| Community Policing |
|
|
|
Police perform a vital democratic function in a free society. The police are the institution of government that poses the most constant presence in the life of many citizens. They carry not only the burden of the law, but also the symbolic burden of all that is government. Therefore, it is not surprising that the tensions and frustrations of the citizens come to focus on the police. Power and legitimacy are the key variables that affect the proper discharge of the police function. The way police handle situations; therefore, can contribute substantially to mutual antagonism, disaffection with government and disrespect for the law.
Studies have shown that there is substantial evidence to suggest that when governments are unresponsive to their needs, citizens tend to seek redress and to fulfill needs through extra legal means. When citizens find government complex, confusing and unwilling, a chasm can develop between the citizens and the government. Much of the alienation may arise from the lack of power, the citizens, feel in relation to the institutions that have been set up to run their lives. Citizens are more likely to resort to violence when they are alienated and perceive themselves as members of a group that has less access than other groups to valued resources. Therefore, political violence can be the substitute for other forms of power. A minority (or a majority) confronted with what they see as an unfair, unjust or a cruel system of coercive social controls may dramatize their rejection of the system by publicly revolting against it. Political violence in Wana Waziristan reminds us that it is one of the ultimate weapons of any people whose political aspirations remain significantly unfulfilled after other alternatives have been exhausted.
The police are the only agency in society, which is granted the legal authority to use force (violence) in the exercise of their duties. At the same time the police are able to deprive individuals of the very rights and freedoms, which democratic societies regard as so important. The enormous powers of the police combined with the discretionary nature of policing, mean that actions of the police are easily seen as threatening and unjustified, when people do not perceive them to be fair and in the interests of the community.
Governing is the principal function of the police, and knowledge of the governed is essential for progress towards a safe community and a fair, more caring police. The function of the police is not to govern a reluctant people by force but to protect the public from a lawless minority. Police forces are not an arm of the State but servants of the community whose confidence they must secure. The problem of obedience is central to the understanding of government. If the police are to secure the confidence and assent of the community they must try to strike a balance between the measures to enforce the law and the maintenance of peace. This means they have to work on the principle of policing by consent, rather than coercion.
The most significant change that Police Order 2002 and Local Government Ordinance 2001 brings to governance in Pakistan is placing the elected Nazim as the administrative manager of a local body. Never before in Pakistan’s history have elected local representatives been given the authority to direct the activities of government bureaucrats. In the past the key government representative at the local level, the Deputy Commissioner (DC), was the de facto head of the local councils. He was also the chief magistrate and the controller of the police. The District Police now report to the elected leader (Zila Nazim) and a Public Safety Commission will be created for oversight.
Police Order 2002 is actually replete with checks and balances operating at many levels. Nazim’s can request the removal of DPO’s. The system appears cumbersome, and possibly fraught with potential for misuse, but it is a far cry from the old systems where whomever got to the top ruled the pile without question—until he was knocked off. This will be an interesting aspect of the process to observe, especially with regards to fundamental rights of the citizens.
The devolution policy is fundamentally based on the principle of subsidiary. In recent years many governments around the world have initiated devolution plans, but few have elected to undertake such a radical and immediate power shift. The Government of Pakistan appears certain that such a move is required to break the country out of the long-term deterioration of public services and quality of life.
The weakness of police-community relations in many parts of the country is today perhaps the greatest obstacle to effective policing. An improvement in the relationships between the police and the communities they are tasked with serving is a vital step towards the achievement of greater levels of affordable personal safety, by the present regime.
The basic mission of the present government is to guarantee the fundamental rights of the people of Pakistan. To achieve this aim, the present regime has set up a new institution with the name of Public Safety Commission; an administrative commission operating on the basis of liaison and coordination with the Cabinet, the National Public Safety Commission is a government body responsible for the administrative supervision of the police. The assignment of the National Public Safety Commission is to guarantee the neutrality of the police by insulating the force from political pressure and to ensure the maintenance of democratic methods in police administration. The commission's primary function is to supervise the Police force. The creation of Public Safety Commissions to be set up at Tehsil, District and provincial level will function as watchdogs over the exercise of almost unlimited authority of the police. It is vital that eminent persons from various walks of life be nominated on these public safety commissions to enable them to act independently so as to ensure that the police, who have hitherto been used mostly for political victimization, do not trample upon fundamental rights.
The police do not exist in isolation and cannot operate on their own. Police in a democratic society are delegated their authority by the state on behalf of the people and are, in the final analysis, supposed to be accountable to the people they serve. The enormous powers of the police combined with the discretionary nature of policing, mean that actions of the police are easily seen as threatening and unjustified, when people do not perceive them to be fair and in the interests of the community.
