About the developmeny program on Standards of pre-trial investigation for criminal justice practitioners? What is the core idea of the Program?
Standardization for Ukrainian criminal justice is quite a challenge, because the attitude “everything is already clear,” “everything is provided by in the Criminal Procedure Code” often prevails. However, studies prove that investigators and prosecutors understand their roles and CPC provisions differently, that there are many work algorithms that differ depending on the region or even the unit.
How the investigators and prosecutors put the standards into practice is primarily related to how they understand the practice and search for consensus regarding roles and common rules of the game.
Rethinking and awareness requires time and a trusting environment. That is why we created the training program on Standards of pre-trial investigation.
In the abstract of his book Think Again, Adam Grant says: “Intelligence is usually seen as the ability to think and learn, but in a rapidly changing world, there’s another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn”.
The training program was based on the Standards of pre-trial investigation. The importance of implementing standards in daily practice has been talked about for over a year and in more than one institution. At the same time, everyone knows very well that neither a written book, nor an adopted order or law guarantees an unquestionable and uniform understanding of what is written.
We have little faith in systemic changes “from top to bottom,” and many years of reforms, certifications and re-certifications have already proven that this does not always work. And these cycles of change often lose focus on a practitioner who works in the field and essentially creates this institution through their daily actions.
Therefore, we came to a completely different format – a format based on rethinking from the standpoint of personal experience and readiness for professional development. It is a joint training program for investigators and prosecutors at different levels and different institutions, which is not only about pre-trial investigation, but also about the indispensable soft skills of today that can help practitioners become more effective.
Forming the community of participants of the training program, we stem from understanding that any efforts and results depend on personal motivation for development and striving for new horizons. The biggest challenge at this stage is identifying the people who, despite hundreds and thousands of volumes of criminal proceedings, are looking for ways to become better and more effective in their work.
Pre-trial investigation is a team game. In order for the roles and rules to be learned, we are bringing together in one hall the investigators of the SBI, National Police, NABU detectives, prosecutors of local prosecutor’s offices, SAPO and the Prosecutor General’s Office. This adds different experiences and perspectives for reflections and discussions, where we can think together about what rules of interaction work, how to optimize them and often how to add common sense to these rules.
An environment of trust and respect is a prerequisite for dialogue between practitioners. This environment is formed thanks to several components: respect for the experience of colleagues, a safe environment for different views and arguments, where everyone’s experience is accepted and valued, and the equality of everyone in the rom – because the trainers are also the practitioners of criminal justice who have already gone through the difficult path of reflection and understanding and ready to share insights. This creates conditions where the investigator hears the prosecutor, and the prosecutor hears the investigator. Where there will be a place for the judge’s perspective and joint discussion for finding common solutions. It makes the interaction of practitioners more humane, more understandable, and eventually more effective. This gives impetus to rethinking, transformation of mindset and ability to look at usual practices from the common sense side.
The training program on Standards of pre-trial investigation by LustLearn brings conversation, dialogue as tools for finding optimal solutions to the community of criminal justice practitioners. We mean the tools that the investigator and the prosecutor may use to try things differently than usual. Notably, to be ready for trying something new, you also need inspiration and examples from colleagues – and the practitioners can find that here, too. After all, as one of the participants aptly emphasized: “Every practitioner needs this – to have someone to turn to, someone to ask, someone to discuss an ambiguous situation with.”
The training program is a story of professional communities where the value of development is cultivated, where the values of the profession are foundational and where change agents, free radicals, living cells are able to transform institutions from within by building the capacity to embrace new ideas and make them habitual practice; communicate ideas by word of mouth, from colleague to colleague, and not exclusively by administrative decision.
It looks like an ideal picture, but it was with this in mind that we created the JustLearn platform. In the meantime, we continue to look for motivated investigators, detectives and prosecutors who are eager for dialogue, rethinking and development – people who are already changing the criminal justice system from inside.
You definitely know such people, and maybe you are one of them!
Email us: contact@justlearn.info
