The International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) has its origins in Latin America. In 1986, ICITAP was created, with funding from the U.S. State Department, to build capacity to prosecute key human rights cases in El Salvador and to enhance the criminal investigative capacity of police forces in Latin America. Throughout the 1990s, ICITAP delivered training in every country in Central America, more than half of the countries in South America, and nearly all of the English-speaking Caribbean. ICITAP's Panama program, which followed Operation Just Cause, was the organization's first full-scale, in-country police development program. It effectively changed the scope of ICITAP's mission from the delivery of training events, to the planning and implementation of comprehensive international law enforcement development programs.

The Colombia program, founded in 1991, is ICITAP's longest-standing program. Since 2002, ICITAP and its sister organization—the Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance, and Training (OPDAT)—have provided assistance through Plan Colombia, a development initiative funded by the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. ICITAP and OPDAT have helped Colombia transition to an adversarial system of justice and significantly reduce crime and violence.

Learn more about ICITAP's involvement in Plan Colombia and other programs in the region:

Colombia

Beginning in 2002, ICITAP greatly expanded its law enforcement assistance to Colombia through the Department of Justice's Plan Colombia Justice Sector Reform Program—a strong collaboration among Department entities, including the Narcotics and Dangerous Drug Section; the Office of International Affairs; the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section; the Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property Section; the U.S. Marshals Service; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; and the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Currently, ICITAP is focusing on four program elements:

Justice system development

Colombia enacted a new criminal penal code in 2005, which moved the country from an inquisitorial to an adversarial model of criminal procedure. To assist in the transition, ICITAP delivered training courses that taught investigators, police officers, and forensic examiners how to serve as competent witnesses, particularly how to introduce testimony and physical evidence at trial. To enhance its basic training program, ICITAP rolled out its first demonstrative evidence course in 2008 to teach prosecutors and witnesses to convey complex scientific findings through the use of graphics and other visual aids.

Identification of victims and recovery of evidence from mass graves

ICITAP and the U.S. Department of Defense's Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command's Central Identification Laboratory collaborated in a forensic anthropology training and capacity-building program. An important component of the program is the "dig schools" for investigators, prosecutors, and forensics professionals. This training is increasing the capacity of Colombia's forensic laboratories to use DNA evidence; identify victims in mass graves; and identify, recover, and process evidence required to prosecute paramilitary group members responsible for the mass murders.

Sexual assault investigations

ICITAP is helping to develop and implement a five-part program that will improve the investigation and prosecution of sexual assault cases in Colombia. The strategy includes assistance in changing the criminal code to enhance penalties and make mandatory the collection of DNA evidence from convicted offenders; training in the forensic sciences; donations of investigative equipment; the establishment of citizen awareness campaigns; training in interviewing procedures for cases involving minor-aged victims; and training in the collection and processing of evidence from crime scenes.

Crime scene analysis and processing

ICITAP's course in crime scene analysis and processing follows the International Association for Identification philosophy of ensuring that a single crime scene technician has all the skills needed to analyze and process complex crime scenes. The two-week course covers latent fingerprints, photography, crime scene sketching, ballistics, blood evidence, trace evidence, forensic lighting, and report writing; and uses lectures, practical exercises, and written examinations. ICITAP is developing a follow-on course on the investigation of homicides by firearm.