Honduran lawmakers are considering a bill which would establish an independent monitoring body tasked with reforming the country's notoriously corrupt police force.
Honduras' security minister, Pompeyo Bonilla, presented legislators with a bill to begin a nationwide purge of the police. If passed, the initiative would create an independent Commission of Public Security Reform composed of both Honduran and foreign members.
El Heraldo reports that the purification measures will involve an investigation into the personal assets of police officials. The commission will also be tasked with investigating the Interior Ministry and the judicial branch.
InSight Crime Analysis
This initiative comes alongside a number of other measures targeting spiraling insecurity in Honduras, like the recent congressional approval of drug related extraditions to the United States, or the use of the military to supplement or replace corrupt or inadequate police forces.
Honduras' police force contains some deeply corrupt elements. The military was sent in to replace the entire police force of the city of Tela in northern Honduras, where an attorney who called attention to human rights abuses by police was murdered recently. Three months ago, police in Tegucigalpa were accused of murdering two university students.
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