US govt courses on community policing begin next Monday

The United States Department of Justice and International Training Assistance Programme (ICITAP0), will run two one-week training courses on community policing for 110 participants beginning next Monday.

US embassy in Dar es Salaam said in a press statement that conducting such training courses was an effort to continue the bilateral agreement to enhance implementation of a comprehensive community policing programme.

During the first week, the programme would seek to enhance the skills of community policing officers of the Tanzania Police Force in developing community policing methods.

It would also provide skills of identifying and responding to domestic violence, child abuse calls for service and enhancing problem solving strategies including victim advocacy.

During the second week the programme would dwell on areas of officer safety, use of force and handcuffing techniques.

The programme is intended to develop the officers` situational awareness, provide information on proper use of force and enhance the skills of the officers in safety; and effectively place a suspect in custody while protecting human rights, said the statement.

The Department of State, through Diplomatic Security Service`s Office of Antiterrorism Assistance (DS/ATA) Programme would additionally conduct a separate two-week Anti-terrorism Instructor Development Course for 18 government officials also beginning Monday for two weeks.

`The course is designed for instructors and mid-level managers with training responsibilities who will learn to develop effective training utilising current approaches to adult learning,` said the statement.

It added that the training methods to be used `are common Anti-Terrorism (AT) themes such as a review of trends in terrorism, terrorist methods of operations, and attacks in computer operations, bomb threat management, and weapons of mass destruction.`

The training courses were part of the overall US government direct and multilateral assistance to Tanzania of more than 625bn/- in fiscal year 2007, it concluded.