Irish Police here for community policing

IGP Kayihura with Irish Policemen.Photo by Nicholas Kajoba

By Steven Candia

Police boss Lt. Gen. Kale Kayihura Monday urged the police to embrace community policing if they are to secure convictions in cases court.

Kayihura said police was losing many cases due to lack of evidence, which often is in the hands of the local communities and can be accessed through community policing initiatives.

Speaking at the opening of a community policing programme being carried out by the Irish Police, Kayihura said the pillars of community policing are trust and community problem solving through police working together with local communities.

"We lose cases in court just because we do not have evidence yet it is there. All of us should be community policing officers. We must prevent crime and when it happens we should get information from the public because of our intimate relationship with the people," Kayihura said at Hotel Africana.

About 110 police officers drawn from units countrywide are to undergo the four weeks training course being conducted by a team of four police officers from Ireland, headed by Phillip Ryan. The training is part of an exercise that was started in 2010.

Ryan on his part said his team is pleased to be back in the country to continue with the training and hoped that it would be beneficial to the Uganda police.

"We are here to help the Uganda police develop community policing but not to show them what to do," Ryan said adding that through community policing the police could achieve a great deal. Kayihura however, berated the police for not embracing community policing, a thing he said was letting down the Uganda police.

"There is a lack of ideological commitment to community policing among some of you. We have people who want to cut corners," he said adding that it was shameful that despite the police resources, especially in Kampala that crime could still thrive.

"In Kampala we have a record 165 police patrol vehicles and 10,000 police officers so let us obliterate crime. It is shameful that despite that deployment we cannot secure even small stretches," he said adding that community policing is not an end in itself but rather a strength multiplier.

Source newvision.co.ug/news