“Colombian National Police-Basic Police Academy Curriculum Assessment”

This project should support the overarching goal of INL Bogota’s Law Enforcement Professionalization Section (LEPS): to disrupt and dismantle narcotrafficking and other transnational crime by enhancing CNP capabilities, processes, and internal structures. To contribute to that goal, this project will assess the CNP basic police academy curriculum and eligibility criteria to attend specialty schools and provide recommendations, if warranted. This will help the CNP: (1) Strengthen basic training curriculum with a focus on practical tactics applicable to police work in the field; and, (2) Improve CNP capability to disrupt and dismantle narcotrafficking and other transnational crime by increasing the efficiency of basic training and enabling the deployment of fully qualified police into the field more quickly. Current CNP training methods focus heavily on theory, providing negligible practical training throughout the basic course that fully prepares the participant to immediately and effectively discharge police duties. This approach runs counter to law enforcement best practices that emphasize practical training over classroom instruction. CNP policy also permits basic academy graduates to apply and enter into specialty schools after only serving one year in patrol, which reduces the amount of officers in the field. The proposed in-depth assessment of both curriculum and post-academy graduate training policies should evaluate the aforementioned approaches and provide recommendations that the CNP could adopt.