Grass-roots policing

The concept of community policing takes new, innovative forms to bridge the people-police divide.

ONE of the public services that can possibly never satisfy the consumer is the police. There are eternal complaints the world over that the average policeman, especially the one at the cutting edge level, is authoritarian; most of the time he is out of tune with what the community needs and he will abuse his powers at the slightest provocation. This is why there is a constant clamour to train him to behave himself even as he is taught how to forge a strong positive relationship with all those whom he is supposed to serve.

It was this assessment of a critical function of the state that generated a few decades ago a reform movement called community policing (COP). It started out with the proposition that there was a chasm between the producers and consumers of police service that required to be bridged. The thrust was in favour of bringing about a people-friendly police force and establishing a working arrangement wherein the existing distrust gave place to mutual confidence. The well-motivated exercise has gained strength over the years, despite great odds in the form of police resistance arising mainly out of a fear of loss of power.

In the past decade or so, the original COP concept has undergone a few more than cosmetic changes. Like democracy, COP means different things to different people. Traditionalists and strict constructionists, however, frown on what they consider a loose application of the original concept. They believe that COP is not about mere police-community relations. It is basically meant to be a system in which the consumers themselves take over certain aspects of policing so that they relieve the regular policeman from a burgeoning workload.

For example, in the model developed by United States police, local citizens perform a majority of chores at mini police stations in which the police component comprises hardly one or two officers. These mini stations, which are similar to our police outposts, would not have come about if citizen volunteers had not offered to run them whenever the assigned policemen had to go out on fieldwork. I do not, however, endorse a prudish approach that confines COP to this model in which the public are brought in only as additional labour. This is because what one needs to see more is the community appreciating the complexities of policing rather than performing certain police functions in order to lessen the work burden of policemen.

It is this philosophy of promoting a rapport between the police and the community and bridging the gap between them that underlies whatever has been done in the name of COP in many countries. My two gurus in American universities Prof. David Bayley of the State University of New York, Albany, and Prof. Jack Greene of Temple University, Philadelphia (who is now with Northeastern University, Boston) are great exponents of COP. They will certainly agree that we should avoid shibboleths and keep on innovating so that this style of policing goes beyond a slogan and becomes an eminently workable proposition in the field.

I was invited to a truly global conference on COP held recently in the beautiful city of Kochi in Kerala. The initiative came from a small group of academics and practitioners who call themselves the International Police Executive Symposium (IPES), and it evoked generous response from a forward-looking Kerala Police. This was indeed a welcome meeting of minds. The hospitality was overwhelming. The organising committee headed by Jacob Punnoose, Director General of Police, an upright and a no-nonsense police leader, and assisted by Manoj Abraham, Kochi Commissioner, and B. Sandhya, Inspector General of Police, who is the Nodal Officer for the Kerala COP project Janamaithri Suraksha laid on a programme that was professionally exhilarating.

AFGHAN PRESENCE

The nearly 130 delegates from more than 40 countries added lustre to the proceedings. The icing on the cake was the presence of a delegation from the Afghanistan police force along with the Adviser to the Afghan Ministry of Interior and a United Nations Development Programme Coordinator. If not for anything else, the IPES will have to be complimented for bringing in the Afghan contingent and giving it the much-needed exposure at a critical juncture in its struggle with insurgency. What was equally heart-warming was the presence on the occasion of Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram and State Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan.

If the Kerala Police proudly showcased its Janamaithri Suraksha Project (JSP), a model for COP, it was with some justification. Launched more than two years ago as a follow-up to the recommendations of the Justice K.T. Thomas Commission on Kerala Police Performance and Accountability, JSP contemplates identifying a beat constable who will be in daily touch with about 1,000 households in a particular locality to get to know firsthand the local safety problems.

The objective was basically one of crime reduction, something that purists among police scholars on the subject would say is one beyond the ambit of COP. Supplementing the beat police officer is a committee of local citizens, formed on a non-political basis, to discuss security issues and arrive at certain decisions for implementation. Ongoing criminal investigations and matters related to arrests of individuals are deliberately kept out of the purview of this committee so as to avoid charges of interference in police routine. Night patrolling, traffic safety and environment safety are the usual subjects that engage a JSP committee at the local level. Introduced initially in 43 police stations, the project has now been extended to 100 more stations because of its wide acceptance.

Interestingly, one station has even acquired an International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) certification for excellence. What has possibly contributed to the progress of the scheme is that it was not imposed from above without any consultation process. A draft scheme prepared by the police was, in fact, discussed threadbare at various forums, both at the political and community levels before being adopted and implemented. The lesson here, therefore, is unless there is a consensus in society about how to get the best out of policing, there will be continual complaints about the quality of service. While politicisation of the police is to be guarded against, there is always the advantage of carrying along those who have law-making authority while fixing a broad police agenda. This is what is happening in the United Kingdom, where the Local Police Authority has a cross-section of local politicians and concerned citizens, and it is this Authority which is competent to lay down policy, of course, taking care not to erode the operational autonomy of the police.

Incidentally, the National Police Commission, NPC, which was appointed in 1977, had this in mind when it suggested the creation of a State Security Commission in each State. This model is yet to become a reality despite a stern Supreme Court directive in 2006 that all NPC recommendations will have to be strictly implemented.

THE ASWAS MODEL

Several other models also came up before the Kochi conference. One of these was Aswas in Assam, a State that has been greatly affected by United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) insurgency. At police initiative, about 850 children, mostly orphans, have been taken care of by Aswas so that they become useful citizens and have the basic attainments to get meaningful jobs. Women who had lost their husbands at the hands of insurgents have also been similarly helped. This scheme may not strictly fall under the COP definition. But projects such as these go a long way in transforming police image and facilitating community help in critical police tasks.

One relevant question here is how far COP can be implemented in a strife-torn area like Jammu and Kashmir. Also whether this concept would help reduce tension in a locality that has a history of animosity between religious groups. There does not seem to be a clear answer to either question although a tightly drawn-up COP scheme could help in a few ways. Interestingly, Taliban-induced insurgency has not deterred the Afghan police force from trying some COP experiments. Pictures shown by the Afghan team at the conference confirmed that there was an ongoing dialogue between the police and citizens. This is encouraging in the context of a distinct possibility of the Coalition Forces pulling out of the country in the next few years and when there will be a greater need for a robust civil society to fill the gap.

Events such as the Kochi conference cannot be dismissed as a mere jamboree. They promote a lively exchange of ideas between academics and practitioners in the area of modern policing. Each has a lot to learn from the other. This is essential because a closed mind is a sure recipe for disaster.