AsiaLIFE

Steve Morrish is the founder and executive director of SISHA, which operates a training programme for Cambodian police officers. Seth Emmanuel Rinoza brings him in for questioning. Photography by Dylan Walker.

A former senior detective with ten years’ experience, Steve Morrish set out on a journey to fulfil what he felt was an obligation—to assist those in need and enforce the law in its purest form. Inspired by a holiday in Cambodia in 2004, Morrish decided to take action. He set up South East Asia Investigations in Social and Humanitarian Activities (SISHA), an organisation primarily focused on combating human trafficking and sexual exploitation. Based on close work with the local police, Morrish launched a police training programme.

For the past two years, SISHA has been conducting the Criminal Investigation Police Training Project to help aid and educate the Cambodian police force in law enforcement ethics, crime scene responses and other practices. Morrish explains his mission in Cambodia.

Why has SISHA initiated police training in Cambodia?

When I arrived here in 2005, it was my first exposure to the NGO world. I was very surprised that so many NGOs existed in Cambodia and were dictating what training they would offer to the Cambodian national police. The majority of training offered by NGOs to the police was solely directed to police working in the anti-human trafficking department, which is only 700 police out of 50,000 police in the country. In my professional opinion, the training that was being delivered was irrelevant to policing and was not teaching key basic policing and criminal investigation skills.

After consulting with the Chief Commissioner of Police, General Neth Saveoun and other senior police managers, I asked if the police would give me permission to create a two week, 10 module, basic policing and criminal investigation training package that we, in cooperation with Cambodian national police, could deliver to frontline police working in the crime department. We were given permission and two brigadier generals were sent to us in order to assist in building the training syllabus.

What are the components of the training course?

A theoretical and practical based training course, and ten modules for law enforcement ethics, investigation, law, police powers, investigation planning, crime scenes, victim and child interviews, offender identification, interviewing of suspects and protection orders.

The police officer are given a pre-test of 100 exam questions on the first morning, which nearly every police officer has failed badly. They then receive lectures from the two generals, are shown videos and scenarios, and asked to work individually and in groups to analyse best criminal investigation practices. The police are given explanations on crime scene equipment by two international police detectives and then put into groups where they are given real life crime scenarios and asked to present their team plans on how to investigate these crimes.

Police are then given the same 100 exam questions in different order on the last afternoon of the course. Every police officer bar one has passed since we started the training. If police pass they are presented with a certificate of achievement and given a pair of handcuffs—you should see the smiles on their faces when they receive a set of handcuffs.

What are some of the challenges you’ve encountered since launching the programme? How are these challenges addressed?

Each training course, which trains 30 police, costs approximately US$10,000 to run. This is not much money when you compare it to the millions of dollars that are spent on [other] programmes in Cambodia. However, trying to get funding to run five courses a year is difficult. We have been lucky thus far to have been supported by the U.S. Government, Australian Government, The Asia Foundation and the Canada Fund, which has allowed us to run 13 courses since August 2009, training 390 police. Remember that there are 49,300 police in the country that need training and we have a long way to go.

How does corruption affect the attainment of your programme’s goals?

I get disappointed when I hear people talking of corruption in Cambodia, especially within the police. Sure, it is a massive problem; however, we have it in every other country in the world, including Australia, and continuing to be negative towards the government and police, instead of providing tangible solutions is not helping the country develop.

From day one since I arrived here in Cambodia I have had a very close partnership with the police. Perhaps it’s because I am an ex-police officer and I can relate to what police think. But I think it is more because I have always tried to help them and boost their capacity—either through training or providing operational support during our raids and rescues. The two-training programme is benefiting the future of the Cambodian national police and Cambodia, and I genuinely believe that senior police command knows this, hence why they support our programme.

What have been some of the outcomes from completed police training thus far? Are goals being reached?

390 police have been trained in basic policing and criminal investigations training. They have been trained on how to use crime scene equipment, take fingerprints and control crime scenes, as well as how to plan an investigation. This means that more crime scenes will be investigated correctly, [the police] will collect better evidence, they will interview offenders correctly. This will definitely mean that more offenders will be detected and arrested, and cause a reduction in crime.

What are your plans for the programme?

We will continue the two-week training for the next five years and then hand it over to the national police—we want the two courses to be the standard entry course into the crime department. We have also been asked to create the first-ever detective training programme for the Cambodian national police. To be eligible to get onto the detective course you need to sit our two-week course and finish in the top five of your course, plus have no corruption allegations, have been in the police force for more than five years and have more than seven years left in the police force.

My aim is to create standardised training in Cambodia and create competitiveness amongst police. I would like to see police having to pass exams and interviews to get into the police academy. This way, we will start to have the very best of police representing the community and investigating serious crime.