Daily Times

During a recent conversation with me, a senior police officer used the term “drawing room policing” to highlight how in our part of the world police has been less responsive to the public and, merely, a symbol of the status quo.

Though I had heard about “drawing room politics” but I was unaware of the use of the term for policing. It denotes a style of policing marked by weak connectivity with the community. Globally, policing remained an instrument of coercion during colonial era. However, strengthening of democratic norms the world over came with changes in policing — more transparency, elaborated procedures for use of force, well-defined operational autonomy, functional specialisation, and improved public service delivery. Unfortunately, we still seem to be in intense romance with colonial policing tactics.

It is not possible to carry out policing for public safety without institutionalising the role of the public. Ideally, the police have to extend a protective shield to citizens who, in lieu of such constitutional guarantees, surrender some of their liberties. In polities with such cooperation between the public and the police, the latter is a protector of human liberties.

Even the policing model we inherited from the colonial administration had well-defined arrangements for interaction between the police and the public. However, the gulf between the two has only widened with the passage of time and, consequently, multiplied public mistrust in the police. However, optimum utilisation of social media and other tools of information technology may help us reduce this gulf between the police and the public.

Foot patrolling was once an effective way of collecting credible information and intelligence. The practice also ensured visibility of the police and better response time. The constabulary had been trained to stay updated on local communities, observations about whom were regularly noted down in beat books.

Though telecommunications and vehicular mobility have improved the pace of policing worldwide but in Pakistan we have yet to benefit from the dividends of technology. Patrolling has only led to reduction in police officers’ contacts with the community.

Finally, mass migration from rural to urban areas and mushroom growth of slums has changed the demographic balance drastically. In such a situation, our police stations have been reduced primarily to reporting centers.

Village touring and open houses had been two other effective tools of policing that are now a part of our history owing to a host of factors including luxurious working style of senior police officers, prevalence of corrupt practices and security threats. Gone are the days when senior officers would conduct tours in their jurisdictions during which they would visit police stations, hold darbars and meet judges and administration officials as well as the general public. Such traditions had not only ensured welfare of junior staff but also provided opportunities to officers to learn about political and socio-cultural dynamics in their areas. Even the station house officers (SHOs) now patrol their areas only in private cars. If an SHO is not interactive with his own staff how can he pretend to have any knowledge of areas in his jurisdiction. In such a situation, the only viable option for professional survival of an SHO would be through tactics like appeasing the political elite, and bribing corrupt media persons.

Inspecting police stations has been set aside in chapter 20 of the Police Rules (PR) 1934 as a mandatory task for senior police officers. However, the practice has either been discontinued or reduced to the status of a mere formality, left to the discretion of the ministerial staff.

Crime review meetings — once a regular practice — have also now been reduced to a mere formality. These meetings used to be an opportunity for the senior officers to learn about the professional capabilities of the force and about hot spots and modus operandi of criminals. The knowledge gained in this way would later be shared with other stakeholders of the criminal justice system and the government. In the absence of this practice, we are in a dire need of ways through which the government can be updated on the crime scene so that it may plan and allocate resources accordingly.

Police Rules had also required maintenance of a Village Crime Register to record crime data including information about visits by persons of doubtful character. The practice is not followed very diligently now. Similarly, the requirement to update Information Sheets for people from other police precincts known or believed to have visited the precinct concerned with criminal intent and History Sheets for information like appearance of criminals and their methods are also not met now.

Gone are the days when inter-provincial and inter-district coordination meetings were conducted regularly. Such practices had been very effective in reducing the space of operations for the criminals. Though in the post 9/11 scenario, we have introduced Safe City projects and set up Dolphin, Elite, and Rapid Response forces and Counter-Terrorism Departments but coordination among different police agencies is still weak.

Without making police stations a proactive and responsive component of criminal justice system, we’re only hoodwinking the poor taxpayers with introduction of new initiatives.

The author tweets at @alibabakhel