Brno, Sept 3 (CTK) – The present security situation requires people’s more extensive involvement in the security system, Miroslav Mares, an expert from Brno’s Masaryk University, told CTK on Saturday and suggested that guards comprised of citizens and connected with the police be established.
Mares was speaking at a conference on the security situation that was held in Brno within the 8th international meeting of U.N. units members known as Blue Berets.
According to him, a big problem of public life in the Czech Republic is people’s mistrust of the state.
It has been used by various home guards and extremist groups, which assert that the state is incapable of ensuring people’s safety, Mares said.
Protected patrols or guards from among civilian citizens should be established, who would cooperate with the police, he said.
This would improve the monitoring of crime and, at the same time, it would make more people join the [security] system.
“Many people in certain areas, including socially excluded localities, may feel that the state ignores their problems. If these people were addressed and won for cooperation, it would also strengthen the tie between the state and its own citizens,” Mares said.
He said in the Czech Republic, this form of people’s cooperation has been disgraced by the infamous legacy of the communist period when auxiliary patrols from among civilians helped security officers in their free time.
However, the situation is different now that a half of a century has elapsed since the fall of communism, Mares emphasised.
“In addition, even the [communist-era] auxiliary patrols included a variety of people. I do not think that any member of these patrols was apriori a lackey of the former regime,” Mares said.
At present, the new patrols should be a body in between citizens and the municipal or national police. Their establishment could weaken, in terms of arguments at least, the organised home guards and extremist groups, which argue that the state does not want citizens to join the security system and therefore it is up to them to form home guards, Mares said.
