“Report Police hotline, how can I help you?” Milton Fonseca answers the phone in the office of ASJ’s (formerly known as AJS) Anti-Corruption Legal Assistance (ALAC) program.

“Mm-hmm,” he says, opening a document and beginning to type. “Where did this happen?”

The caller had suffered from an injustice all too common in Honduras – during a routine traffic stop, a police officer had demanded an arbitrary payment, despite the fact that the caller had not broken any traffic regulations. When the caller said no, the officer refused to return the caller’s driver’s license.

Thankfully, the caller, who asked not to be identified, had seen a news report about a new way to report corrupt police officers. A quick google search turned up the number, and within minutes, Milton was finalizing the report to share with Carlos Pego, ASJ’s lawyer in charge of police corruption.

“This is a very important tool to compile information related to members of the police who are being evaluated by the Commission, but also for those who were already approved,” said Omar Rivera, a member of the Police Reform Commission.

“We’ve said this many times, those who are being approved to continue in police service are not being given a “blank check”, he continued, “they can be reported if anyone identifies that their actions are outside of the law or if they are linked with corrupt networks or bands of organized crime.”

As the Commission strengthens internal reporting structures, it’s also important that citizens across Honduras have their own methods of reporting police corruption. In an institution where police leaders have been accused of assassination and cooperation with drug traffickers, a bribe requested at a traffic stop may seem like a relatively minor crime.

But it’s these day-to-day interactions that most affect Hondurans’ trust in the police. As these police face investigation and consequences for their actions, Honduras will continue to move towards a country where justice, and not impunity, reigns.