Police-population seminar organized in collaboration with Espoir 18 in Paris

On October 11th and 12th, a seminar on improving communication between police and the public took place in Paris. The event was organized through a partnership between ICPC and the Parisian organization Espoir 18.  The objective of this seminar was to present successful initiatives undertaken internationally on constructive dialogue between law enforcement and community members, through round tables, an audience of academics, police officers, and civil society stakeholders.

Since 2019, ICPC and Espoir 18 have been collaborating on a project on improving police-population dialogue, with a particular emphasis on the young public and minority groups in their relationship with the police institution. This partnership is therefore part of a research on ways to improve this type of dialogue, to document innovative experiences and practices at the international level and to promote knowledge transfer.  This year, several activities were carried out as part of this collaboration: a review of international good practices was co-authored, ICPC hosted the Espoir 18 team in Montreal as part of its North American theatre tour, and this seminar which took place in October.

The seminar included :

• The presentation of the practice review “Improving Police-Population Dialogue: An Introduction to International Issues and Practices” produced by ICPC and Espoir 18, with the support of the Open Society Foundations;    
• The presentation of successful national (in France) and international initiatives along with round table discussions; 
• The screening and debate of a documentary made by the young of Espoir 18 on racial profiling; 
• Stories of young people, families, and police officers on the relationship between the police and the population; 
• An evening debate on possible solutions to improve the police-population dialogue and a future action plan to be put in place.  

The development of an action plan for the period 2023 to 2025 based on the exchanges and lessons learned from the seminar will be produced for the next phase of this collaboration.