Law enforcement in Ethiopia
Encyclopedia
Law enforcement in Ethiopia has been since a reorganization in October 2000, the responsibility of the national police which is overseen by the Federal Police Commission. This commission reports to the Ministry of Federal Affairs, which in turn is responsible to the parliament
; however, this subordination is loose in practice. In previous years, the police reported to the Security, Immigration, and Refugees Affairs Authority, a unit of the Ethiopian Ministry of Justice. However, local militias also provide local security largely independent of the police and the Ethiopian military. Corruption is a perennial problem, particularly among traffic police who solicited bribes.
The U.S. Department of State states that its contacts within the Ethiopian government report that the findings of investigations into abuses by local security forces, such as arbitrary detentions and beatings of civilians, are rarely made public. However, the Ethiopian government continued its efforts to train police and army recruits in human rights. During 2008 the government is seeking assistance from the International Committee of the Red Cross
, the local non-governmental organization
Prison Fellowship Ethiopia (JFA-PFE), and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission to improve and professionalize its human rights training and curriculum. The JFA-PFE provided human rights training for police commissioners and members of the militia in 2008.
n society, customary procedures resolved conflicts. One example of these customary procedures was the tradition of parties in civil, and even minor criminal disputes, to call upon a passing stranger to decide the issue. As Margary Perham notes, "These informal roadside courts might last for hours to the deep interest of the spectators, and many travellers have described this characteristic Ethiopian scene." Families usually avenged wrongs committed against their members, and the armed retainers of the nobility enforced law in the countryside according to the will of their leaders. In 1916 the imperial government formed a civilian municipal guard in Addis Ababa
to ensure obedience to legal proclamations. The general public despised the municipal guard, nearly all of whose members were inefficient at preserving public order or investigating criminal activities.
As part of his efforts to modernize the country, Emperor
Haile Selassie undertook several reforms to improve law enforcement. The first was the drafting of a criminal code
in 1930, but was not distributed until 1932. This was followed in 1935 by the establishment of formal, British-trained police forces in Addis Ababa
and four other cities. This replaced a police force of about 3,000 men who operated in and around Addis Ababa, Dire Dawa
, and along the route of the railway, and had been reorganized by Belgian advisors. These promising beginnings were snuffed out with Ethiopia's defeat in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War
.
After his restoration to power in 1942, the Emperor promulgated the founding of the Imperial Ethiopian Police in Proclamation 4/1942. This was organized under British tutelage as a centralized national force with paramilitary and constabulary units. Then in 1946 the authorities opened the Ethiopian Police College
at Sendafa
.
Further developments was the promulgation of a new penal code, written by the jurist J. Graven of Switzerland in 1957, which was part of a series of legal codifications which included the promulgation of a criminal procedure code in 1961, written by jurist Sir C. Matthew of the United Kingdom. In 1956 the imperial government amalgamated the separate city police forces with the national police force. Initially administered as a department of the Ministry of Interior, the national police
had evolved, by the early 1970s, into an independent agency commanded by a police commissioner
responsible to the emperor.
Local control over police was minimal, despite imperial proclamations that granted police authority to governors general
of the provinces
. Assistant police commissioners in each of the fourteen provinces worked in conjunction with the governors general, but for the most part Addis Ababa directed administration. The Territorial Army's provincial units, commanded by the governor general and consisting of an unpaid civilian auxiliary, assisted the national police force in areas where police were scarce. Police posts were found in all cities and larger towns and at strategic points along the main roads in the countryside. The police usually recruited local men who were familiar with the social values of the areas in which they served; however, the populace rarely looked upon such individuals with affection. Police operations generally emphasized punishment rather than prevention.
By 1974 the national police numbered approximately 28,000 in all branches, including 6,000 in the Mobile Emergency Police Force; 1,200 frontier guards; and a 3,200-member commando
unit with rapid reaction capability. The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) supplied the paramilitary police with weapons and vehicles and installed a nationwide teleprinter
system, while Israeli counterinsurgency specialists trained commandos and frontier guards. About 5,000 constabulary police, mostly recruited locally, served in Eritrea
, as did 2,500 commandos.
