The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) works to keep Americans safe at home by countering international crime, illegal drugs, and instability abroad. INL helps countries deliver justice and fairness by strengthening their police, courts, and corrections systems. These efforts reduce the amount of crime and illegal drugs reaching U.S. shores.
Challenges: Morocco has continued to demonstrate commitment to democratic reform since the adoption of a new constitution in 2011. As a result of the new constitution, the Moroccan Government approved a comprehensive Judicial Reform Charter in 2013, which calls for the creation of a judiciary independent of the Ministry of Justice. Those reforms are currently being enacted. As a free trade partner with the United States, a major non-NATO ally, and uniquely positioned as an influencer in both Arab and African cultures, Morocco continues to dedicate resources to countering transnational crime, including terrorism, and exporting its models of security best practices across the region. Morocco also continues to modernize its law enforcement and professionalize its justice sector as service-oriented featuring an enhanced evidence-based system.
Goals: INL supports Morocco’s efforts to professionalize and modernize the delivery of criminal justice services by implementing programming in Morocco’s law enforcement, corrections, and judicial sectors. INL’s objective is to ensure Moroccan criminal justice sector institutions (police precincts, correctional institutions, courts, and other judicial institutions) model international human rights and professional standards.
Accomplishments:
- Since 2010, INL has worked with the General Delegation of the Penitentiaries and Reinsertion Administration (DGAPR) to increase Morocco’s capacity to maintain a safe, secure, humane, and transparent correctional system to serve as a regional leader in prison reform and modernization. Efforts include training over 300 prison officials on prison management practices used in the United States, infrastructure development of a regional training center in Tiflet capable of training both Moroccan and international trainees, and a prison classification system to identify and secure high risk inmates.
- INL also supports Morocco’s own investments to increase the capacity and professionalism of the Moroccan National Police to effectively investigate criminal threats, including the use of forensic evidence, while upholding the rule of law and human rights.
- With INL support, Morocco developed and implemented its first standardized procedures for crime scene management and evidence storage and handling to ensure its integrity and proper admissibility in court. INL has also supported capacity building of the police’s national forensic lab resulting in their first ever international certification of DNA forensic analysis in 2018.
- In justice sector reform, INL supports the Ministry of Justice and the two newly independent judiciaries to establish a more evidence-based criminal justice system. INL assists in all phases of the criminal justice process, including trial procedures, the use of forensic evidence, and alternative sentencing. INL continues to strengthen the technical capacities of the courts in administration management and plans to enhance legal services for juvenile pre-trial detainees.