The Haitian National Police, known in French as the Police Nationale d’Haïti or PNH, is Haiti’s only law enforcement body: a civilian force of roughly 13,500 officers responsible for policing, corrections, coast guard duties, fire response, and border security across the country. It was created in 1995 to replace the disbanded Haitian military as the country’s internal security apparatus. Today it operates in one of the hemisphere’s most difficult security environments, with armed gangs controlling an estimated 90 percent of Port-au-Prince as of mid-2025.
How the Force Was Created
Haiti’s 1987 Constitution established the legal basis for a police force separate from the military. Article 269 places the police under the Ministry of Justice and defines it as an armed body distinct from any military chain of command. Article 269-1 states its purpose: to ensure law and order and protect the lives and property of citizens. The constitution also calls for a police academy, specialized sections for criminal investigation and narcotics enforcement, and a command led by a chief appointed for a renewable three-year term.
Turning that text into a working institution took years and a foreign military intervention. In 1994, a U.S.-led multinational force restored Haiti’s elected government and set the stage for disbanding the Forces Armées d’Haïti, the military that had long doubled as the country’s repressive internal security apparatus. The PNH began operations on June 12, 1995, built largely from scratch with heavy international involvement in recruiting, vetting, and training its first officers.
How the Police Are Organized
A Director General runs the PNH from headquarters in Port-au-Prince and oversees three central directorates:
- The Central Directorate of Administrative Police (DCPA), which handles patrol, crime prevention, and visible public security, and oversees tactical units that respond to riots and high-risk operations.
- The Central Directorate of Judicial Police (DCPJ), the investigative arm, which works with judges and prosecutors through bureaus focused on criminal affairs, kidnapping, auto theft, financial crimes, forensic intelligence, and the protection of minors.
- The Central Directorate of Administration and General Services (DCASG), which manages personnel, logistics, and financial accounting.
The PNH also absorbs functions that in many countries sit outside the police. The Haitian Coast Guard operates as a specialized unit within the force rather than as a separate military branch. Corrections, firefighting, airport security, and port security all fall under the same institutional umbrella.
Several specialized units handle threats beyond regular patrol work. The Corps d’Intervention et de Maintien de l’Ordre (CIMO), created in 1996 as the PNH’s first specialized unit, focuses on riot control, crowd management, and protection of strategic infrastructure. The Groupe d’Intervention de la Police Nationale d’Haïti (GIPNH) is the force’s tactical intervention team. The Bureau de Lutte contre le Trafic des Stupéfiants (BLTS) is the counternarcotics unit, with roughly 240 officers on active duty as of 2018, supported by canine detection teams at borders and airports. POLIFRONT patrols the land border with the Dominican Republic, trained to spot fraudulent documents and to intercept the cross-border smuggling that supplies armed gangs with weapons.
Civilian oversight runs through the Ministry of Justice and Public Security (MJSP), which sits between the police and the executive branch. That arrangement flows directly from the constitutional design meant to prevent the kind of autonomous military-police apparatus that had terrorized Haitians for decades.
Where Officers Are Actually Deployed
On paper, the PNH is organized into ten departmental directorates that mirror Haiti’s administrative departments, giving the force a nominal presence across the entire country. Each directorate manages local police stations and reports to central administration in Port-au-Prince.
The reality has never matched the chart. An estimated 80 percent of PNH personnel are concentrated in the West Department, which contains Port-au-Prince. Rural and remote areas operate with skeletal police presence, limited resources, and little access to the specialized units headquartered in the capital.
Even that heavy concentration has not been enough. Armed gangs held roughly 90 percent of Port-au-Prince as of mid-2025, up from about 85 percent in previous years. Gang power surged after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021, creating a vacuum that criminal organizations filled faster than the state could respond. The PNH, weakened by desertions, leadership tensions, and chronic underfunding, has found itself outgunned by gangs that obtain increasingly powerful weapons from regional markets and, according to UN investigators, from police stockpiles themselves.
Accountability and Human Rights Concerns
Internal accountability falls to the Inspector General’s office (IGPNH), which is charged with investigating misconduct and referring cases to judicial authorities. On paper, the IGPNH can discipline officers, investigate use-of-force incidents, and enforce professional standards. In 2024, it established a Verification and Control Bureau specifically designed to vet officers and remove problematic personnel.
In practice, accountability has been a persistent weakness. A United Nations assessment found that IGPNH investigations are “not systematic, are typically slow, and rarely lead to disciplinary action or a conviction.” Independent assessments have flagged dual reporting lines, understaffing, and capacity gaps as ongoing obstacles.
The human rights picture has darkened alongside the gang crisis. United Nations experts documented 281 summary executions carried out by specialized police units in 2024 alone, including 22 women and 8 children. Investigators described a “worrying” pattern in which suspected gang members are executed rather than arrested and processed through the justice system.
Recruitment and the Size Gap
New officers are trained at the national police academy. The force has launched an accelerated recruitment push called the P4000+ Program, designed to train 4,000 new officers over an 18-month period. The 35th graduating cohort completed training in January 2026, adding 877 officers, with the accelerated track running approximately three months per cycle.
The math is still daunting. A force of roughly 13,500 officers serves a country of over 11 million people. The United Nations and partner governments have recommended a force of at least 25,000 to meet basic security needs, meaning the PNH would need to nearly double even without any further losses to desertion or attrition.
International Support Then and Now
International involvement has been constant since the PNH’s creation. The most significant presence was the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), which operated from 2004 to 2017 with a core mandate to monitor, restructure, and professionalize the force through training, mentoring, and operational support.
After MINUSTAH withdrew, security deteriorated. In October 2023, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2699 authorizing a Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission led by Kenya, with personnel from Jamaica, Belize, Guatemala, and El Salvador. The MSS was designed to deploy up to 2,500 personnel; as of March 2025, just over 1,000 were on the ground, chronically underfunded and, by most assessments, unable to shift the balance against entrenched gangs.
In September 2025, the Security Council authorized a far larger successor mission: the Gang Suppression Force (GSF), with an authorized strength of 5,550 personnel. Its mandate covers intelligence-led operations to neutralize gangs, secure critical infrastructure, support humanitarian access, and help reintegrate former fighters. The resolution also established a UN Support Office in Haiti (UNSOH) to provide logistics, medical care, transportation, and communications support to both the GSF and the PNH.
Funding remains the central obstacle. The MSS trust fund received only $113 million in voluntary contributions, more than half from Canada, against an estimated need of $600 to $800 million annually. The GSF is five times the size of its predecessor, and while some funding will flow through the UN budget via UNSOH, most still depends on voluntary contributions from member states. Whether that money arrives will do more than any organizational reform to determine whether the Haitian National Police can reclaim the territory it has lost.