After the 1974 Ethiopian revolution, the Derg
severely circumscribed the authority of the national police, which had been identified with the old regime and regional interests. The authorities accused constable
s of protecting landowners against peasants in the countryside, of arresting supporters of the military regime in Addis Ababa, and of being members of the "rightist opposition." In Eritrea
, however, the army already had taken over police functions in January 1975 from local police units suspected of being sympathetic to the secessionists. The Asmera police voluntarily stayed at their posts for some time after their dismissal to protect civilians from attack by unruly soldiers.
In 1977 the national police were re-organized, and a politically reliable commissioner put in command. A security committee formulated policy, which then was implemented by the Ministry of Interior. The army assumed a larger role in criminal investigation and in maintaining public order. People's Protection Brigades
took over local law enforcement duties previously assigned to the constabulary. As a result of these changes, by 1982 the strength of the national police had declined to about 17,000. Mengistu also created the army's new Eighth Division from police commando units. Other special units joined the augmented 9,000-member paramilitary Mobile Emergency Police Force for employment in counterinsurgency operations.
The Directorate of Police, which reported to the commissioner, included the special Criminal Investigation Branch, which had the role in directing police counterinsurgency activities through regional branch offices. Another branch of the directorate investigated economic crimes, particularly smuggling and other forms of illicit commerce. The Revolutionary Operations Coordinating Committee, organized at the subregion level, cooperated with the police in battling smuggling and economic sabotage.
The Marxist regime stressed that the mission of the national police was essentially political--more involved with suppressing political dissent as the local law enforcement role shifted to People's Protection Brigades. Mengistu described the police mission as contributing to the "intensification of the class struggle."
The government adopted a policy whereby police constables were recruited at an early age and trained in their native regions. Training was designed to allow police stationed in remote areas to be self-sufficient in building and maintaining their posts. Training standards were not uniform, and, unless it took place in Addis Ababa, inservice or specialized training was limited. In politically stable rural areas where duty requirements and supervision were less exacting, the police were less efficient than their urban counterparts. A high percentage of rural constables could neither read nor write and therefore did not keep records of their activities. Many crimes were considered to be matters concerning only the persons involved and were often ignored by the police unless one of the interested parties filed a complaint.
The Addis Ababa police, by contrast, were organized into uniformed, detective, and traffic units; a riot squad, or "flying column"; and a police laboratory--organizational refinements not found in regional police units. A small number of women served in police units in large cities. Generally, they were employed in administrative positions or as guards for female prisoners. National police officers were paid according to the same standardized wage scale that applied to members of the armed forces.
As a rule, police in constabulary units were armed only with batons. Small arms usually were kept in designated armories and were issued for specific duties. Matériel used by paramilitary units included heavy machine guns, submachine guns, automatic rifles, side arms, mortars, grenades, tear gas, light armored vehicles, and other equipment adaptable to riot control and counterinsurgency operations. Larger police units, such as the one in Addis Ababa, were also equipped with modern military vehicles, which were used as patrol cars and police vans. In many rural areas, however, horses and mules were often the sole means of transportation for constables.
s but reportedly again increased due to increases in ethnic conflict and economic crimes.
Prison conditions have been reported as unsanitary and there was no budget for prison maintenance. Medical care was unreliable in federal prisons and almost nonexistent in regional prisons. The daily meal budget was approximately 5 Birr
(50 cents) per prisoner, and many prisoners supplemented this with daily food deliveries from their family or by purchasing food from local vendors. Prisoners often had less than 22 square feet (2 m²) of sleeping space in a room that could contain up to 200 persons; sleeping in rotations was not uncommon in regional prisons.
Federal Parliamentary Assembly
The Parliament of Ethiopia consists of two chambers:*The House of Federation *The House of People's Representatives...
