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.: G13 Interviewee: Jim Tillman Interviewer: Larisa Jasarevic Date of Interview: 5 April 2008 Location: Sarajevo Bosnia Innovations for Successful Societies, Bobst Center for Peace and Justice Princeton University, 83 Prospect Avenue, Princeton, New Jersey, 08544, USA www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties JASAREVIC: Good morning, Mr. Tillman. We have Mr. Tillman with ICITAP. TILLMAN: ICITAP, the US Department of Justice International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program. JASAREVIC: We'll actually begin by learning a little more about your background, your personal background. So would you describe the position that you hold now? TILLMAN: Currently I'm a program manager for the US Department of Justice, and I've been doing this type of work for about 13 years. JASAREVIC: How about jobs that you had before you starting working in police service? TILLMAN: Prior to that I was a law enforcement officer in the United States, and prior to that I came out of corporate America. JASAREVIC: Anything in particular? TILLMAN: Out of textiles; I was a plant manager for Brown Group many, many years ago. JASAREVIC: Have you worked with policing at all in other countries? TILLMAN: Yes, I was involved with policing reform and development in Haiti, in Croatia, and pretty much throughout the region of the Balkans or Europe/Eurasia. I've worked not only in Bosnia-Herzegovina but in the Ukraine, in Azerbaijan, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and the list goes on. Most of my focus has been in Europe/Eurasia. JASAREVIC: As we go through the interview, these comparisons-they're helpful if they come naturally. Comparing the particular case in Bosnia-if a question relates to a case that also brings to your mind another case elsewhere, that is helpful, but don't feel like you have to do it. Once again, if it comes natural, then obviously, with such a rich background in this particular field, please bring it up. Also, is there a specialty in dealing with the police, or policing reform, or policing in general? Is there a particular area of specialty? Anything that you've been working on for a long time that you've been specializing in through either personal interest or by the nature of the position that you have? Anything as far as management, or recruitment and training, or community relations, or investigation, or mission management? Any of these in particular? TILLMAN: Actually, no. ICITAP pretty much covers the whole gamut or spectrum of police development, from the selection of police cadets, developing or reforming police academies to the forensics community, and everything in between: special investigations, money laundering, organized crime, and counterterrorism. So we're a very unique organization within the Department of Justice that truly focuses on the need. Of course, like Bosnia-Herzegovina, such as many places in the world, you don't truly know the need until you get boots on the ground and people in place and start assessing the current situation. As that evolves, then you may target specific things. But really you have to rely on the experts we bring in from the United States and other countries to come in and assess current practice versus best practice. JASAREVIC: So let's move on with specific questions having to do with these areas, these themes that I outlined earlier. Actually, we can start first with recruitment. So one of the things that we're interested in is advice about effective strategies for recruiting police, if you have any experience with that. By recruiting or recruitment, I mean helping national police services to develop viable strategies and programs. For example, how do you sort out the good applicants from the less well qualified ones, or even from people who are potentially dangerous? If you have experience in designing a recruitment strategy or overseeing this function in this particular country, it would be good to talk about your observations. TILLMAN: In 1997 we brought in academic experts that had expertise in law enforcement academies or police academies to assess current practice. What we found in 1997 in both the police academies in Bosnia-Herzegovina, here in Sarajevo and in Banja Luka, was that they had a traditional high school: a police high school where children at the age of 14 or 15 entered into a police high school to focus on building a law enforcement career. We don't believe this was the most effective way to develop police officers or to develop children. What we found is that through the high school most of the cadets or students were receiving language skills, mathematical science, typical high school studies caveated by law enforcement theory with no practical training woven into the system. So we worked with our host, our local counterparts, to reform the police academy. There is no longer a police high school. Now individuals have to be 21 years of age, high school graduates, and they apply to the police academy which now is currently 12 months. It is six months practical and theory, and then six months field training where they actually go out and work with seasoned police officers throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina to receive additional practical skills. At the end of that they take a test. Upon successfully completing a passing score of the test, then they apply to different police agencies anywhere in Bosnia-Herzegovina and hopefully gain employment. Part of the vetting process of selecting candidates, we engaged with the local officials to bring in best practices. How do you properly find the right person to be a police cadet? So we worked with the Ministry of Interior here to set up some criteria such as general knowledge; i.e. can they read and write, can they add, to ensure that there's a certain degree of intelligence there that can be built upon. Then we've introduced physical testing. Are they physically fit to become a police officer, to handle not only the physical aspects of the job but also the stressful aspects of the job, which many times you find outweigh anything else? Then of course there's a psychological exam that each cadet has