The lawyer said that reforming the institution will not be beneficial for the country
After the death of Elisa Muñoz, 33, and Joel Díaz, 37, the evangelical couple who died at the hands of the National Police (PN), in Villa Altagracia, the institution is being strongly criticized by society that demands justice for what happened.
While some sectors of the population say that this institution must be completely dismantled, others maintain a less radical position claiming that it must be reformed.
The lawyer José Ricardo Taveras Blanco considered that although the intention of the president, Luis Abinader, to reform the police, as an institution, is good, it will not lead anywhere because it is in crisis and has numerous problems that They must be solved to ensure the proper management of the entity.
He mentioned that the institution was reformed in 2004, with Law 96-04 (Institutional Law of the National Police) and in 2026 with Law 590-16 (Organic Law of the National Police) that did not obtain positive results, therefore that a third reform would not be beneficial for the country either.
He believed that the country lacks individuals with a vocation for political leadership to direct the institution towards improvement.
As he commented, the police must be observed outside the political system, which the lawyer considers the basis of all the problems, because it has been articulated on the basis of money.
In an interview for the radio program “Revista Dominical Dejando Huellas”, Taveras stated that: “People criticize the police, but you have to see what a widely unauthorized institution has been”.
He explained that traditionally in the country, government leaders tend to overrule the police, by demanding that people who have been arrested for political favors be released, facts that have affected the way the entity is viewed by the population.
The lawyer opined that the morale of the police force cannot be denigrated and that the government must be careful with the messages it sends to the people.
In addition, he said that this issue cannot be analyzed without studying the impact of corruption present in the Dominican State.
He stated that the institution will not change until a vocation for integral change is glimpsed in the system, however, the country’s elite does not show interest, because the culture of privilege should be left behind.
Taveras said that there is a deficit in education that must be resolved, not only for the police, but also for the population in general.
“The human resource that is in the police is deficient, incapable of rationalizing. An order may have been given and they are executing it clumsily and recklessly, ”he said.
However, the lawyer believes that these problems can be solved by applying measures that allow the restructuring of the institution and restore people’s trust in it.
“The main solution is to establish a regime of consequence, if the police are not supervised and they let themselves see how a petty cash, for the police chiefs the issue of corruption will not cease,” he considered.
He explained that as long as the police chief continues to be overruled by the government in front of his subordinates, the issue will not end.
He alleged that part of the corruption of the entity occurs when the uniformed members of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (AMET) stop the drivers to ask for money, despite the fact that the institution has a monthly budget granted by the State.
As reported, this problem began with the old traffic police and stopped for a time with the introduction of the AMETs with the engineer Hamlet Hermán at the forefront.
For the lawyer, the return of this practice is due to the fact that the PN assumed command of this institution.
“They made it fail with Law 96-04, I opposed it, but the political power decided to please the police commanders by reintegrating the AMET into the control of the police,” he declared.
In this sense, he considered that the evolution that took place in the country from 1996 to 2000 was frustrated as a result of this situation.
He explained that this experience can help solve the entity’s problems.
Also, he said that the management of the police administration and the investigative apparatus should be managed and advised the creation of a technical judicial police that is separate from the administrative one.
Another important factor for the lawyer is the amount of money that will be invested for this restructuring and the methods that will be used to make it effective.
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