Community Policing Initiative in Minority Regions of Georgia (CPI) – program goal is to increase legal awareness in local secondary school students and build community-police partnerships in Samtskhe-Javakheti Region. The core of the program is building and institutionalizing positive dialogue, consultation, and joint problem solving between local police and local communities with the focus on ethnic minority communities. It seeks to overcome existing communication challenges within communities and between communities and the police. Representatives of the community include school students, the school administration, parents and teachers, representatives of local self-government, sport groups, and religious and community leaders.
CPI utilizes school and community interventions to lead to greater engagement of police with the members of selected communities of Samtskhe-Javakheti region. Hence, the two components, legal education in schools and building police-community partnerships, are key program areas of the initiative. Providing police with training and support to incorporate and improve their own personal and professional capacity in crime prevention through using community policing approaches will be the key. Activities build from classroom-based components (building trust and relationship between students and police) and extend out to community-based activities, resulting inreduced recurrence of juvenile delinquency and contributing to the establishment of constructive dialogue between the population of Samtskhe-Javakheti region and police structures.
CPI is funded by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. The program is implemented in partnership with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia and Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of Georgia.
CPI program is built on the experience of Adjara Community Policing Initiative (ACPI), that PH International has implemented during 2015-2020 years with financial support from INL.
