PER Report: Toward Community Policing: The Police and Ethnic Minorities in Hungary
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Subject: PER Report: Toward Community Policing: The Police and Ethnic Minorities in Hungary
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PER Report: Toward Community Policing: The Police and Ethnic
Minorities in Hungary
TOWARD COMMUNITY POLICING: THE POLICE AND ETHNIC MINORITIES IN HUNGARY
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY JULY, 2000
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
1993 Assessments
Assessment of Relations Between the Police and Minorities
Activities and Accomplishments
Summary
Notes
Other PER Publications
PREFACE
While parliaments and cabinets debate interethnic relations, the
attitudes of ordinary citizens are forged on the streets of their
cities and villages. For many, especially members of ethnic
minorities, it is the police who are the most immediate and visible
embodiment of state authority How they behave toward minorities and
how they handle episodes of interethnic tensions have major
consequences for public behavior. One of the most difficult problems
facing the police in emerging democracies is the lack of conceptual
and institutional resources for instilling and enforcing democratic
practices at both national and local levels, especially in daily
contacts with minority groups.
This report summarizes the work carried out in Hungary by the Southern
Police Institute, a division of the Department of Justice
Administration at the University of Louisville, in Louisville,
Kentucky, USA. In 1993, under the leadership of Dr. Deborah Wilson,
chair of the Department, expert teams consulted with Hungarian police
authorities to assess their relations with civilians. That assessment
underlined the need for particular attention to improving relations
between the police and ethnic minorities, especially the Roma
(Gypsies). The Project on Ethnic Relations had already enjoyed a
highly productive collaboration with the Southern Police Institute
since 1994, when we launched a series of joint projects in Romania to
improve police performance in curbing violence against the Roma. We
asked Dr. Wilson and her colleagues to take a closer look at police
and interethnic relations, and in November 1996 organized a visit to
Budapest for the Institute's specialists. That visit paved the way for
the Institute to organize a program in 1998-1999, which was funded by
grants from the U.S. government and carried out by the Institute.
The Institute analyzed and made recommendations concerning police
structures and practices, and provided a program of training in
democratic policing. Some 200 National Police commanders from all over
Hungary participated in the training, as well as teachers from police
schools and colleges. This training had a significant impact on the
design of police training curricula. In addition, members of the
Romani leadership from Nograd County provided the police commanders
with information on how to build positive relations between the Roma
and the police. At the end of the four training sessions, among other
accomplishments, a section on International Relations and Minority
Affairs was established within the Hungarian National Police and the
Hungarian Ministry of the Interior. Although this report concerns
Hungary, there is no doubt that the Institute's recommendations and
its training methods have broad applicability throughout the region.
We hope that this report will underline the importance of tackling the
question of police relations with ethnic minorities and will point the
way toward practical measures.
We are grateful to the Institute's specialists not only for their
hands-on know-how, but for adding to our understanding of the complex
interactions between the police and ethnic minorities.
Dr. Ferenc Melykuti, head of PER's Budapest office, Major Iren Sarkozi
of the Hungarian National Police, and Dr. Klara Csanyi, director of
public relations of the Hungarian National Police provided essential
logistic and organizational support, and served as liaisons between
the Southern Police Institute and the Hungarian authorities.
This report was prepared by Dr. Deborah Wilson, chair of the
Department of Justice Administration at the University of Louisville,
Kentucky and was edited by the PER staff, with the special assistance
of Ann Marie Grocholski, program officer and assistant to the
executive director at PER's office in Princeton. The participants in
the projects did not have an opportunity to review the text, for which
PER assumes full responsibility.
Alien H. Kassof, President
Livia Plaks, Executive Director
Princeton, New Jersey
July 2000
-----------------------
The Project on Ethnic Relations (PER) was founded in 1991 in
anticipation of the serious interethnic conflicts that were to erupt
following the collapse of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe and
the former Soviet Union. PER conducts programs of high-level
intervention and dialogue and serves as a neutral mediator in several
major disputes the region. PER also conducts programs of training,
education, and research at international, national, and community
levels.
PER is supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, with
additional funding from the Starr Foundation, the William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and the
Council of Europe.
Individuals and institutions wishing to receive PER publications
should write to:
Project on Ethnic Relations
15 Chambers Street
Princeton, New Jersey 08542-3707, USA
Telephone: (609) 683-5666
Fax: (609) 683-5888
E-mail: [email protected]
http://www.netcom.com/~ethnic/per.html
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