with Juan Pablo in Bolivia teaching at-risk youth how to express themselves through sports and culture, developing their own identity so others won't define it for them.

It starts with Martha in Costa Rica or Yelitza in Panama, who found ways to reach the "unreachable” -- gang members, drug users, and school dropouts in whom others had given up hope.

Sometimes it begins with an idea -- teaching robotics to 10-year-olds in a drug-ravaged community in Costa Rica. Piece by piece, with the support of dedicated adults, these boys and girls learn to construct something bigger -- engines, cars, complex systems -- and along the way, they rebuild themselves and their neighborhoods.

These moments of inspiration exist across the Western Hemisphere, but if we can connect them and forge a network of community action, we will have a whole much greater than the sum of its parts. Building networks was precisely the purpose of the Alumni Enrichment Workshop that took place October 2-4 in Costa Rica, where 29 U.S. exchange alumni from 12 countries gathered to share ideas, challenges, and best practices on "Youth Empowerment and Citizen Security."

These alumni from Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and Peru are leaders of NGOs, government offices, university campuses, and civic organizations. They are passionate, energetic, and dynamic, able to inspire change in the toughest neighborhoods of Latin America.

Over three days, the attendees shared personal experiences and tackled critical issues like drug and violence prevention, gang rehabilitation, self-esteem building, and human rights protection for women and minorities. One thing that struck me as I listened to presentations and group discussions was that these leaders already possess solutions to some of the most vexing challenges our hemisphere faces. The solutions are surprisingly simple: give young people positive alternatives to drugs and crime; provide a safe, welcoming space to express themselves, whether through music, art, sports, or classroom learning; and teach them to believe in themselves and to dare to dream.

The solutions may be straightforward, but multiplying them on a regional scale is where the challenge lies. Cultural differences and simple geography can stand in the way of building communities of practice and enabling aspiring leaders to transform their individual visions into global successes.

This alumni workshop, funded through the State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, was a powerful step in the right direction. These men and women of all ages, races, and backgrounds connected on a deep and personal level in a remarkably short period of time. The energy that emanated from the group -- from the first day of spirited discussions to the laughter and dancing at the farewell dinner -- was palpable and magical.

The workshop participants are eager to build on the conversations they started. The group's motto -- “Global Challenges, Local Solutions” -- captures so much of what I witnessed this week in tales of hope and empowerment across Latin America. I hope we can connect more of these local solutions through global networks. If we can leverage traditional and social networks to bring leaders like this together, we can help winning ideas transcend borders. Then the circle will be complete and we can finish as we started: as one.

Written by Jeff Weinshenker, who serves as a Public Diplomacy Officer in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.

This and numerous other interesting Dipnote blogs on dozens of foreign poilcy topics can be seen at State website: http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/site/entry/alumni_youth_empowerment_wha

urity Initiative (CARSI).

http://www.usaid.gov/news-information/press-releases/usaid-city-la-announce-partnership-combat-violence-americas

USAID’s efforts support social prevention and rule of law programming, specifically working with municipalities, community police, at-risk youth, and criminal courts. To date, USAID has established 80 outreach centers for at-risk youth in the Northern Triangle countries and Panama.

in the 1980s now runs 210 jails and prisons across the country, using methods learned at the International Correctional Management Training Center in Cañon City.

Through an interpreter in a recent interview, Mazare Sharafi said the prison system has changed little in hundreds of years.
But he and a dozen of his wardens and staff were in Colorado for three weeks in August and September, learning lessons including why it's safer to separate goat thieves from murderous bandits in prison.

The program, funded by the U.S. secretary of state's office of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, and operated by Colorado Correctional Industries, a division of the Colorado Department of Corrections, has been running for a year at an old women's prison.

Six other nations, including Brazil, Lebanon and Morocco, have sent prison officers to the center to learn U.S. tactics, said Steven Kraft, who oversees the program's Asian operations.

The center receives a $1.6 million federal grant. Airfare costs for Sharafi's visit were also covered by the federal program, he said.
"It's widely acknowledged as a very successful program," Kraft said.

That success comes even though Colorado's prison system is vastly different from those of participating nations, he said.

Sharafi's guards are more likely to find contraband in the form of cave-forged gold ingots than swallowed cocaine balloons. Instead of sleeping on cell bunks, 180 of his inmates lie on floors in giant halls. He doesn't deal with gang shot-callers, only Taliban warlords and 5,235 of their minions.

Sharafi said his men learned a lot at the meetings even though his prisons will likely never resemble the fortresses of steel bars and modern security electronics in Colorado prisons.

They come to Colorado to learn a new mind-set in dealing with an age-old dilemma: how to safely hold society's most dangerous scofflaws, said training-program director Bill Claspell.

Ancient customs

Many of the countries seeking training have ancient customs that prove dangerous to nonviolent criminals, Claspell said.

Prisoners are segregated by social status rather than by the gravity of their crimes. The wealthy, including rapists and white- collar crooks, are often housed together while impoverished goat thieves share space with killers, Claspell said.

In Cañon City, Claspell's staff teaches the foreign visitors DOC's inmate-classification system, which is based on risk factors including a matrix of six levels of felonies for crimes ranging from theft to murder. Histories of violence, mental illness and sexual crimes are factored.

