Reform would sink Police’s “islands of power”

Santo Domingo.- Legality and reality are the two aspects that mark the government’s proposed National Police reform, with the first submitted to Congress to adapt legislation, whereas the second, focused on prevention and investigation, is already underway.

Interior and Police minister Jose Ramon Fadul said 12,000 agents will be recruited during president Danilo Medina’s four yeas in office, with agents having higher quality standards.

Called the Integrated Public Safety, Fadul said the law creates the Police Internal Affairs Dept., headed by the Interior Ministry and not by the Chief of Police as it stands now.

Quoted by listin.com.do, the official said the bill would break with the National Police’s “atomization,” since in his view "there are many islands of power."

"There are many islands of power, which everyone knows, and sometimes there’s a command to which they respond in a very upright manner when they have to, then that fragmentation is one of the effects which we have on the reform," he said.