Understanding and Practices of Human Rights Standards Relating to Policing: A Case of Ghana Police Officers

Abstract

Human Rights Education (HRE) has been recognized by scholars as crucial and critical for the construction of a universal culture of human rights. This recognition stems from the fact that HRE enables the building of capacity and responsiveness of professionals in terms of shaping their skills through the acquisition of the requisite knowledge, attitude, skills and practices of international human rights standards that relate to their work. Drawing on in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, this article explores police officers’ knowledge and practice of international human rights standards that relate to policing from a conveniently selected 48 groups of police officers from eight randomly selected regions out of the 16 regions of Ghana. The findings revealed that, although HRE constitutes part of the Ghana Police Service training curriculum, a large number of the officer-participants indicate inadequate understanding and practice of these relevant Human Rights Standards. Prudent HRE-oriented policies concerning Ghana police training are recommended.