to participate in and of course be evaluated. Upon successfully going through these phases, then they actually are granted acceptance into the police academy. JASAREVIC: So this is prior to actual acceptance into the police academy. TILLMAN: That is correct. JASAREVIC: Then when they're actually looking for the jobs for the police, is that a space in which you-the job is not granted, so the hiring from the police academy into the police force: is there a set of criteria that has been developed for that particular purpose? How is that transition managed? Is it seen as problematic at all? TILLMAN: No, most of the cadets are actually sponsored. As you know in Bosnia-Herzegovina, there are 12 Ministries of Interior, there are three state-level law enforcement agencies, and of course then a direct taxation agency. Most of the cadets, prior to entering into the academy, apply to one of these agencies. These agencies then express an interest, and they'll sponsor a student or cadet into the academy, providing that they pass the three pretests and then successfully complete the studies at the academy. Then upon graduation, I would say 95% of those people will then walk into a position that has been preselected. JASAREVIC: In this sponsoring, is there a way to enhance that? Is there a way to make sure that the sponsor or that the cadet who is sponsored, that they are actually from communities, that all the communities are well represented? TILLMAN: Not necessarily. Most of the sponsors, most of the police agencies, like any other police agency throughout the world, of course they recruit based off need. Whether 20 people have retired, or if people have promoted out of a position, opening others, or if people just simply realize that policing is not for them and move into the private sector. So they fill positions as they come open. What you'll see a lot of agencies will do, they won't sponsor one person; they'll wait until they have six or seven slots within their agency, and then they send a group that will actually engage with other groups around the country at the police academy. There are times when some agencies may have 20 openings which will be comprised of that agency itself having cadets that will solely represent that agency at the time. One of the things that we've tried to inspire is bringing cadets from all over the country into the academy at one time to work together on their education, and also to assist them in their networking abilities once they become law enforcement officials. So they have contacts throughout the country to help effectively fight crime. JASAREVIC: What are typically the most serious obstacles in trying to develop an effective recruitment strategy? Do you have any insights? Is there any advice you could offer on that? TILLMAN: I think in Bosnia-Herzegovina we've been quite successful. One of the things that we did try, to keep our fingers on the polls or keep a cautious eye, is to ensure during the recruitment process there was no corruption. In other countries we've seen cadets actually have to pay people to become a cadet. In other countries we've seen cadets that were family members-my cousin's brother's stepson who needs a job. So one of the things we've done here was try to ensure that there were procedures put in place that only the best of the best qualify to become cadets. One of the things in an emerging democracy, the cornerstone of that is safety and security. So you want your police force to be the best and the brightest. So when they go out to serve and protect their communities, there is a true loyalty to the community which they serve and not political involvement in their selection. So through policies and procedures that were developed along with the criteria of entering into the police academy, we've tried to weed that out here to ensure that professionals, people who really want to be law enforcement officers, who really want to protect and serve the community, are those that are applying. JASAREVIC: Sort of an aside-is it by default that people coming from certain communities are going back to serve, to enforce law in those particular communities, or are they actually scattered regardless of where they're coming from? TILLMAN: For the most part, because of the sponsored-type programs, if Canton Gora?de needs 17 police officers, the applicants will most likely come from Gora?de. Now, even though the Federation and the Republika Srpska and the District of Br?ko are looking for multiethnic officers, the recruitment of that has become very difficult. It is hard to recruit Serb officers into Sarajevo because they would have to leave their homes, their families, to come work halfway across the country. So what you see is normally those cadets that are pooled come out of the community. A lot of times there are pros and cons to that. One of the pros is that they know their community; they know their neighbors. In the setting such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, most crimes are committed within a community. It's easier to solve those crimes because they know who the perpetrators are, they know who the bad guys are, more so than if a crime being committed in Banja Luka was being investigated in Sarajevo by law enforcement officers in Sarajevo who are not familiar with the community or the people in Banja Luka, so it would become quite difficult. So there is, I think, an advantage to having police officers come out of the community because then they've got vested interest. JASAREVIC: So we move on to training, professionalization. Often the people we meet have more experience in this area than in others, depending on your own particular experience. My question is about your efforts to help develop training and professionalization in local and national police services. Then I have a few questions that would prompt-or at least give an idea as to what particulars you're interested in, or you can actually just go ahead and describe some of the training programs that you either helped design or manage, if this is at all applicable to your experiences in Bosnia. TILLMAN: That's 90% of what the US Department of Justice does here. Training and development of the law enforcement