International partners increased their support for training and equipping the Haitian National Police in 2022, responding to the escalating gang crisis with efforts to build the police’s institutional capacity even as the security situation on the ground outpaced the pace at which training could produce results. The United States, Canada, and other partners provided equipment, training resources, and technical assistance to an institution that was critically under-resourced for the challenges it faced.
The US provided significant quantities of equipment to the HNP including helmets, bulletproof vests, and other protective gear, responding to urgent requests from Haitian police who were being outgunned in confrontations with gangs that had access to assault rifles and other military-grade weapons. The equipment provision was a tangible acknowledgment of the police’s material disadvantage in their confrontations with criminal networks.
Training programs focused on specialized skills including gang suppression tactics, criminal investigation techniques, and the management of complex security operations in urban environments. International advisors embedded with police units in some contexts, providing real-time guidance while training on the job. The approach recognized that classroom training alone was insufficient for the demands Haitian police faced.
However, the scale of international police support fell far short of what was needed to shift the security balance. A police force of approximately 15,000 officers — already inadequate for a country of 11 million — facing criminal networks with significant arms, territorial control, and political protection could not be quickly transformed into an effective security force regardless of the quality of external training support. The structural mismatch between police capacity and gang capability remained a fundamental challenge that training alone could not address.