Yesterday, we had the opportunity to visit a pretty impressive organization within Budapest. The International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) is part of an organization headed by the United States, aimed at assisting and educating police services. ILEA is present in for different nations - Budapest, Hungary; Bangkok, Thailand; Gaborone, Botswana; and San Salvador, El Salvador. The academy in Budapest serves Central and Eastern Europe, as well as South Central Asia. ILEA's ultimate aim is to supply training to these regions, to draw them out of parts of their history that have held them back an provide the tools to propel them into the future.
With dual cooperation between the Hungarian and American governments, ILEA was founded in 1995. The facility we visited offers some pretty impressive programs. The LEED program, for example, is an eight-week course that brings together sixteen students per session. The students are picked from three different nations - sometimes nations with a conflicted past. This is such an innovative idea for Europe. Bringing together these young students - all aiming for a career within the justice field - could turn out to be an extremely effective peace tactic. The emerging generation comes together at this academy to become versed in safe, effective, just ways to address the law. National pride doesn't have to disappear, but perhaps the boundaries of borders may melt away a bit. Ideally, these students are returning to their nations and educating their peers about the same methods. It seems like this would create an overall lift in the legal systems throughout Europe, allowing them to move away from the perhaps corrupt roots that have plagued them in the past.
One of the speakers, Tibor Bene, has spent the past seventeen years working for the United States Embassy. Tibor began in the Peace Corps, until they were closed down in Hungary. As he said, every country with a McDonald's no longer requires a Peace Corps. Tibor went on to work for the Regional Inspector General's Office of USAID. He's been working for ILEA for the past seven years. Tibor first got into the field because of his own past. His grandfather was hanged, and his land was taken away from him. Tibor wanted to turn away from the past systems in Hungary, and take part in the construction of a better one. He mentioned that one of ILEA's aims was to address domestic violence within Europe. In the past, it's been difficult to get police to treat the issue with gravity. Old mindsets believed there was nothing wrong with a man using violence against his wife. For this reason, many officers did little or nothing to abusers. Within the Balkans especially, past rates of domestic violence have been well above Westernized nations. Within the past ten years - as this report from USAID illustrates - rates have steadily decreased. Tibor has witnessed a positive improvement in the system since ILEA was established. By working to gradually change the thinking, he said, the effects are lasting.
We also discussed the friction that sometimes occurs between different students who train at the Academy. Especially between countries with bloody, intertwined pasts, it can be extremely difficult to get students to cooperate. At this point in history, most of them are too young to fully understand what their animosity is even born from. They simply know that their parents or grandparents hated some other nation, so they must, too. The Academy brings together these embittered nations partly to foster more positive future relations. Sometimes, it works. Students disregard the past and unite in their common goal: justice. Other times, it doesn't work out so well. For the most part, though, ILEA has an additional purpose of acting as a peace-keeping organization.
We also had the privilege of hearing from ILEA's director within Budapest, John Terpinas. I really enjoyed what Terpinas had to say - especially when he unexpectedly used the pronoun "she" when describing agents. (Feminist Grace.) His education of ILEA soon melted into an encouragement to follow whatever path in life that interests you - not get stuck in a rut, thinking this is where we're supposed to be headed. I really appreciated Terpinas' honesty and candidness. The entire visit was definitely one of the most interesting field studies trips we have taken so far, and I'm really looking forward to some more along these lines.
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