agencies here is truly our core competency. As we discussed earlier, ICITAP engages in the full spectrum of the law enforcement arena. As we talked, from police academics to forensic science and every step of that in between, we've engaged in professionalism. How do you teach police officers to be professional? Of course in Bosnia-Herzegovina you have the police laws, the laws and police; you've got books of rules; you've got general orders. We've worked with them to create policies and procedures, but how do you teach a police officer to be professional, how to look professional? JASAREVIC: What does that entail, looking professional? TILLMAN: Well, looking professional-we actually worked with the US military, with their combat camera crew. We've done a series of videos of what a police officer should look like. Should he have his shirttail tucked in? Should his shoes be shined? Should he have a tie on? Should it be straight? Should his hair be combed? We believe that in just this arena alone, someone that looks professional acts professional. If someone acts professional, then when they deal with the community they do it in a professional manner; they respect human rights, human dignity. A lot of people that deal with police officers have good and bad experiences. We've talked to people that have had encounters with local law enforcement that was not a pleasant experience. Then we've talked to other individuals that have been stopped for speeding or other traffic violations, and even though they were cited it was a pleasant experience, or as pleasant as it could be for being cited. A lot of that has to do with the professionalism or demeanor of the officer. It's one thing if I walk up to you and say-bark at you, "Give me your driver's license." It's another thing: "Good afternoon, ma'am, may I see your driver's license? You made this violation." And then explain it to you. Then 90% of the time, when I hand you your citation you're going to look at me and say thank you. JASAREVIC: Right. TILLMAN: A lot of it is just basic: not only common courtesy, but it should be basic police professionalism. You try, especially on the cadet level, to teach these cadets. You're a civil servant, you serve the public. Treat them like you'd like to be treated. That's kind of one of the golden rules that really applies to law enforcement. So through this series of videos, we went through the wrong way to do it and the reactions, and then the right way to do it, and how cooperative the citizens can be, not only in areas of receiving citations, but when you're needing information on a crime. Someone has broken into a house. Did one of the neighbors see it? I think the way you approach that neighbor is whether they'll talk to you or not. All of these things have to be considered when developing police officers. If they're taught this in the first part of their career, then they carry it throughout their career. Training is something that has been proven, that police officers throughout their careers rely on. In the United States, police officers-that's mandatory that they have in-service training, every year in certain areas, to keep their skills sharp, to keep them knowledgeable on the new trends and methods of how to serve and protect the public. These are areas that we're trying to install here. Training and development, like I said, is our core competency. We do complex training, such as analytical training, to work with criminal analysts on how to take raw criminal intelligence and refine it into something that an investigator can use to work on a complex crime, whether it be organized crime or counterterrorism or money laundering. So investigative skills and tactics, to professionalism, to forensic science. Last week we had experts here from the United States working with the Federation's DNA laboratory to assist them in starting up a DNA laboratory and putting it at the service of all of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Currently most of the DNA is farmed out to neighboring countries. Then comes in questions of chains of custody: how can it be presented into a court of law. So we work with the police on the use of force, the continuum, how to escalate and deescalate use of force, given the situation. Police officers, they make decisions in seconds that would take courts of law years to debate whether it was the right decision or not. So we work with them to try and give them the proper tools to make those decisions, which can be life or death in a split second. All of that focuses around training. JASAREVIC: The training, then, you're talking about both in-service training and in police academy. TILLMAN: Correct. JASAREVIC: Then how do you actually-perhaps you have particular examples-how would you come up with particular training strategies, or even how would you identify an area that needs training? How do you go about it? What kind of a process goes into saying this particular thing needs to be taken care of, or needs to be addressed? TILLMAN: Unfortunately, it's normally after something happens that you realize that there is a need. Again, for the international community, not only the Americans, but the international community, when you travel to a foreign country-and I think the key there is foreign-you're not familiar with the culture or the systems or the laws, and it's a very time-consuming process. This is something that I think the international community can do better: learning the laws of the land. What may apply in the United States may not apply in Bosnia-Herzegovina, or how we address something in the United States may not be applicable here. So one of our theories is, more so than trying to build the 51st state, we try to bring what we believe is best practice. Training: I think this is more of a developmental question of how you identify what training needs to be addressed. Well, you can only do that through assessments. Unfortunately, a lot of times a red flag will come up after an incident, or something happens that brings your attention to it. Then you will assess that need, which will then determine whether you need to address it through training. But it is an ongoing task. Not only here, but I think that applies globally. Even in the United States; that's why we have in-service training; that's why we have policies and procedures that change from year to year. It is a learning process. As cultures change, as people change, as trends change, the police have to be proactive in change themselves to try to stay ahead of the curve. So it is definitely an ongoing process. JASAREVIC: Police officers, are they very receptive, if not excited about the training, or does it vary with the particular training that is in question? TILLMAN: It varies. Police officers are creatures of habit. I can remember when I was an active police officer and I was actually being interviewed. The interviewer asked me a question: You're a police officer, you're a pretty good-sized guy-what are you afraid of? That's really a complex question, what am I afraid of. I've been in many dangerous situations; I've seen the best and worst in mankind; what am I afraid of. So I really had to think about this. And as I thought, it almost was like someone hitting me on the top of the head: I think what I'm afraid of is change. It may not be change itself, but it's the unknown, the unknown of change. I think we think, if it's not broken why fix it. If it has worked this way for 20 years, why are you telling me there's a better way to do it now So change is accepted by individuals in different ways. Whether it's fully accepted, or it's partially accepted, or not accepted at all. When you're doing in-service training or you're training police, depending on the topic, sometimes it's quite difficult. Sometimes you have to prove to them why this is a better way of doing business, why this is a more effective way to serve the community. They've done it 20 years the old way. That's one of the things that you're seeing in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This is an emergent democracy. It is coming out of a communist state. Before, the police served the state, they protected the state. Now they serve the citizens and protect the citizens. And there's a big difference in what their responsibilities are. Their responsibilities now are to serve you, to protect you, your property, your person. This takes time. One of the things, because we've had the benefit of being here so long, is that we're able to change the guard, to see the old guard retire and bring the new guard in through the new educational system with the new philosophies of protect and serve the citizens. So it is really an exciting time here because we're experiencing, seeing that change. JASAREVIC: So all of this, this long history of you being here and seeing this and participating or brainstorming about the training and professionalization, are there any particular training programs that you think of fondly or that you think of having been particularly needed, urgent, or particularly welcome, or any illustration? TILLMAN: Absolutely. I think one of the areas that we identified upon our arrival here-there were many, we tried to prioritize them. I think one of the most important things that we've done was human dignity training. This is connected to all aspects of law enforcement. We talked about this in professionalism, we talked about this in the academy. As an emerging democracy, the change from protecting the state to that of the citizens also means respecting the human rights and dignity of people. This was one of our largest focuses in 1997 that we really concentrated on and had training teams out, training all the police. We did it in train-the-trainer format. It was required. We worked with the United Nations to ensure that human dignity training was required for all 20,000 police officers. They had to attend this. They had to pass this. If they didn't attend or they didn't pass the course, then they were decertified by the United Nations and were no longer police officers. If we look at one of the most important things that we really tried to install here, it was again the change of becoming a democracy and what law enforcement's role was in protecting human rights. I think one of the pleasant things was, we were able to statistically track this. What we've done is set up internal investigations and public complaint bureaus to where people, if their human rights or dignity were abused, had an avenue to make a complaint. When we first started tracking this the numbers were rather high; but, as we've seen as we were traveling throughout the country and tracking this and also delivering human dignity training, we started seeing the complaints dwindle. Today I think that if you-and I hope you get the chance to talk about this with some of our local counterparts-to ask them about their statistics on their complaints, especially on abuses of human rights, they'll be able to pleasantly report that they're very minimal. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at the statistics. Especially someone like you that has a background here, that comes from here, you'll see the difference. JASAREVIC: It seems to me that the training has dual purpose, or it happens on two sides. On one hand you're training police officers as to what human dignity is, but you're also training the community about all these venues to report transgressions. TILLMAN: Absolutely. Remember, police officers are part of the community; they're part of the community that they've been tasked to protect. I think anywhere in the world you go, I think the phraseology "to serve and protect" is pretty global. That is a police officer's job. So it is important that they're connected to the community. We talked about this earlier, about coming out of the community into law enforcement. They have a vested interest. So if they're properly trained, if they're properly developed, they know how not only to serve the community but how to truly protect the community from transgression and crime. JASAREVIC: I think we can perhaps move on; otherwise we'll have completely run out of time and we'll not have touched on any other issues. How about integration. This is another issue that we're especially interested in: your experience with integration and amalgamation, if you do have any in Bosnia. It's basically different types of security forces or police services into a coherent police unit. In other places there are several police forces in a country, as well as private militias or armed wings attached to a big man or political parties, and sometimes military forces have traditionally played a role in policing. In the case of Bosnia, have you helped develop any kind of program that has to do with amalgamation or integration of police officers, whether in these particular areas that I just listed for other countries are applicable or not? Is there a merger of a variety of other police organizations or non-state militias in one unit? TILLMAN: We've worked-in the early years, in 1996, 1997, we worked with the United Nations to certify police officers. What we found when we came in 1996 was, the police were paramilitary. A lot of that has to do with just coming out of a conflict. You had police militias, police reserves. We found that a lot of those individuals were truly not police officers at all. At the start of the conflict you had a choice of joining the police reserves or paramilitary-type unit or going into the military. So during the war-you have to understand the war here. The military were on the perimeters, on the front lines of the battle. These police militias were internal security and not as much to fight crime but to fight against their enemy at the time. Whether it was espionage or infiltration of enemy units, they were focused on internal security and that of the state more so than of the people. We worked with the United Nations in setting up vetting programs trying to find out who these people are that are now all claiming to be police. Did they graduate from the police high school, or were they drafted into the police militia? JASAREVIC: Their claims? Were they actually dressed as police officers? Did they have-how were they even claiming that? TILLMAN: During the conflict most people were dressed in camouflage, police and military. In 1996 you started seeing police uniforms come out, but during the conflict what I'd seen is that most people who were part of the police forces were still in camouflage. So it was hard to distinguish who was who. That's one of the reasons that the United Nations through IPTF [International Police Task Force] set up a vetting program. It was to take0-at that time there were like 27,000 police officers for a country that I think the census was 3.9 million, which wasn't realistic because of the refugees. So we worked with the United Nations to start vetting police officers. ICITAP's role was, again, the transitional courses, transitional meaning human dignity, use of force, basic investigative skills to ensure that this police force had the basic tools and skills to protect and serve citizens. But the United Nations de-certified thousands of people that they realized truly didn't have a law enforcement background. Because of the conflict, they were drafted into a police militia. So there were thousands of people that were not retained in these positions. Those that were, were integrated into the democratic system that stands today. JASAREVIC: So initially it was more a process of weeding out. TILLMAN: That's correct. JASAREVIC: But you were still left with a pretty colorful composition of a police force. TILLMAN: You had the old guard. The police force prior to the conflict that came out of the Yugoslav system. Some of them were able to adapt and embrace change of an emergent democracy, and others weren't. Those were eventually weeded out as time went on. JASAREVIC: To what extent were the procedures-the question as it is stated, to what extent were the procedures you followed determined by UN headquarters, the mission mandate or a peace agreement, and how much room did you and your staff members have to design these procedures? TILLMAN: I think the framework was laid out in the Dayton Peace Accords, Annex 11. We worked with the United Nations in trying to flesh out what the true meanings of Annex 11 were and how it applied to law enforcement in Bosnia-Herzegovina. So ICITAP was involved. I'm reaching back 12 years now, but I recall we were involved in a lot of working groups, panels, discussion groups with the United Nations and other international organizations to really try to strategize and prioritize goals and objectives and how they're best reached. JASAREVIC: We had a brief break during which Mr. Tillman brought up something fairly interesting. That had to do with a point about the difference it makes whether an approach to integration of police force is done in a bilateral or multilateral manner. In a sense, he was making a comparison between his experience with ICITAP in Croatia and in Bosnia, as it was, in 1996. I will ask him to please try and go back to the very same point. You were also talking about multilateral-about how very many countries are interested in the very same issue, which is the integration, and then how do you coordinate, organize, and then also deal with all of these different frameworks, legal, political frameworks. The Dayton Peace Agreements on one hand. Then each one of the national partners invested in the same process. TILLMAN: I think this does address integration, especially with the international community. In 1996, after the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords, a multinational agreement was reached. The UN, OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe], along with NATO, entered into Bosnia-Herzegovina. The multilateral agreement was of course annex 11 of the Dayton Peace Accord. That is a very broad approach. There were specific problems that needed to be immediately addressed to bring basic levels of peace and security to the country. ICITAP participated in that, working with the United Nations and transitioning the police and services into a democratic police force. When the United Nations departed, I believe in 2000, the United States government saw that there was still a lot of work to be done here. Working at this time now with our partners, and our partners being the local police, we entered into bilateral agreements. This is really, I think, favorable, in training and developing police forces. Now you go from working under a multilateral agreement