Czech Republic: Romani crime prevention assistant now police officer

The West Bohemian town of Sokolov is the first in the Czech Republic in which a crime prevention assistant has gone on to become a municipal patrolman. Patrik Bandy worked as a crime prevention assistant in Sokolov starting in May 2012 and performed his job so responsibly he was selected as an appropriate candidate for the municipal force.

Given Bandy’s very good work in socially excluded localities in particular he was employed and waitlisted at the start of 2013 by the Municipal Police of Sokolov. Not long after that he attended a re-qualification course in Příbram, which he successfully completed in March, meeting all the essential requirements to perform the demanding job.

Bandy’s task now, in addition to the normal tasks of any patrolman, is surveillance of areas where Romani residents live or where Romani people congregate with the aim of improving communications with them and helping to increase security in the districts under his protection. This specifically concerns primarily the neighborhood around the train station and the Alfa cinema.

"We are doing our best to be friendly toward people and explain situations to them. Most of the time people listen to us, so far we have never had to intervene against anyone," the new patrolman told iDNES.cz. 

While taking the re-qualification course, Bandy managed to also graduate from the Professional High School (Vyšší odborná škola) with the title of DiS (specialist with diploma) and plans to apply to college. "I am planning to go to college. It will either be studies focused on regional development at a college in Prague or at the Metropolitan University (Metropolitní univerzita) in Plzeň," he told Denik.cz.