; however, this subordination is loose in practice. In previous years, the police reported to the Security, Immigration, and Refugees Affairs Authority, a unit of the Ethiopian Ministry of Justice. However, local militias also provide local security largely independent of the police and the Ethiopian military. Corruption is a perennial problem, particularly among traffic police who solicited bribes.
The U.S. Department of State states that its contacts within the Ethiopian government report that the findings of investigations into abuses by local security forces, such as arbitrary detentions and beatings of civilians, are rarely made public. However, the Ethiopian government continued its efforts to train police and army recruits in human rights. During 2008 the government is seeking assistance from the International Committee of the Red Cross
International Committee of the Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross is a private humanitarian institution based in Geneva, Switzerland. States parties to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 and 2005, have given the ICRC a mandate to protect the victims of international and...
, the local non-governmental organization
Non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...
Prison Fellowship Ethiopia (JFA-PFE), and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission to improve and professionalize its human rights training and curriculum. The JFA-PFE provided human rights training for police commissioners and members of the militia in 2008.
History of law enforcement in Ethiopia
In traditional EthiopiaEthiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
n society, customary procedures resolved conflicts. One example of these customary procedures was the tradition of parties in civil, and even minor criminal disputes, to call upon a passing stranger to decide the issue. As Margary Perham notes, "These informal roadside courts might last for hours to the deep interest of the spectators, and many travellers have described this characteristic Ethiopian scene." Families usually avenged wrongs committed against their members, and the armed retainers of the nobility enforced law in the countryside according to the will of their leaders. In 1916 the imperial government formed a civilian municipal guard in Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia...
to ensure obedience to legal proclamations. The general public despised the municipal guard, nearly all of whose members were inefficient at preserving public order or investigating criminal activities.
As part of his efforts to modernize the country, Emperor
Emperor of Ethiopia
The Emperor of Ethiopia was the hereditary ruler of Ethiopia until the abolition of the monarchy in 1974. The Emperor was the head of state and head of government, with ultimate executive, judicial and legislative power in that country...
Haile Selassie undertook several reforms to improve law enforcement. The first was the drafting of a criminal code
Criminal Code
A criminal code is a document which compiles all, or a significant amount of, a particular jurisdiction's criminal law...
in 1930, but was not distributed until 1932. This was followed in 1935 by the establishment of formal, British-trained police forces in Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia...
and four other cities. This replaced a police force of about 3,000 men who operated in and around Addis Ababa, Dire Dawa
Dire Dawa
Dire Dawa is one of two chartered cities in Ethiopia . This chartered city is divided administratively into two woredas, the city proper and the non-urban woreda of Gurgura....
, and along the route of the railway, and had been reorganized by Belgian advisors. These promising beginnings were snuffed out with Ethiopia's defeat in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War
Second Italo-Abyssinian War
The Second Italo–Abyssinian War was a colonial war that started in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war was fought between the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy and the armed forces of the Ethiopian Empire...
.
After his restoration to power in 1942, the Emperor promulgated the founding of the Imperial Ethiopian Police in Proclamation 4/1942. This was organized under British tutelage as a centralized national force with paramilitary and constabulary units. Then in 1946 the authorities opened the Ethiopian Police College
Ethiopian Police College
The Ethiopian Police College is a public institution of higher education in Ethiopia dedicated to training police officers. Its main campus is located in Sendafa, a town 38 kilometers north of Addis Ababa.- History :...
at Sendafa
Sendafa
Sendafa is a town in central Ethiopia and the administrative center of the Berehna Aleltu woreda or district. Its name is taken from the Amharic name for a kind of thick, jointed grass or reed which grows in swampy areas. Located in the Semien Shewa Zone of the Oromia Region, Sendafa has a latitude...
.