to a bilateral agreement, which means you have to develop a partnership. Now you're working with police agencies, with ministers of interior, with chiefs, and trying to identify needs of how to better protect and serve the community. So it is very interesting. It's very complicated at times. We may identify a problem which is not perceived as a problem by our local host. So you have to sit down and negotiate and reach a deal on how to best bring substance or solution to the issue. I think bilateral programs are very beneficial to any country, because again it shows that there is 1) interest by your local host to improve on any given situation and that 2) there is desire from the participating bilateral countries to work with them to find the common solution and bring best practice. I think that is something that we have successfully done. Working under the UN resolution or convention again, is very important for any post-conflict country. I think this is truly progress, when you can go from a multilateral approach to a bilateral approach. I think that definitely shows progress. The country is not only improving, but it is seriously embracing democracy, which encompasses human rights and the "protect and serve" philosophy. This is something that we've not only seen here in Bosnia-Herzegovina but we've seen throughout the region. As we discussed earlier, in Croatia, the UN's mandate there was much shorter than what it was here in Bosnia-Herzegovina. When the United States offered a bilateral program to Croatia, it was warmly received and embraced. Since 2000, for the last eight years, we've been working with the Croatian authorities to professionalize their police forces into what they believe is truly principles of democratic policing. So I think that there is a lot of value in bilateral programs. One of the problems is, I think, the international community as a whole has seen the value of bilateral programs. The international community has engaged this on many different levels. One of the problems that we have, not only as ICITAP, but as a member of the international community, is coordinating our efforts with other bilateral programs. Bosnia-Herzegovina is not necessarily in the center of the radar screen any more. We have to ensure that the monies that US taxpayers donate are put to the best use possible. So we have to coordinate with our other partners in the international community to ensure that there is a reduction of duplication and that we enhance each other's efforts here. At the end of the day, I think the beneficiaries are the local police. If we can work with other bilateral projects from Western Europe to bring best practice in in a complementary fashion, the police of Bosnia-Herzegovina get the best of the best. They've been exposed to more here in theory and practice and equipment and training than most police forces anywhere else in the world. The local police truly have the opportunity here, I think, to emerge as a model for not only the region but many other places in the world, providing they embrace what they're being exposed to. JASAREVIC: Then also, I guess, monitoring? You were speaking before about statistics or some monitoring-a monitoring mechanism in place for following up and quantitative or statistical. Does ICITAP go around and assesses the impact of integration? TILLMAN: Absolutely. As we discussed earlier, development is an ongoing process. It's assess, assess, assess. You may address one problem in any given area and find solutions to that, but it opens Pandora's box. You find there are many other issues that are connected to one simple problem that then have to be addressed. We've done that for ten years here. But I can say we've also worked with our international partners on this, with the United Nations when they had a huge presence here, now with the European Police Mission, EUPM [European Union Police Mission]. They definitely have a great mandate to monitor, to inspect, to mentor. They have the human resources that I don't have in my organization. So we work closely with the European Police Mission to assist us in not only assessing, but I think monitoring whether progress is being made in any given area, whether it is statistically or based off principle or practice. They have the eyes and ears throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina, that they can actively participate in what ICITAP and the US government is trying to achieve here in kind of a quality-control manner. We've got a very good relationship with the European Police Mission that has assisted us in doing that. We work together in such a manner that we come up with common goals and objectives of how to address certain issues. JASAREVIC: I think I'll move on to the next area. It has to do with the accountability and effectiveness, and I think you've been touching upon this in some other questions when you were talking about changing the police force, or at least when you were referring to the old guard and the change of philosophy or mentality, if you will. Rather than serving the state now, police officers have to get a grip on serving the community, people, citizens, as you put it. What does that entail? We've kind of touched upon this, but I'll pose the question again. Let's see exactly how it is phrased here. What can be done to improve accountability to government and community needs? A police service may respond well to directives to its own managers, but it may not do what the community or political leaders think is important. So enhancing accountability to the community and police policymakers includes improving the capacity to collect and analyze information about performance and outcomes, improving responsiveness to government and to community needs, and creation of oversight. Have you ever worked with local or national police forces to develop external accountability? Any examples or stories? TILLMAN: We have. One of the things we've done is, we identified this need in 1997: how do you hold police accountable. Not only accountable in the community's eyes, but accountable in management's eyes. We tried to address this through working with our local partners, again, in developing policies and procedures, kind of the guide to how to. Within these policies and procedures we included the development of internal investigations, so the police can police the police, which I think is very important. That way everyone can be held accountable for their actions or their non-actions. I think one of the most difficult things, as we discussed, going from protecting the state to protecting the people is, you're now looking at being reactive versus proactive. One of the things that we encourage and tried to develop in our local counterparts is being proactive, not just reacting to crime, but how to stop crime before it happens. This is a hard thing to quantify. How do you know if the crime doesn't happen; how do you statistically track it? One of the things that we're seeing: in some areas general crime rises, other areas it falls. We work with our counterparts on how to develop strategies to address these ebbs and flows in crime statistics. There are many different methods and philosophies that can be approached in doing this. Again, I think it falls back to being reactive versus proactive. We're trying to work with our counterparts to take a proactive stance in fighting crime. Again this goes back to protecting people, not the state. JASAREVIC: So is this in a sense stretching the definition of what accountability is. You're held accountable, responsible for things, not only for things that happen and responding to them, but also anticipation or evaluation of the overall situation in a community, or where have you to spot weaknesses, spot potential threats, spot what-have-yous. That's really interesting, because you see accountability now; the definition now is growing, is expanding. Was this an alien thought to the police? TILLMAN: Absolutely. They were very reactive here when we first arrived in 1996, and understandably, coming out of the Yugoslav system. But what we've seen is, one of the easy ways to do this is to statistically track crime. You can do that in many different ways. How many homicides, how many burglaries. Then you can also do it geographically, which I think is one of the better approaches. Geographically plot the crime trend. What we do is try to work with management in how to identify problems. If Vogo??a is having a tremendous amount of car thefts, management needs to quickly identify that and then proactively take steps to put investigators and uniform police and undercover police in place to combat that issue. Again, we've tried to simplify this and say it is just proactive policing, but it is really a management responsibility. Management has to have the tools in place, and I believe we've worked with them to develop these tools in how to statistically identify these problems. No one has a crystal ball-even though there is one on my desk, it doesn't work real well-that predicts the future. So management has to proactively engage in accountability. Accountability to me is very simple. Are the people in any geographical area safe? If they are-if they're relatively safe, if their children can play in the yards, if people can walk up and down the sidewalks or sit at a coffee bar unmolested-the police are taking a pretty proactive role. You can go to any neighborhoods around the world, and people may not feel that comfortable. Then you really have to assess the accountability of the police and hold them accountable. Why is this neighborhood or geographic area safe? One of the simplest ways to do that is through statistical tracking. We've worked with our local counterparts to set up a criminal database, standardized police reporting, criminal intelligence, that can statistically track, anywhere in Bosnia-Herzegovina, crime trends. Managers can pull data out of this database and say, oh, in this given area, we're starting to see domestic violence. Why is that? Is it a poor economy? Are most of the people not working? Then that's a governmental issue that the police can actually approach the government, the cantonal government or the Federation or the Republika Srpska, and say, "You know, we have areas, we're having domestic violence, drinking and driving, public disorder. We believe it is because of economic hardship." So the larger government can take a look at introducing solutions. But it can be as simple as car thefts. Is there a certain area that is being targeted for car thieves or burglars? Without statistic data you can never-you take a shotgun approach; it's kind of best guess. With statistical data you can take a really focused approach to curtailing crime. That is one of the things that we've worked with our local counterparts in developing. JASAREVIC: What about the other side of the accountability, having to do with the community, or however politically active or organized the community is, whether it is local district, or what have you. Is there a sense on behalf of the citizens within the community or larger area that the police is accountable to them, or that they should be held accountable for the action or the lack of action? Is there a way to either assess the feeling among the community, or even for the community to address the issues, to act upon the notion of provision of accountability? TILLMAN: Sure. Again, I don't think this is rocket science. This is community policing. The law enforcement community has to engage the community. If police managers really want to hold their officers accountable, they have to get feedback from the community. There are many different ways to do this. Whether it is through the police community meetings, neighborhood-watch-type meetings, or what do they call that-community gatherings, town hall type meetings, demonstrations. The police have to have their fingers on the pulse of the community. What does the community think about the police? That goes from the chief down to that lonely policeman walking the beat. How are they doing their job? This goes back to safety and security. Does the community feel safe in the community? There are a lot of mechanisms that actually have been put in place here through our community policing program that directly puts the community in contact with the police. Now this is good, bad or indifferent. Because not only does it give the community