Police chief Alsheich lays out his plan to win back the public’s faith in speech to Israel Bar Association.
National Police Commisioner Roni Alsheich laid out his plan Wednesday to win back the public’s faith after the organization has been maligned in recent years over sex scandals, the handling of major cases and publicly fought underworld battles.
Alsheich, speaking at the Israel Bar Association conference in Eilat, said that regaining the faith of the public is not just a matter of public relations, but a necessity if the police want to properly serve the public, make citizens feel safe and prevent crime.
“No one will call us if they don’t trust us. No woman who feels in danger will come to us,” Alsheich said. “If a citizen is at a traffic light and a car explodes, the citizens feel unsafe, as if the police are doing nothing,” he added, in apparent reference to the rash of underworld car bombings that have hit the country in recent years.
Alsheich said that his plan calls for police to work with the public on a local level, rather than focusing on national crime statistics. The police must converse with local groups, officials and sheikhs, he added.
The majority of crime is committed by normal citizens, and not serial criminals, the police chief argued, saying that this must be addressed as a separate phenomenon.
“We don’t want a large percentage of people in jail. We don’t want to be like the US. We need to educate regular citizens to observe the law,” he said.
Alsheich’s plan calls on local police commanders to set benchmarks for the improvement of local issues, such as noisy neighbors, or the proliferation of illegal weapons.
“A regular citizen is embarrassed to go to jail,” Alsheich said, whereas a serial criminal is not embarrassed to go to jail, because he defines himself as a criminal.
The police are not trying to increase arrests, indictments and convictions, but to raise the norms to observe the law, he stated.
The police chief emphasized he is open to the media, but has declared a complete ban on infamous police leaks of details from investigations and interrogations. Even if he is attacked for this personally, leaks from investigations harm people and do not present a case’s picture accurately.
Alsheich slammed the media for not covering positive actions of police and only wanting to report when police or government fail.
“No media have covered our program for rehabilitating youth who were involved in crime into rejoining normal society,” he said.
As reported by The Jerusalem Post