Survey: Majority of Afghans trust ANP

From ISAF:

Confidence in ANP among Afghans grows
Story by Petty Officer 3rd Class Eric Lockwood

AFGHANISTAN — The Afghan National Police, ANP, are the vanguard of defense for Afghanistan against the myriad threats the country faces — Taliban recrudescence, crime, corruption, to name three. However, their effectiveness drops severely if public confidence in their ability is lacking amongst the masses.

Lucky for the children/future of the country that the level of confidence is rising—the people trust the police. According to a survey administered by United Nations Development Program, UNDP, and conducted by Afghan Center for Socioeconomic and Opinion Research, a non-governmental organization founded in 2003, 74 percent of Afghanis have confidence in ANP abilities. That figure has grown since 2010 by three points.

A similar number of Afghans have a favorable opinion of police, a figure that’s roughly held steady since the organizations previous survey last year.

These numbers would probably not be so impressively high if people didn’t have a generally positive opinion of service in the police force. If the police didn’t act in the interest of the people, it is very likely that service within the institution would carry low, or possibly even no, prestige.

Police service does confer upon the server a high degree of respectability. Indeed, a full three quarters of all of Afghanistan think of policeperson as a prestigious occupation, a number, like the others, up from 2010—by six points.

The number of Afghans who respect the police, in fact, is even higher than that. At 81 percent, a full four out of every five Afghans you speak to will say they respect the police as a whole, up 8 points from last year.

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