PERREAULT Magazine October 2014 | Page 37

Perreault Magazine - 37 -

We provide the training free of charge, so everyone put through the training courses takes this knowledge and experience back to their places of employment at no cost to them or their organization. In exchange, we ask that the expert be made available for an investigation in a matter of days. This one innovation alone has resulted in whole new standard for getting investigators into the field.

I have emphasized that these experts come from around the world. An investigation is much more likely to be done right if the experts have the appropriate legal, cultural and linguistic background. By focusing on this as much as possible we are actually bringing wholesale change. Unfortunately, it is still common to send any warm body – often without any investigations training or the understanding of local customs and languages to interview victims of crimes such as rape. By having the diversity of expertise, cultures languages and training to tackle an investigation properly anywhere, the JRR roster is making this practice a thing of the past.

BP: Can you give me some examples of where JRR has made a difference?

AVG: Yes. JRR is relatively new – we became operational five years ago, yet we have already built up an international criminal investigations roster of almost 450 experts – half of whom are women – who come from 89 countries and represent 60 professional categories. These include crime scene investigators, forensic scientists of all kinds, witness protection specialists, police and military analysts all the way to human rights investigators and psychosocial trauma counsellors.

JRR has held 27 training courses in every region of the world to build an active roster of almost 450 experts from 89 countries speaking 73 languages. JRR has to date deployed experts on 41 investigative missions to bring mass criminals to justice.

IVORY COAST MASS GRAVE © Julie Kinuthia/Demotix 2012