Foreign Assistance

As a way to bolster judicial reform in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Congress recently authorized the executive branch to begin offering law enforcement training in those countries. This report discusses (1) whether the needs of the police forces in the region have been adequately assessed, (2) whether the assistance to police forces now being provided directly supports attempts to build democracy, (3) whether the executive branch has developed a plan to provide police training in support of consolidating democratic values in this region of the world, and (4) which U.S. agency has the experience to meet the training intent of the legislation.

GAO found that: (1) the Department of State has not thoroughly assessed the specific training and assistance needs of police forces in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union; (2) the United States has provided some training to police forces in Central and Eastern European countries, but this has been primarily to support U.S. antiterrorism and counternarcotics objectives; (3) the Antiterrorism Assistance (ATA) program provided most U.S. police assistance to Central and Eastern Europe; (4) the International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) is the only U.S. program established specifically to address the developmental and training needs of foreign law enforcement agencies; (5) State has not developed plans to involve ICITAP in law enforcement assistance to Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union; and (6) the Department of Justice has recently requested foreign assistance funds from State to provide training to Central and East European police forces in such areas as money laundering and fraud.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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