The National Center for Civil and Human Rights, in collaboration with The Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities, offer the REPAIR (Redefining Policing to Affirm and Instill Human Rights) program. REPAIR is a U.S.-specific, human rights-centered training program that uses best practices from the field of atrocity prevention to build capacity in law enforcement departments to detect relevant risk factors for civil and human rights abuses and identify appropriate response tools to promote and protect those rights.
To date, over 1,400 officers from 33 police departments have successfully participated in the REPAIR program, ranging in size from smaller university public safety departments to large urban departments.
In 2020, the Atlanta Police Department contracted REPAIR to train its entire police force by the end of 2022, an initiative which the Mayor of Atlanta recognized in a Community Policing Roadmap. REPAIR has trained police department leaders and cohorts of leaders and officers in 45 other U.S. cities, including:
NCCHR and AIPG launched REPAIR in 2020 as a virtual version of the National Law Enforcement Seminar offered from 2017 to 2019. REPAIR was designed in collaboration with veteran law enforcement professionals, and experts in the fields of history, atrocity prevention, social psychology, and law. The program is both pro-police and pro-reform. REPAIR also addresses concerns surrounding officer wellness and safety as well as policing in and for traumatized communities.
Component 1: Six-week Leadership Course
This six-week, virtual, asynchronous course addresses topics such as Community Policing, Policing in Deeply Divided Societies, and Duty to Intervene. Intended to be completed by sergeants and above, departments may choose to include other ranks and unsworn personnel. Designed so that students learn each section’s content during a one-week period, the course material uses visual, auditory, and written aids to accommodate different learning styles.
The curriculum will cover:
Program Goals:
Component 2: Training of Trainers
Leaders who have completed the six-week course are eligible to be selected as trainers by their department to provide training for rank-and-file officers. These leaders attend a one-day, in-person “Training of Trainers”, where they receive instruction on delivering training to non-leadership personnel, including issues and case studies tailored to a department’s local context. The result of this training is a customized eight-hour curriculum that departments can deliver in the manner most effective to meet their training needs. REPAIR assists in the structuring and implementation of this training curriculum. Following the completion of this component, REPAIR conducts check-ins and regular reviews of the response to the material.
The curriculum will cover:
After this initial training period, REPAIR content and support will be provided through a further negotiated agreement.
Component 3: Trauma-Informed Policing
This three-week, virtual, asynchronous course examines topics addressed in the six-week course at a higher level, and focuses on understanding the nature of trauma and how to identify it, how trauma influences the communities in which law enforcement operate, and how trauma impacts the lives and work of police officers. This is one of the 5 priorities for Police Reform determined by the Council on Criminal Justice’s Task Force on Policing. We offer two different versions of this course: one more advanced for Leadership and one more introductory course.
The first is designed for law enforcement leadership, who, as a prerequisite, must first participate in the REPAIR leadership course, which covers essential material on social identity, deeply divided societies, and the history of policing, not covered in depth in this course. The second is a more introductory version designed for lower rank officers who are not required to first participate in the REPAIR course but will encounter its material through their department’s own Training of Trainers designed curriculum.
The curriculum will cover:
Course Goals:
Download the The REPAIR Course Outline & Curriculum.
The Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities (AIPG) is a non-governmental organization that, through education, training, and technical assistance, supports States to develop or strengthen policies and practices for the prevention of genocide and other mass atrocities. We also encourage and support the cooperation of States through regional and international networks to advance prevention. More than seven decades after the Holocaust, genocide and other mass atrocities remain a threat to world peace and security. Effective genocide prevention requires a multi-dimensional approach to education that is built on the promotion and protection of civil and human rights. The Auschwitz Institute’s programs are carefully designed by experts in the field to provide comprehensive training for policymakers and the security sector to forge networks of cooperation across the globe. You can read about our work and all our programs on the AIPG website.
The National Center for Civil and Human Rights is a museum and human rights institution in Atlanta, Georgia. Our museum’s permanent exhibitions present: US civil rights history, the contemporary struggle for human rights around the world, and the papers and artifacts of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (in partnership with Morehouse College). Our education programs provide schools with curricular and other resource materials that promote critical thinking about US history and its ongoing relevance. Our community engagement programs—conversations, events and performances—bring together experts to address advancing rights, civic participation, and protecting democratic ideals. In our leadership programs, we train police departments on how the promotion and protection of human rights plays a role in the prevention of human rights abuses. We also train corporations, government agencies and nonprofit organizations on how to ensure their workplaces are diverse, equitable and inclusive.