CCJAP Cambodia (AECOM): Alternative Sentencing Enablement + Community Policing Capacity Building

Snapshot

• Role: Thematic Adviser, AECOM
• Program: CCJAP (Cambodia Community Justice Assistance Partnership/Project)
• Stakeholders: Ministry of Justice, courts, prosecutors, police, and local authorities
• Focus areas: alternative sentencing implementation enablement, community policing capacity building, cross-agency coordination
• Deliverables: stakeholder workshops and facilitation, practical guidance materials, coordination support, field-informed recommendations

Best for

• Best for: Digital Adoption and Enablement

Organization disclosure

Organization and program name included. Specific project artifacts and internal stakeholder details are summarized at a high level. Deeper documentation available on request.

Context

CCJAP Phase IV targeted three major outcomes: reducing prison overcrowding, improving community safety, and improving data management. It sought to reduce prison populations through increased use of non-custodial and alternative sentencing, and improve safety through a community policing methodology, working across justice sector agencies including courts and police.

The problem

Policy reform alone does not produce implementation. In practice, adoption stalled when:

• justice actors needed shared understanding of what alternative sentencing meant operationally
• courts and police needed coordination mechanisms to apply alternatives consistently
• communities and local actors needed awareness to reduce misunderstanding of non-custodial measures
• frontline policing needed practical capacity building to apply community policing effectively

Goals

1. Support justice-sector stakeholders to operationalize alternative sentencing in real workflows
2. Strengthen coordination across justice agencies for implementation (court, police, related actors)
3. Build community policing capacity and support community safety implementation approaches

What I did

1) Enabled alternative sentencing implementation with justice and police stakeholders

• Worked with court and police stakeholders to surface practical roadblocks to implementing non-custodial measures
• Supported enablement activities to improve shared understanding and readiness across agencies

2) Facilitated cross-agency alignment

• Helped bridge perspectives and coordination needs across justice actors involved in implementation
• Supported workshops and structured sessions designed to improve clarity and execution readiness

3) Supported capacity building for community policing

• Contributed to stakeholder enablement and capacity building aligned to CCJAP’s community policing approach to improving community safety

4) Reinforced through communications and practical materials

• Supported dissemination and reinforcement efforts so stakeholders could apply guidance beyond a single event (information and education materials, workshop reinforcement)

Results (program-level, high level)

• CCJAP supported justice-sector enablement around alternative sentencing, including workshops instructing judges and prosecutors on application of alternative sentencing circulars (program-level activity, not solely attributable to one person).
• The program design explicitly linked reduced prison overcrowding to implementation of non-custodial and alternative sentencing, and linked improved community safety to a community policing methodology.

Proof (public)

• CCJAP completion report describing alternative sentencing roadblock survey involving court officials and police, plus dissemination workshops and IEC materials.
• CCJAP Phase IV independent evaluation describing objectives: alternative sentencing and community policing methodology.
• CCJAP progress report describing justice behavior-change intent and court/police piloting focus.
• CCJAP stakeholder coordination and communications strategy describing police and courts capacity components and the need for regular, consistent multi-channel communication.

Skills demonstrated

Stakeholder enablement, justice sector training and facilitation, cross-agency coordination, implementation support, communications reinforcement, capacity building, continuous improvement mindset.