Culture shock for police recruits

By PATRICIA CIKA
SPECIAL TO THE VINDICATOR
"Don't tell me about the law. The law is whatever I write on a scrap of paper."
Saddam Hussein
NE OF THE MOST INTERESTING parts of my job in Iraq is being an instructor at the Iraqi police academy.
The Al Anbar Security College is the required police academy for all the police, including career officers under the former regime.
Trying to explain rights to someone who has never had them is like describing colors to a person who has been blind their entire life.
In the U.S., for instance, every police officer knows to read a suspect his rights just as much as every suspect knows he has rights, if only from TV and movies.
Yet in Iraq, most people still have no idea that they have rights or what those rights are. The interim government of Iraq has put forth a plan for Iraq's fundamental law, which will encompass basic human rights.
The laws will not be American, but they will certainly prohibit the beatings of the past. Among the new Iraqi rights will be rights very similar to our oft-quoted Miranda warnings, "You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can be used against you in a court of law ..." and so on.
When police officers here read a suspect his rights, they aren't just ensuring that any evidence they acquire from the suspect will be voluntary, they are educating citizens.
Confessions
Iraqi police work was so confession-centric under the former regime that my class has become almost exclusively a class on the right to remain silent.
The first time I taught the class in autumn 2003, the police could not comprehend how they might prosecute criminals without confessions.
Under the former regime, thousands of innocent people admitted to crimes which they did not commit.
Many lost their lives under a death penalty that honored these ill-gotten confessions alone as evidence. Some of them were genuinely guilty. They were guilty of behavior, however, which Americans would never criminalize -- such as speaking about your religion or opposing a war.
They were tortured -- typically by electrocution, removal of fingernails or limbs, or hung by their wrists and whipped. Of course, confessions were plentiful.
Most felt that their confessions might win them respite from the torture, when in actuality the confession became the basis of further torture or even death.
Ironically, the students are very happy that people have to be told why they are being arrested.
To me this was so obvious; I could not understand why it was taking so long to teach.
It turns out that people here were not told why they were arrested and many families to this day do not know.
I try to convince my students that the goal is not to put anyone in jail, but to put the right man (the guilty one) in jail.
This generally doesn't satisfy them until I ask them, "What if the suspect was your elderly father? Wouldn't you want to know that everyone -- regardless of status, religion, guilt or innocence -- was being treated with the same dignities and afforded the same rights?"
Poignant question
This is not the only cultural difference we have shared during classes. A few weeks ago a student asked me, "In Iraq, if a prisoner escaped, we would just imprison and torture their family members until the man came back."
I expected him to ask me if this was still legal. But instead he asked regretfully, "Do they do that anywhere else in the world?" His question is such a poignant one. It shows the gross lack of information that people in Iraq had about the outside world.
Another difference surfaced as I was explaining how to prove premeditation in a murder case. A student asked me a question from an actual case he tried.
Without the man's confession, he told me he could have never proven that the defendant killed his adulterous wife, as he had run poisonous gas into their bedroom as his wife slept. He asked me how he could prove the case without a confession.
Easy, right? The autopsy would reveal the cause of death. However, most here are morally opposed to autopsies. Forensic sciences are not a strong option for these police.
Did he say anything to his neighbors? Tribal, religious, or family ties have a way of quieting people or causing them to lie on the witness stand.
When I explained that a search of the home might uncover some receipts which might prove preparation, for instance, my interpreter looked at me and said, "But ma'am, we do not have receipts here."
No receipts for purchases. That's a whole body of evidence these police do not have at their disposal.
Tracing a phone? Most people don't even have their own phones so tracing calls or bugging a line is not an option yet.
Placing a microphone on an informant? That technology is just not here yet.
Some of our differences are surprising: the elation, for instance, on one of my student's faces after I had explained the plan for the death penalty in Iraq.
He shouted, "SO, NO MORE PUBLIC HANGINGS?" "Nope," I said after collecting myself. "No more public hangings."
Better equipped
When I first arrived, the police were rightfully afraid to do their jobs. Many of my suggestions, I came to realize, were not workable in this environment.
Foreign fighters and terrorists were armed with rocket propelled grenades and vehicles, compared to the Iraqi police without uniforms, vehicles (let alone with sirens or spotlights), or weapons.
Even basic concepts such as how to make an arrest were difficult to teach as they knew criminals might well overpower them. They had never even been issued a set of handcuffs until now.
Much has changed because of our efforts, but some things are more difficult to change than others. The police are now armed, trained, and disciplined, yes -- but still some cultural issues make being an Iraqi policeman a riskier job than most.
The police, for example, fear that when they arrest a criminal, his family or his tribe will seek him out and kill him or members of his own family to "settle the debt."
Iraq is still very much a tribal society. Being in a similar field, the thought has occurred to me that the criminal I was helping to prosecute might remember my name.
I never contemplated that his people might seek revenge on mine. It is not hard to realize that if revenge on police was common, it would be difficult to do your job. They are sometimes choosing between protecting the public and protecting their families. In Iraq, the two efforts may not be consistent.
Now the police have uniforms, weapons and vehicles. They view the armband they wear that bears the Iraqi flag as a status symbol. They are proud to be police and it shows.
They are issued a 9 mm pistol and trained to fire the weapon with precision. They patrol the cities and are easily distinguishable among the rest of the population.
In the academy, they do physical training (physical fitness was not a part of being a policeman before). They walk with their shoulders back, chest out, now -- almost a swagger.
Having been here seven months, I remember the self-doubt and suspicion with which they met our initial instruction. Their pride is a great thing to see; and it is only the beginning.