Supporting the Restoration of Civil Authority

A key requirement of military forces following major hostilities is to reestablish security. Lasting security can only be achieved with the restoration of civil authority, the reestablishment of the rule of law, and the institutions that uphold the rule of law. The three primary institutions that uphold the rule of law are the police, judiciary, and penal system. The author answers the question as to whether the Department of Defense (DoD) should develop the capability to not only conduct detention operations more proficiently, but also reestablish or improve a host nation's penal system as part of the broader restoration of civil authority? To restore a failed or failing penal system, the intervening force needs corrections (i.e., prison) specialists, managers, and engineers to deploy in a timely manner and who will expand prison capacity, conduct cadre recruitment and training, provide system oversight and safeguards to ensure adherence to international standards of confinement and corrections (i.e., monitoring and mentoring), and ensure the timely transition to the host nation government. Though such experts exist, they are not easily identified, recruited, and deployed to assume control from the intervening military force. The most recent performance of the United Nations in Afghanistan and the U.S. civilian agencies in Iraq demonstrated that even with the full effort of the U.S. Government, there is still a deployment gap between the introduction of U.S. military forces and follow on civilian agencies. Though military leaders and planners may feel that they get "stuck" with rebuilding a host nation's law enforcement and penal systems, doctrine recognizes the requirement, and the deployment gap with civilian police and prison advisors establishes the default need. It is up to the military to decide whether it will ignore the requirement, attempt to merely mitigate the requirement, or focus concerted effort on the penal system as an integral part of rebuilding t