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The population of Kyrgyzstan often has had a negative attitude toward the police force.  This has been connected with the sometimes high levels of human rights violations by law enforcement personnel and with their lack of interaction with the general population in the protection of public order.  Often, according to Public Foundation, this fear and distrust of police officers is based on second-hand information or is due to a lack of understanding of the police force’s role in the community.  

Thus in 2001 the Public Foundation initiated the “We and Law Legal Clinic” in which police officers from the Juvenile Delinquency Inspection (JDI) and the Juvenile Delinquency Commission (JDC) taught law lessons to students in the 9th and 10th grades in districts across Kyrgyzstan.  The goal of this project is to improve perception and communication between police officers and adolescents.  Through this program, minors can learn from police officers substantive information about their rights and responsibilities in addition to practicing cooperative learning with the police and with each other.  

Thirty police officers are now teaching weekly lessons in thirty schools across Kyrgyzstan.  Through these courses, trusting relationships have been established which have led to a reduced crime rate among those adolescents in the program as well as to a lower number of human rights violations among the police officers.  One pupil told the Public Foundation that “after these lessons I’ve known that the cop is also a human being, and that he can be kind.  He can help to solve the problems using the laws; he is not the person who is trying to punish me.”

The first step that the Public Foundation took was to organize workshops for the police officers.  In these sessions, the police officers were trained in methods for teaching law and were taught pedagogical skills for teaching adolescents.  Trainers actually taught the 9th grade level “We and Law” lessons to the officers in order to provide them with an understanding of why minors violate laws and how they can help teenagers understand and appreciate the law.  According to Public Foundation, some police officers were not eager to participate in the lessons designed for the 9th grade pupils, arguing that they knew more about law than the trainers did.  However, the trainers continued to stress that the goal of their participation in these lessons was not to teach the officers about law, but to help them to understand the pupils and their needs.  Only this way will they be able to create a relationship of trust with the adolescents and possibly to prevent delinquency.

According to Public Foundation, another challenge in training police officers to be successful teachers of adolescents was convincing them that a “democratic atmosphere in the classroom” was essential to the “We and Law” lessons.  While in their experience one of the natural inclinations of officers was to act like commanders in the classroom, only through democratic communication would the pupils speak about their attitudes and impressions of the laws.

One way that Public Foundation aided the officers was to insist upon collaboration between the police force and the secondary teachers.  Because the officers were able to witness how the teachers conducted parts of the “We and Law” lessons, they were exposed to the manner by which a friendly and democratic classroom is established.

Every lesson contained not only the basic information on laws and human rights protection, but also emphasized the importance of two kinds of communication: 1) between the police officers and the pupils; 2) among the pupils.  The lessons included role-plays, discussions, group-work, presentations, and free time to share opinions.  This kind of lesson structure provided a wide range of opportunities for communication between the officers and pupils, thus strengthening their relationship of trust.

Lastly, each pupil who completed the “We and Law” class received a certificate from a high police official (such as the captain or chief).  In addition to increasing the respect of adolescents for the program, it emphasized that the police force is interested in youth legal education and the protection of human rights.