Police Order 2002 promises neutrality of the police department by keeping it out of executive’s control and making it accountable to public through safety commissions and complain authorities. It brought about a fundamental change in the outlook of the police. The conception of their obligation to the public and their duty to the country underwent a radical change. The net result was an all-round improvement in their standard of work and conduct. It also changed the attitudes of the public towards the police. The active cooperation between the police and the public broke down the old barriers of fear, suspicion and contempt for the police. Instead, it developed mutual understanding, respect and trust. These trends are consistent with democratic values. This difficult nature of policing means that one of the "most important regulating factors are that the police must secure public approval for their actions" (Pike 1986:23).
Besides promoting these mutually reinforcing and supportive trends, the strategy is a useful management tool as well. Much police work is performed without close supervision. Members of the public through Public Safety Commissions and by their elected representatives can assist police agencies in the evaluation of individual officer performance. Letters commending outstanding performance by officers, or complaining of police misconduct, are some of the valuable community input for police management. Such community involvement assist police administrators and does much to reinforce the close ties between the public and their police. They demonstrated that increased interaction with the community reduced opportunities for malpractice and indifference to work and that it improved morale and discipline.
The broad objectives of Police Order 2002 are improved police-community relations, reduced tension and greater mutual understanding between the police and the public. It is an attempt to bring the officers closer to the communities served, to improve the rapport with community residents. This relationship ultimately fosters a better two-way exchange of information. Officers help community residents learn skills, which may prevent crime; they receive, in turn, information that can be useful both to prevent and solve crime. The formula is basic: contact – communication – trust - exchange of information.. Even with the best will in the world, the police themselves cannot ever hope to achieve satisfactory results unless the rest of the community backs them. Crime always remains the collective responsibility of the community as a whole. Community relations, however, are not the exclusive business of specialized units, but the business of the entire department, from the chief to the patrolman. Community relations are not a matter of special programmes but encompass all aspects of police work.
They must be considered in the selection, training, deployment and promotion of personnel; in the execution of field procedures; in staff policy-making and planning; in the enforcement of departmental discipline; and in the handling of citizens’ complaints. No community relations or recruiting or training programme will succeed if courteous and compassionate behavior by policemen in their contacts with citizens is not encouraged. Neither the majority of the police nor the majorities of most communities are all that excited about the prospect of comprehensive police-community programming.
Lord Scar man, the one-man commission who inquired into the London riots in 1981, laid particular stress on the importance of policing by consent, and he saw consultation and accountability as two ways to realizing it. He recommended that statutory provisions should be made to require local consultation between the police and the community. This may perhaps be one solution to the problem.
"The Wana Experience" makes it amply clear that force by itself is not a very effective method of obtaining compliance of the citizens. Voluntary compliance is much more consistent and effective than compliance which depends upon brute force. It has shown that citizen participation can not only bring about a change of attitude and group perceptions but also change of behavior and conciliation.
Dr P A J Waddington concluded in his report on the investigation in the Boipatong massacre in South Africa, that one of the reasons the police had failed was "a lack of awareness of the importance of sound community relations with all sections of the population which can assist in both maintaining the peace and investigating crime" (Waddington 1992:46).
Nevertheless, it remains an issue for future research. While community-oriented policing has proved effective in certain circumstances, it is not a panacea for all political situations as was the experience of the present regime since 1999. 2002 is the period that terrorism was spreading to the North Western Frontier Province and all over the country. During the latter part of 2001 Jihadi organizations from Afghanistan specifically and all over the world by and large were actively recruiting members especially in the NWFP and from the whole country in general. The recruited members were carried across to South Afghanistan where they were trained in terrorist tactics. No amount of community vigilance could stop recruitment because of the strategies used by the terrorists. Once waves of trained terrorists were back in their own areas, violence spread rapidly and the frequencies and the incidents increased. Even though community support was active by way of information and even private funds for the security of police stations, the strategy failed to halt the violence against the determined and trained "terrorists". Though community-oriented policing can be an effective answer for every problem that may have to be confronted by the police, particularly when actors who understand the dynamics of situations manipulate the conditions in the polity by providing sanctuary, training, supplies and encouragement, as was the case with the militant Talibans in Wana Waziristan. In the face of such external support, community-oriented policing is unlikely to produce the encouraging results that have already been the experience both in the United States and in Pakistan.
Fahad Ahmed is Lahore based columnist and Advocate High Court by profession.
Email : fahad_urs@hotmail.com
Users' Comments (2) |
|
(0 vote)
10-09-2007 10:06, IP 124.29.214.225, Guest Good work Mr. Siddiqi
10-09-2007 09:53, IP 124.29.214.225, Guest  good article Mr. Siddiqi
|
||
|
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
Views: 2595