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Police numbers are "insufficient" and there are issues with police personnel training, Ombudsperson Renate Weber declared on Wednesday on the occasion of the release of the institution's special report on the Romanian Police General Inspectorate's personnel deficit and its logistic equipment.
"We found that there are actually not enough police officers, and there are obvious issues with their training. Depending on the victim categories, training should be specific to each such situation type, and we also tackled issues with the equipment available or rather unavailable to them," Weber explained.
According to the report, the answers of the County Police Inspectorates reveal that most of them face staff shortage and undersizing of precinct crews, which affect either their activities with the public, or the optimum maintenance of public order and safety.
The staff shortage is often due to objective causes, such as retirement, relocations, secondments. The number of requests for relocation to the home counties is particularly high, as most employed police officers hail from other parts of the country and want to return home or to a place they consider to have better prospects.
Deputy Ombudsman Mircea Criste explained that the "deficient" logistical equipment of the Romanian Police is likely to affect its activity.
The report also sets forth a number of improvement proposals, such as the extension of the scope of the provision of Law No. 360/2002 according to which the work relationship of the person who acquires the status of police officer by re-employment, direct employment or transfer to cannot be changed for at least two years from the appointment to the first position - unless the unit reorganises - to the persons directly employed as experts and officers promoted from NCOs.
Also, Criste mentioned, the possibility of increasing the effectiveness period of the interdiction to modify the work relationship should be considered, as the County Police Inspectorates suggested a longer period of up to 5 years calculated from the appointment to the first position.
Other Ombudsman proposals refer to forbidding the relocation and secondment of graduates of the Interior Ministry's educational institutions to other units than those they were appointed to in the first position, for at least 3 years; establishing a law enforcement school in one of the counties of Moldova; supplementing police officer positions in public order structures by increasing the ratio of operative policemen to the population; increasing the number of student places within the Interior Ministry's educational institutions; supporting newly recruited police officers by providing them service housing and other facilities.
Other major recommendations are for the proper training of the police officers, providing them with adequate logistical equipment and ensuring that the management positions that are currently vacant or held by temporarily appointed persons are filled by competition, reports agerpres.