Further developments was the promulgation of a new penal code, written by the jurist J. Graven of Switzerland in 1957, which was part of a series of legal codifications which included the promulgation of a criminal procedure code in 1961, written by jurist Sir C. Matthew of the United Kingdom. In 1956 the imperial government amalgamated the separate city police forces with the national police force. Initially administered as a department of the Ministry of Interior, the national police
National police
National Police is generally the primary law enforcement agency of a country, see below:*Afghan National Police*Bolivarian National Police*Federal Bureau of Investigation*Haitian National Police*Icelandic National Police*Indonesian National Police...
had evolved, by the early 1970s, into an independent agency commanded by a police commissioner
Police commissioner
Commissioner is a senior rank used in many police forces and may be rendered Police Commissioner or Commissioner of Police. In some organizations, the commissioner is a political appointee, and may or may not actually be a professional police officer. In these circumstances, there is often a...
responsible to the emperor.
Local control over police was minimal, despite imperial proclamations that granted police authority to governors general
Governor-General
A Governor-General, is a vice-regal person of a monarch in an independent realm or a major colonial circonscription. Depending on the political arrangement of the territory, a Governor General can be a governor of high rank, or a principal governor ranking above "ordinary" governors.- Current uses...
of the provinces
Provinces of Ethiopia
Until 1995 Ethiopia was divided into provinces, further subdivided into awrajjas or districts. They were replaced by regions and two chartered cities with the adoption of a new constitution that year...
. Assistant police commissioners in each of the fourteen provinces worked in conjunction with the governors general, but for the most part Addis Ababa directed administration. The Territorial Army's provincial units, commanded by the governor general and consisting of an unpaid civilian auxiliary, assisted the national police force in areas where police were scarce. Police posts were found in all cities and larger towns and at strategic points along the main roads in the countryside. The police usually recruited local men who were familiar with the social values of the areas in which they served; however, the populace rarely looked upon such individuals with affection. Police operations generally emphasized punishment rather than prevention.
By 1974 the national police numbered approximately 28,000 in all branches, including 6,000 in the Mobile Emergency Police Force; 1,200 frontier guards; and a 3,200-member commando
Commando
In English, the term commando means a specific kind of individual soldier or military unit. In contemporary usage, commando usually means elite light infantry and/or special operations forces units, specializing in amphibious landings, parachuting, rappelling and similar techniques, to conduct and...
unit with rapid reaction capability. The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) supplied the paramilitary police with weapons and vehicles and installed a nationwide teleprinter
Teleprinter
A teleprinter is a electromechanical typewriter that can be used to communicate typed messages from point to point and point to multipoint over a variety of communication channels that range from a simple electrical connection, such as a pair of wires, to the use of radio and microwave as the...
system, while Israeli counterinsurgency specialists trained commandos and frontier guards. About 5,000 constabulary police, mostly recruited locally, served in Eritrea
Eritrea
Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
, as did 2,500 commandos.
After the 1974 Ethiopian revolution, the Derg
Derg
The Derg or Dergue was a Communist military junta that came to power in Ethiopia following the ousting of Haile Selassie I. Derg, which means "committee" or "council" in Ge'ez, is the short name of the Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, Police, and Territorial Army, a committee of...
severely circumscribed the authority of the national police, which had been identified with the old regime and regional interests. The authorities accused constable
Constable
A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions.-Etymology:...
s of protecting landowners against peasants in the countryside, of arresting supporters of the military regime in Addis Ababa, and of being members of the "rightist opposition." In Eritrea
Eritrea
Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
, however, the army already had taken over police functions in January 1975 from local police units suspected of being sympathetic to the secessionists. The Asmera police voluntarily stayed at their posts for some time after their dismissal to protect civilians from attack by unruly soldiers.
