linkage between international peace and security and domestic security and what is the value added. Why do, in my case, Canadian taxpayers-why would they want to see their police deploying abroad? What's in it for them? And if we don't demonstrate that, then we're not going to get the kind of support at the grassroots level and therefore not the political support that will sustain the growing demand for police. Police are engaged every day in the delivery of policing services in the communities that they serve across our countries. They are hired in numbers to meet those requirements. There needs to be work done, there needs to be research into what is the value added, and how does that link to domestic security.    

BOUTELLIS:	You worked under the U.N. umbrella on police reform, as well as being exposed to other reform efforts not under U.N.-mission context. Do you want to address how these are different? And what do you think is the future, for what reason, and what is the added value of one or another type of police reform effort?

COATES:	I think that the U.N. has done a tremendous job responding to the rapidly growing challenges of developing police capacity, indigenous police capacity, to respond to the needs of contemporary policing. The problem is that it is so huge, and the bureaucracy is so huge, that it becomes very difficult for the U.N., within its existing structure, to accomplish the kind of sustainable objectives that it sets for itself. We've addressed some of those challenges, from levels of police competency and leadership to people rotating through missions on a regular basis. Many people deploy for six, nine, twelve months into capacity-building initiatives where really we need people for two to five years. 

	I think there are certain challenges in relation to financing initiatives, the kind of infrastructure investment that needs to happen, the capital investment that needs to happen into building these new organizations. One of the things I think that needs to happen, and I'll use Haiti as an example: the U.N. MINUSTAH (United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti) is in Haiti, and they have a very broad mandate. But I think that there's a need for substantive bilateral assistance in support of the U.N. and the indigenous law-enforcement agencies. I think the U.N. should coordinate that kind of bilateral assistance to ensure that it's directed to priorities, that there's not redundancy, and that it's really going to advance the identified needs. But I don't think the U.N. can do it all on their own. So I think that we need to look at becoming better at bilateral contributions for police development in support of the U.N. mandate. That's one area.  

	The other area is that the U.N. can't be everywhere, and so it's imperative that the U.N., through Chapter VIII of the Charter, reach out to regional organizations and get them to support them, either on the very front end to try and deal with it from a regional perspective or, as in the case of Darfur, perhaps the regional organization coming in the front end. It becomes a U.N. mission, and as it evolves, it rotates back to the regional organization to provide that kind of long-term support. We see that with the E.U. in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in the very near future with Kosovo, where we had a regional organization coming in Kosovo on the front end. The OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) verification mission prior to the 1999 war, or conflict, was a regional organization. The U.N. then came in after that conflict, and has been there ever since. And now we're looking at a transition to an E.U. mission. So I think that that kind of cooperation, evolution, and interoperability is something that we're going to need to look closer at in the future, because I think that's going to be the trend. 

	Again, the U.N. can only do so much. Member states are only going to want to see the U.N. doing certain things, engaged in priority areas; and regional organizations-under the context of a U.N. mandate, but clearly regional organizations-need to be able to step in and deal with these challenges. 

	We're dealing with some capacity issues. If you look to Africa and the African Union and some of the sub-regional organizations, they state themselves that they are dealing with real capacity issues. The African Union, if you were to look at the African Standby Force, it's largely a military structure. There are some civilian elements looking at early warning, but from a policing perspective, there is very, very little engagement of police within the African Standby Force of the A.U. They were trying to get a police commissioner within it, but the last I heard they hadn't been able to select somebody because of political wrangling between different A.U. members not coming to agreement as to which country should actually contribute that person. So, you know, there's some work to be done, but I think that that's the future, looking at more regional representation and leadership in the various challenges overall.

BOUTELLIS:	All right. Well, thank you very much for your time and thoughts you've invested in this conversation. Before we wrap up I'd like to ask you if there's anything that we haven't talked about that you'd like to mention, or if there are any of the earlier topics we discussed where you'd like to make some final comments?

COATES:	No, I think it's been a very good discussion.

BOUTELLIS:	Thank you very much, Doug Coates. 

Innovations for Successful Societies				Series: 	Policing	
Oral History Program						Interview number:  B-2
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Use of this transcript is governed by ISS Terms of Use, available at www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties

Use of this transcript is governed by ISS Terms of Use, available at www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties