The police chief has announced that citizens have given the law enforcement authority an “average score of 17.5 out of 20”, an improvement by one percent over the 16.5 score in a previous survey.
General Esmail Ahmadi Moghaddam, said in a press conference held on the sidelines of the meeting of ‘197’ - an agency overseeing the internal affairs of the police - that most of the topics discussed were concerns of parents whose children were injured in police operations and other related matters on which directives were issued, ISNA reported.
Code of Conduct
Moghaddam pointed to the importance of ethics in law enforcement and said on a global standard scale of 10, Iranian police scored between 7 and 7.5, a satisfactory ranking. ‘’But it’s obvious that we’re not fully happy with this score and we intend to move towards an ideal situation’’, the police chief said. He noted that only two “tiny countries have a score higher than 9” and added that a lower than 5 score reflects widespread corruption.
He emphasized the importance of civil rights and said efforts are underway to improve the condition of police jails. Since the first comprehensive assessment of jails in 2010, there has been a significant improvement. ‘’We moved upwards from 25 (out of 100) to 85 and we hope to reach a point above 90.”
School Kids
Moghaddam warned about drug abuse among students and said more police patrols are vigilant in school neighborhoods. Among the major concerns of police, tackling drug trafficking and confronting drug dealers has been given priority and since there were complaints by parents of the presence of drug traffickers around schools, “we have decided to beef up our presence in the vicinity of schools,” he said.
Complaints
The police chief said the highest complaints from people about police work are regarding misconduct by traffic police. “It is a possibility that most complaints are regarding traffic cops since they deal with people on a day-to-day basis,’’ the top cop said. He noted that more than 100,000 traffic tickets are issued daily by officers and “naturally this makes those officers the target of people’s criticism.” Nevertheless, he said, they are holding more training classes for traffic police to help reduce the number of complaints.
Meanwhile, 48% of the reported misconduct among the police force is perpetrated by conscripts and not the law enforcement officers. Most of the wrongdoings were drug-related offences. However, drug-users among conscripts are being identified and they would be transferred to rehab centers to be treated and trained so that they can return to society better off than before.
Tackling Crime
Moghaddam also referred to street crime, robberies and drug addiction as the top priority for the police force in fighting crime and said fortunately “there is a 6% increase in our ability to track down crime; and in our fight to tackle theft, we can bring down the rate of petty thefts by one percent.”
He noted that “desertion” is the most common crime committed by members of the police force and attributed the reason for officers abandoning their posts to the high level of “stress and pressure” on law enforcement personnel. ‘’Therefore, we have decided to exempt officers with at least three children from being transferred to different areas- a move also in line with promoting population growth.” He pointed that birth rates among the police personnel have doubled between 2011 and 2013.
Honorary Police
The top cop also explained about the honorary police plan and said honorary service is of two kinds: one is to join the cultural force with no interference in real operations and the other is to play a more active role by assisting the police in operations like calming a riot situation, participating in sea operations etc. “The honorary recruits will receive legal and insurance protection,’’ he added.