Evaluators scrutinize an inmate's background. He may be a gang or Taliban leader.

"The threats are different; the cultures are different," Claspell said. But the strategies for neutralizing a cartel kingpin, a white-supremacist recruiter or a Taliban jihadist are the same: isolation.
A Taliban leader can't order an uprising if all his communications with adherents are severed.

As part of the program, U.S. correctional consultants stationed in Afghanistan will help Sharafi's men implement new programs. He said the U.S. has already given millions of dollars for a new prison wing in Kabul that included individual cells. The cells can be used to isolate Taliban leaders who might incite prison uprisings.
Danger from outside

Keeping prisoners safe, providing educational and vocational opportunities and providing humane conditions helps keep order in Colorado prisons, Claspell said.

When he takes wardens from other nations on prison field trips, they are amazed when they go into prisoner living areas.
"'They must be less dangerous prisoners than in our prison,'" Claspell said he often hears. They would be attacked if they did so in their prisons, they add. Sharafi's own son, a 22-year-old prison guard, had been murdered in prison, he said.

There is danger from outside too. Sharafi recalled how the concussion from a suicide bombing killed 13 of his prison guards and shattered the windows of his fifth-floor office in northern Afghanistan.

But in Colorado, the guards toured cellblocks occupied by rapists, gang members and killers. It's safer because of Colorado's reward-based system, Claspell said.
The system is based on moving inmates as quickly as possible from higher- to lower-security prisons with more privileges and eventually to parole. Many foreign prisons keep inmates for set sentence periods whether they learn a new trade or shank another inmate.
Colorado has many rewards, including educational and vocational programing and getting to hit a softball on a grassy prison baseball diamond. Inmates can also lose privileges by rioting and go to a tiny cell in 23-hour-a-day lockdowns.

Kraft said he admires Sharafi, who risks his life by coming to America for any type of training.

"I took notes. This has been very good for me," Sharafi said. "We'll make changes. The people who came here will become trainers in my country."

The Afghans flew to the U.S. thinking New York City is America, Claspell said.

They left realizing it's also Cañon City, where friendly trainers barbecued buffalo burgers on a grill at the entrance of the training center, he said.

Posted: 09/23/2012 12:01:00 AM MDT
By Kirk Mitchell The Denver Post denverpost.com
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_21610507/afghan-general-wardens-learn-u-s-prison-tactics

Colorado. They stayed in a former women’s prison in Canon City, which has been transformed into an international corrections training center. It’s run by the U.S. State Department and the Colorado Department of Corrections, and it’s designed to help foreign countries improve their prisons. CPR’s Andrea Dukakis spent a day at the center with the Afghan delegation. Then, she speaks with the State Department's Steve Kraft about how the training center came about.

at many of the gangs in the US-MS-13 and 18the Street in particular-are going back to Central America as seasoned criminals. We do not apologize for our deportation policy- we have enough crime problems ourselves..... The US estimates that as many as 85,000 18th St and MS-13 members operate today in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. (to be continued)

cartels, organized crime, government corruption and delinquency have weakened the rule of law and robbed communities throughout the hemisphere of a sense of security and confidence in local authorities.

Regional violence and corruption, particularly in Central America, led to the social and economic exclusion of entire communities, furthering the vicious cycle.

Participate in this interactive discussion in Spanish to learn what your community can do to take back the streets and counter security threats. Featured experts will address the root causes of criminal activity and the environments that exacerbate the security situation.

Format: This program will be a video webchat in Spanish. Please click on the URL above to participate. Follow the conversation on Twitter by using the hashtag #SeguridadCiudadana.

outh and Demand Reduction on October 1.

Amb. Brownfield’s remarks at the Institute of the Americas will highlight the United States’ efforts to address the cycle of violence related to narcotics trafficking and organized gangs in the Western Hemisphere. The public is invited.

On September 30, Amb. Brownfield will sign partnership agreements with the Portland, Oregon Police Bureau and the Ohio State Highway Patrol. These law enforcement agencies will join the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) and its more than 50 state and local agency partners from communities around the United States who help our partners around the world to enhance their civilian security and justice sector capacity. Each state and local partner receives specialized training from the Department of State and develops key relationships for its hometown community.

The Department of State pays the salaries of state and local officers while they are deployed. These partnerships enable INL to utilize the knowledge and expertise of active serving police officers to train, advise, and mentor foreign law enforcement personnel as part of the Department’s numerous foreign assistance programs to further civilian security.

To attend the partnership agreement signings or the Institute of the Americas address please contact 202-736-4144 or email INL-Press@state.gov.

To receive updates on Assistant Secretary Brownfield’s visit, follow the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs on Twitter @INLbureau and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/StateINL

Original media note for this event was posted http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/09/198242.htm

ontrol and Law Enforcement.

Under the new agreement the United States is providing US$ 584,000 to the Philippines for increased cooperation against drug trafficking and enhancing investigators’ capacity to handle extrajudicial killings.

The Amendment is also aimed at enhancing the skills and increasing the capacity of Philippine law enforcement agencies for conducting successful homicide/extrajudicial killing investigations.

http://manila.usembassy.gov/drugcontrolejk.html