Rwanda National Police

The nature of identifying a crime is such that it warrants a high level of skills, professionalisms and organizational maturity, not only to help investigators make progress toward arrests, but also to help victims and preparing for prosecution.

For example, investigation at a crime scene can play a pivotal role in the resolution of a case and therefore, a careful, thorough examination is important to ensure that physical evidence is not tainted or destroyed or potential witnesses are not overlooked.

It is in this context that Rwanda National Police conducts on-the-job training for its officers, in order to equip them with updated necessities that will help them identify and safely apprehend violators of the law and produce them before court with quality evidence.

“We will always conduct on-the-job training in order to improve officers’ skills. Learning must never stop, but every officer must put what they learn into practice. Therefore, we should always be innovative in ways we approach our work,” Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) Morris Murigo, the Deputy Commissioner of the criminal Investigation Department (CID), said.

He delivered the message on January 26, during the opening of a training session for 20 officers in the department.

The five-day training is designed to encourage and promote interchange of information, experiences, ideas and knowledge about methods, processes, and techniques relating to investigations and security in modern technologies.

“Do not become complacent by using routine methods; instead be ready to learn new methods that bring better results. Not all crime scenes are investigated the same way – a professional officer must be equipped with the knowledge and skills to handle every situation competently,” he added.

He also challenged them to put every theoretical lesson into practice by conducting themselves professionally and being flexible enough to understand new technologies and techniques in investigations.

Some subjects officers were trained in include; how technology influences quality investigations, as well as standard parameters for cordoning murder, rape and burglary scenes, among others.

In 2012, Rwanda National Police launched the CID School as a centre of excellence to further facilitate crime investigation through continuous training.

The building which has three conference halls has a capacity to accommodate over 120 people, and has been at the helm of offering refresher courses for police officers, mostly in crime investigation and intelligence.

Recently, the Inspector General of Police, Emmanuel K. Gasana, met over 50 CID officers and urged them to work harder in this New Year by improving the quality of their investigations in order to tackle emerging crimes like cybercrimes, terrorism, human trafficking and the like.

In some of these training sessions, Police invites trainers from Rwanda Development Board (RDB), Ministry of Local Government and Prosecution and other relevant institutions to make presentations on various topics including, how to improve customer care, make better case files and several others.