Ghana Police Academy has organised the first course of the second phase of its citizen friendly policing course with 30 personnel raising the number so far since the inception of project in 2012 to 221.

The course is designed to deepen special and functional skills of the divisional commanders and station officers to meet current requirement of democratic policing and to incorporate requisite acumen that would enable them to put a human face on such duties as arrest, detention, interrogations, use of force and public management.

Commandant of the Ghana Police Academy, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP), Bright Oduro said the training would help create awareness on the need to uphold, respect, promote and protect human rights of citizens and impact on the general attitude of the police.

He said the programme, which is in response to the paradigm shift, championed by the police administration to train and retrain officers to meet democratic policing standards, would also help the courts’ decongestion bid with respect to criminal cases.

He said the academy, which is 55 years, has contributed to the development of the police leadership, national peace and security, but added that, the lack of expansion and modernization of facilities to reflect emerging trends in training environment remained a challenge.

The “citizen friendly policing” project is sponsored by the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations through funds provided by the common Federal Foreign office and administered by the Hans Seidel Foundation (HSF).

The Director-General in-charge of Human Resource Development of the Ghana Police Service, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Patrick Timbila, also observed that the negative public perception about the service was bad and called for change in attitude of the personnel.

“Let’s all resolve to change that perception in order to serve the people better and I believe that can be done through training and retraining which is at the centre of the police administration agenda.”

He called on the personnel to couch a new face for the service, improve upon its service to the public and reaffirm public confidence in the service to better fight and reduce crime.

Mr Demian Regehr, Country Director of HSF said the foundation tries to use its resources to strengthen ties between government institutions and civil society to enhance better service delivery to the citizens.

This, he said, is because in many situations, people feel that their needs and interests are not being represented and fully understood by political leaders and institutions working to implement political agendas.

He said the police play a crucial task in a stable society, which largely depends on “strong and fundamental trust” between citizens and the police.

“If trust is established, people will comply and collaborate with the police, ultimately, this will positively affect the criminal justice system on all levels,” he said.

The HSF Country Director urged the police to work assiduously to change the negative public perception in order to make their work more effective and beneficial to Ghanaians.

The HSF is a political foundation from Germany working in the areas of civic education, the rule of law and conflict prevention.