On 9 February a meeting through videoconferencing was held under the chairmanship of President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev, devoted to the activity of the internal affairs bodies, existing problems and shortcomings as well as tasks for the future. 

It was attended by the leadership of the Ministry of internal affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan, corresponding ministries and agencies, chairman of the Jokargy Kenes of the Republic of Karakalpakstan, khokims of regions, Tashkent city, towns and districts. 

The President of our country particularly highlighted that from the first days of independence a priority significance has been attached to ensuring security and stability in the country, protection of public order. The is demonstrated by adopted measures on reorganization of preventive, operational search, investigative, road and fire safety, security, patrol, mobile special services, as well as gradual strengthening of material-technical base of internal affairs bodies. 

In order to reinforce mutual trust and ensure transparency in the relations of internal affairs staff with the public, new institutions such as prevention inspectors, local police stations, community (mahalla) guards have been established, which serves to maintain the atmosphere of peace and tranquility in our country.

The Head of state underlined that in recent times the works on prevention and fight against crime, protection of public order and the rights and interests of people, further strengthening relations with the public have been elevated to a new level. 

The legislation on the activity of internal affairs bodies has been improved. In the last five years the Laws “On operational-search activity”, “On crime prevention” have been adopted, amendments to the Law “On citizenship of the Republic of Uzbekistan” have been made. 

The adoption of the Law “On internal affairs bodies” in 2016 especially reinforced the legislative base of this sphere. 

Increasing the effectiveness of the bodies of internal affairs, further improving their interaction with local khokimiyats, citizens’ self-governing bodies remains a crucial task. 

The President of our country drew attention to what degree the internal affairs bodies are meeting the contemporary requirements. At present, when the issues of protecting human interests require urgent solutions, there are still cases of old-fashioned thinking, organizing work on outmoded methods or based on the principles of personal interest, not on principles of serving the public. 

The internal affairs bodies should organize their work in a manner so that the people are content with the state. However, in some places their work causes dissatisfaction of people. Particularly, such negative phenomena as criminal encroachment to property are not fully eliminated. The instances of intentional bodily harm, fraud, traffic accidents have not reduced. 

Shavkat Mirziyoyev also paid attention to existing shortcomings in crime detection. In particular, every fifth crime, related to theft and fraud, has not been disclosed. 

Serious weaknesses are observed in the criminal investigation activity, in some places, law enforcement cooperation does not meet the standard requirements. The fact that majority of criminals under the “wanted” list is undetained, allows them to continue their criminal acts, and this is a very worrying fact. 

As the President of our country underlined, a fair and qualitative investigation of criminal cases, impartial legal assessment of criminal acts has an essential significance in the activity of internal affairs bodies. However, despite the fact that the investigating authorities have the capacity to adopt operational legal decisions in a short period, there is still a negative practice of unjustified extension, delaying the timing for materials that do not require further investigation, as well as red tape in relation to citizens. 

Shavkat Mirziyoyev stressed the need to comprehensively study the causes of crime, underlying factors and conditions, not limiting with the investigation and prosecution measures, with the participation of heads of law-enforcement bodies, prevention inspectors and mahalla representatives. 

Another disturbing fact is that some of our citizens, who went abroad to work, fall under the influence of various extremist religious currents there. The works on identifying and returning citizens, who went abroad in search of work, interaction of heads of mahallas and spiritual-enlightenment centres, imam khatibs, consultants on religious enlightenment and spiritual and moral education to raise awareness among the negative effects of population religious extremism are not conducted on a sufficient level. 

The President offered to announce every Thursday of the week a crime prevention day. On these days, prosecutors and heads of departments of internal affairs will be appear on local television stations and provide information about committed crimes for the week, their causes, ongoing activities on crime prevention. 

Crime rates among youth and women also cause disturbance. Regrettably, in 2016 a sixth of all crimes were committed by women, and students of academic high schools and professional colleges committed over thousand crimes. One of the main reasons for this negative phenomenon is low attendance rates of college students, the lack of an effective system of monitoring and analysing attendance patterns. 

The meeting addressed the issues of improving the infrastructure of local police stations, increasing living conditions of prevention inspectors, comprehensive reform of the system of internal affairs bodies, optimization of their structural units. 

In our country, a special attention is paid to protection of the rights of entrepreneurs. Shavkat Mirziyoyev emphasized the need to totally eradicate unlawful interference or obstruction on entrepreneurial activity by employees of internal affairs bodies. 

A fundamental change of the system of working with people’s applications and complaints is one of the most urgent tasks of the internal affairs bodies. Therefore, it is necessary to fundamentally review relations of police staff with citizens, to establish a permanent dialogue with the people, to live with concerns of the people and work in the interests of people, Shavkat Mirziyoyev said. 

The reports of minister of internal affairs A.Azizov, khokims, heads of departments of internal affairs of Tashkent city and regions were heard during the meeting. 

President Shavkat Mirziyoyev emphasized that a critical analysis, strict discipline and personal responsibility should become the norm in the daily activities of every manager, the problems should be resolved not in the office, and but among the people. The priorities of the internal affairs bodies should be to strengthen personal accountability of managers for the final result, rapid solution of citizens’ complaints and applications, ensuring strict discipline and order, professional personnel staffing, preventing negative manifestations. 

The officials were given appropriate instructions to create a system in which none of the citizens' complaints will be ignored, to radically change attitude to performance of duty, to develop a crime discussion mechanism, to strengthen public oversight over law-enforcement bodies activities by establishing their accountability to the public. 

President Mirziyoyev gave recommendations on improving the effectiveness of grass-roots units of internal affairs bodies, local police stations and prevention inspectors, introducing a rating system for assessing performance of the internal affairs departments, the need for in-depth analysis of crime, committed by the youth, on identifying the causes, attaching prevention inspectors to educational institutions, adopting practices of daily morning inspection of educational institutions by prevention inspectors. 

Shavkat Mirziyoyev accentuated the need to create a professional capacity development system for prevention inspectors. It was noted that to this end it is necessary to arrange special courses in cooperation with the Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and institutions of higher education. 

The Head of state gave concrete instructions to the officials on the fight against extremism, terrorism and organized crime. 

The meeting noted that every employee of the internal affairs bodies has to draw conclusions from the expressed views, should exert all their strength and knowledge in the name of further strengthening of peace and tranquility, prevailing in our country, protection of public order, fulfillment of such complex and honorable tasks as ensuring security of every citizen, family, mahalla and the country as a whole in good faith.