the opportunity to meet the chief, meet the senior police staff, but it also gives them the opportunity to praise them when they do a good job or chastise them when they don't think they're doing a good job. We've set up complaint bureaus. They're anonymous. If someone wants to call in and make a complaint, they have that option, and to protect their identity so there is no fear of repercussion. All of these are simple things that are kind of like checks and balances that can be put in place to hold the police accountable. Because again, at the end of the day, the police are answerable to the community. They work for the community. They serve and protect the citizens. Police management has to set these checks and balances in place so they can better critique their jobs and they can better protect the community. JASAREVIC: Do I have time for one more question? TILLMAN: Sure. JASAREVIC: I'll pick the issue of depoliticization. A good one to wrap things up with. Given the time constraint, I'll let you answer this as you choose. TILLMAN: The most difficult question for last. JASAREVIC: Exactly, the most difficult one. TILLMAN: That's a very difficult question to answer. We talk about depoliticizing the police. Can you point out to me-and this is sort of the student asking the teacher-can you point out to me any community, anywhere in the world, so you have the whole globe to chose from, that has successfully, 100% depoliticized policing? JASAREVIC: That's an excellent point, and the answer of course is no. TILLMAN: Even in the United States, we've not successfully depoliticized the police. I think some of the systems we've put in place are definitely models, but we can't say we've successfully 100% depoliticized law enforcement in the United States. The director of the FBI is appointed by the president. The chief of police for any given community is either selected by a mayor or city council. The sheriff of any given county is elected by the people through a political process. So there's political ties to policing anywhere in the world, from the selection process of its management to its budget. Any chief, any sheriff, any director has to politically engage government to receive money to operate on. So this is a very difficult question. What we've hoped and tried to do here is depoliticize operations of police. We've tried to separate police operations from political interference. I think we've successfully done this in the United States, and a lot of other countries have done this. This again has been a difficult task here, because again it goes back to policing the state and protecting the people. But one of the things we've worked diligently with the international community, with our local partners on, is now having procedures put in place that we've separated ministers who are political appointees from police commissioners. No longer does a minister or a government select a police commissioner. Now there is an independent selection panel that is set up throughout the Federation: all ten cantons and the Republika Srpska, the District of Br?ko, have independent selection panels that interview and grade a candidate pool for who is going to be the next police commissioner, the next police chief. This is to try to buffer a police commissioner from direct political engagement. We've tried to give police certain autonomies to enforce the law without political repercussion. Like I said, you saved the hardest question for last. This is probably one of the most difficult things to do. Because again, now you're comparing the old system to what we're trying to install, a new system. I think we've made a lot of progress in this area. Can we say we've depoliticized law enforcement? I don't think so. JASAREVIC: But does it also entail that you have to-at the same time or prior to depoliticizing police force-that you have to depoliticize the people themselves in a particular community or area? I can imagine scenarios where certain communities would feel more comfortable with police that were selected based on their political commitments and affiliations and so forth. TILLMAN: You see that in the United States. Like I said, your police chiefs are generally selected by a city council or city managers or mayors. Your sheriffs are elected by the people. So there's definitely that aspect alive and well. We've tried to take a realistic approach. Can you depoliticize senior management? To a degree. What we've tried to ensure and really focus on is depoliticizing police operations. Especially when it comes to complex crime, organized crime or corruption. The police and the police investigators have to have the freedoms to truly investigate sensitive crimes-these are politically sensitive crimes-without managerial or political interference. That's something that I think we're being successful at. Some days it is one step forward, two back. But I think in the overall scope of things we've made a lot of progress here. I think-and I hope that you find that out as you continue your interviews with some of your other principals-that progress is being made here; accountability is happening. There is now becoming, I think, a frame of security being built for the people. It is going to take a few more years. I don't think anyone has ever stated that building a democracy is easy or quick. JASAREVIC: Mr. Tillman, thank you so much for your time and for your insights. This is a wonderful conversation to have preserved in our archives. TILLMAN: My apologies, I wish we had more time. I think that what you're doing, what the university is doing, is fantastic. Hopefully, when all of this is put together there's going to be some quantifiable lessons learned that can be shared throughout the international community that we can all learn from. As practitioners or implementers, it can assist us in better assisting our local partners. So thank you, and hopefully we'll get the chance to see each other again. JASAREVIC: Absolutely. Thank you so much. Innovations for Successful Societies Series: Policing Oral History Program Interview number: G13 ______________________________________________________________________ 15 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