In 1977 the national police were re-organized, and a politically reliable commissioner put in command. A security committee formulated policy, which then was implemented by the Ministry of Interior. The army assumed a larger role in criminal investigation and in maintaining public order. People's Protection Brigades
People's Protection Brigades
The People's Protection Brigades were a type of law enforcement organization in Marxist Ethiopia.-History:Soon after the overthrow of the imperial regime, the Derg moved to consolidate the revolution at the grass-roots level by promoting the creation of peasant associations and kebeles...
took over local law enforcement duties previously assigned to the constabulary. As a result of these changes, by 1982 the strength of the national police had declined to about 17,000. Mengistu also created the army's new Eighth Division from police commando units. Other special units joined the augmented 9,000-member paramilitary Mobile Emergency Police Force for employment in counterinsurgency operations.
The Directorate of Police, which reported to the commissioner, included the special Criminal Investigation Branch, which had the role in directing police counterinsurgency activities through regional branch offices. Another branch of the directorate investigated economic crimes, particularly smuggling and other forms of illicit commerce. The Revolutionary Operations Coordinating Committee, organized at the subregion level, cooperated with the police in battling smuggling and economic sabotage.
The Marxist regime stressed that the mission of the national police was essentially political--more involved with suppressing political dissent as the local law enforcement role shifted to People's Protection Brigades. Mengistu described the police mission as contributing to the "intensification of the class struggle."
The government adopted a policy whereby police constables were recruited at an early age and trained in their native regions. Training was designed to allow police stationed in remote areas to be self-sufficient in building and maintaining their posts. Training standards were not uniform, and, unless it took place in Addis Ababa, inservice or specialized training was limited. In politically stable rural areas where duty requirements and supervision were less exacting, the police were less efficient than their urban counterparts. A high percentage of rural constables could neither read nor write and therefore did not keep records of their activities. Many crimes were considered to be matters concerning only the persons involved and were often ignored by the police unless one of the interested parties filed a complaint.
The Addis Ababa police, by contrast, were organized into uniformed, detective, and traffic units; a riot squad, or "flying column"; and a police laboratory--organizational refinements not found in regional police units. A small number of women served in police units in large cities. Generally, they were employed in administrative positions or as guards for female prisoners. National police officers were paid according to the same standardized wage scale that applied to members of the armed forces.
As a rule, police in constabulary units were armed only with batons. Small arms usually were kept in designated armories and were issued for specific duties. Matériel used by paramilitary units included heavy machine guns, submachine guns, automatic rifles, side arms, mortars, grenades, tear gas, light armored vehicles, and other equipment adaptable to riot control and counterinsurgency operations. Larger police units, such as the one in Addis Ababa, were also equipped with modern military vehicles, which were used as patrol cars and police vans. In many rural areas, however, horses and mules were often the sole means of transportation for constables.
Prisons
Ethiopia's prison system consists of three federal prisons, 117 regional prisons, and many unofficial prisons. Prison and pretrial detention center conditions remained harsh and life threatening. Severe overcrowding was a problem. In September 2007 it was reported that there were 52,000 persons in prison. Earlier that year, prison populations decreased by 10,000 due to pardonPardon
Clemency means the forgiveness of a crime or the cancellation of the penalty associated with it. It is a general concept that encompasses several related procedures: pardoning, commutation, remission and reprieves...
s but reportedly again increased due to increases in ethnic conflict and economic crimes.
Prison conditions have been reported as unsanitary and there was no budget for prison maintenance. Medical care was unreliable in federal prisons and almost nonexistent in regional prisons. The daily meal budget was approximately 5 Birr
Ethiopian birr
The birr is the unit of currency in Ethiopia. Before 1976, dollar was the official English translation of birr. Today, it is officially birr in English as well....
(50 cents) per prisoner, and many prisoners supplemented this with daily food deliveries from their family or by purchasing food from local vendors. Prisoners often had less than 22 square feet (2 m²) of sleeping space in a room that could contain up to 200 persons; sleeping in rotations was not uncommon in regional prisons.
Further reading
- Dilip K. Das and Michael Palmiotto (eds.), World Police Encyclopedia, Taylor & Francis, 2004.
- World Encyclopedia of Police Forces and Correctional Systems, second edition, Gale, 2006
- Sullivan, Larry E. Encyclopedia of Law Enforcement. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2005.