Albania: ICITAP’s “Countering Violent Extremism through Community Policing” Curriculum Adopted by State Police Security Academy

On April 29, the Albanian State Police (ASP) Security Academy formally received electronic and print versions in Albanian of two courses designed by ICITAP-Albania’s Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) project. The courses, “Instructor – Basic,” and “Countering Violent Extremism through Community Policing,” were products of ICITAP-Albania’s two-year project, which concluded on April 30. The course contains 15 lesson plans designed to be delivered during police roll calls. Five of the course lesson plans focus on community policing activities designed to nurture police-community partnerships. ICITAP’s training will enable the nation’s community policing chiefs to create and implement successful, local community policing activities that build trust between the community and police. Through that trust, ASP will create an environment to remove the threat of violent extremism that leads to radicalization and terrorism (VELRT) in Albania. ICITAP selected “CVE through CP” as its project approach, and identified about 20 key activities to achieve its objectives. Previous ICITAP CVE curriculum provided training on recognizing CVE, identifying efforts to recruit radicals, identifying attributes of recognized at-risk populations with a focus on youth, women, economically disadvantaged citizens, and re-integrating former CVE offenders. After COVID-19 movement restrictions are lifted, ICITAP will provide the nation’s 26 community policing chiefs with electronic Albanian-language versions of the course and deliver sorely needed training room equipment to the chiefs. Utilizing the course material, equipment and previous ICITAP instructor and CVE training the chiefs are expected to sustain the project by training 568 community policing officers to develop community outreach, education and trust building. The project’s focus has been CVE. Its tool is the community policing officer (CPO). ICITAP implemented the two-year CVE project in Albania through funding from the State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism.