Ukraine: ICITAP-Designed and Supported Territorial Police Officer Project Graduates 129 Additional Officers

On December 24, the Territorial Community Police Officer (TCPO) Project graduated 129 additional officers at the Kharkiv National University of Internal Affairs. The graduation concluded the nineth iteration of the ten-week, ICITAP-sponsored basic training course since 2019, bringing the total number of TCPOs to nearly 1,000 across rural Ukraine. The Officer-in-Residence program radically changes rural communities and their engagement with the National Police of Ukraine (NPU) whose officers live and work in the rural communities. Officers will be deployed to communities with veteran TCPOs to conduct field training prior to deployment to the communities where they will serve. Based on a philosophy of community- and problem-oriented policing, the TCPO Project works to build mutual trust between the police officers in their communities. Considered the future of policing in Ukraine by the President and the Minister of Internal Affairs, the TCPO Project will engage in an earnest campaign to double the number of officers serving rural communities by the end of 2022 to 2,000.  In Ukraine, ICITAP works with the Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.