Training needs assessment of the Royal Bhutan Police

ABSTRACT

In response to internal and external stimuli, the Royal Bhutan Police (RBP) faces the challenges of organizational change. As it continues its transition from military to civilian policing, responds to rapid social transformation in Bhutan, and adjusts to changes in service demands, the RBP must assess and improve its organizational and individual level competencies. This study considers issues associated with this transition in policing approach. Through the analysis of evidence from the Royal Bhutan Police’s (RBP) commissioned officers, it specifically considers the agency’s police culture and assesses competency areas requiring attention. The study seeks to identify the training needs of all 20 RBP districts in Bhutan. This was accomplished through a survey that targeted all RBP sworn officers. With an 82.9% response rate, the survey reveals that most of the study participants expressed the need for training in investigating cybercrime, bomb threat response, responding to terrorism, investigating accidental fire and arson, disaster management information technology skills, and rescuing and evacuating casualties. It also finds evidence to support an assessment that the RBP force needs training in areas directly related to modifying its culture to adjust to its civilian policing mission. Additional findings include incumbents in the rank of Police Major and above self-rating as more competent than Police Captain and below, and that male officers self-rate as more competent than female officers. The study results support the RBP’s efforts to develop more relevant in-service training and may inform professionalizing police forces in other developing countries.

KEYWORDS:

• Bhutan
• commissioned officers
• competencies
• police organizational change
• training needs assessment
• training programs

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accesssed here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Khon Kaen University.

Notes on contributors

Kinzang Gyeltshen

Police Major Kinzang Gyeltshen received his bachelor’s degree in arts in 2002 from Sherubtse College, Kanglung, Bhutan. After graduation, he joined the Royal Bhutan Police (RBP) in 2004 and served as the Commanding Officer for more than a decade in Mongar and Punakha Districts, respectively. The Commanding Officer is primarily responsible for maintenance of law and order, prevention of crime, and protection of life and property within the district. As the Commanding Officer, he worked to make society a safe place to live and work and to fulfill the development aspirations of the King, the people, and the country. To that end, he worked in close coordination with various stakeholders in the districts for better delivery of services to the public and to narrow the gap between the police and the public. He obtained his Master’s degree in Public Administration from the College of Local Administration, Khon Kaen University, Thailand in 2018. Currently, he is serving as the Training Officer cum Administrative Officer at the Special Reserve Police Force, in Trashigatsgel, Chukha, Bhutan.

Peerasit Kamnuansilpa

Associate Professor Dr. Peerasit Kamnuansilpa is the founding dean of the College of Local Administration (COLA), which serves as a national training institute for the Royal Thai Police, at Khon Kaen University (KKU), the regional tertiary institute for Northeast Thailand. He holds a BA in Sociology from Chiang Mai University, an MS in Sociology from Illinois State University, and a PhD in Demography from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Formerly Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at KKU in 2004–2006, he served as Dean of COLA from 2007–2012, then in 2013–2014 he served as Interim Dean for the Faculty of Law at KKU for six months, overseeing a major management reform of the faculty. He is presently the Advisor for Research and Global Corporate Affairs at COLA and oversees COLA’s Master of Public Administration (MPA). COLA’s MPA has a focus on community policing and police management and has graduated approximately two hundred police officers through both independent study and thesis tracks, in both domestic and international programs.

Charles David Crumpton

Dr. Charles David Crumpton received his doctoral degree in public administration and public policy from Portland State University and his Master of Public Administration from the University of Georgia. For eighteen years he served as professional city manager in six U.S. states, being responsible for police departments in three. As a consultant and researcher in subnational government, he has worked in seven US states and served as director of research for the State of Maryland Maryland’s Judicial System, where he founded and directed the Maryland Judiciary Research Consortium. He was then co-founder of the Centre for Public Sector Study and Applied Research at the Federal University of Goiás in Goiânia, Brasil, where he is a senior researcher. Dr. Crumpton’s research has included subnational governance, intergovernmental relations, justice, police operations, education, and technology innovation in state and local governance. He currently serves as Senior Research Associate with the Institute for Governmental Service and Research (IGSR) at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he teaches, and visiting professor at the College for Local Administration (COLA) at Khon Kaen University in Thailand. As a Fulbright Specialist in public administration, he received grants to work in Brazil in 2015 and Thailand in 2017.

Supawatanakorn Wongthanavasu

Associate Professor Dr. Supawatanakorn Wongthanavasu is the current Dean of the College of Local Administration (COLA), which serves as a national training institute for the Royal Thai Police (RTP), at Khon Kaen University (KKU), the regional tertiary institute for Northeast Thailand. She holds a PhD in Development Science from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Khon Kaen University and subsequently undertook postdoctoral training at the University of Michigan. Owing to COLA’s relationship with the RTP, she is a Senior Advisor on National Security to the National Research Council of Thailand. She teaches courses in COLA’s Master of Public Administration with a focus on community policing and police management and has graduated approximately two hundred police officers through both independent study and thesis tracks, in both domestic and international programs.