Above: the Miami-Dade Public Safety Training Institute

By the Caribbean Journal staff

A team of 21 officers Counternarcotics Unit of Haiti’s national police has begun a three-week training course in Miami with the Miami-Dade County Police Department in Florida.

The courses, which are being taught at the Miami-Dade Public Safety Training Institute, began Monday, covering “advanced law enforcement investigation techniques.”

The US State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, along with the US Drug Enforcement Administration and the Miami-Dade Police Department collaborated on the curriculum, along with providing support for equipment and logistics.

A State Department release said the course would help the Haitian officers to “improve their abilities to address and combat drug trafficking and drug transshipment in and out of Haiti.”

“In addition to endangering U.S. citizens, the drug trade in Haiti undermines the rule of law in that country by fostering corruption and fomenting armed violence perpetrated by criminal gangs and political opposition groups,” the State Department said.

A recent report by the department called the pace of drug enforcement action in Haiti “stubbornly low.”

The training follows a Memorandum of Understanding signed in November 2012 by the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs and the Miami-Dade Police Department to train international law enforcement personnel.

Miami’s police department is one of the largest in the southeastern United States, with approximately 4,700 employees.

A total of 74 Haitian officers will receive some form of training from the department in 2013.