With the advent of terrorism in Pakistan after 9/11, the police have been burdened with additional responsibility to tackle the terrorists on the streets. Inherently, the police force is trained for crime control and its hands were already full with it therefore it was neither ready nor equipped to take the added responsibility of confronting the terrorists. The terrorist attack on Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore in 2009 was the turning point in this regard. It was then that the police realised that it had to tackle this hydra too, but of course with the help of intelligence agencies.
Besides surge in terrorism, there has been a rise in crime rate in major cities of Pakistan for last one and a half decade that has jeopardised the security, safety and serenity of the society. So now law-enforcement officers have to grapple with both the problems; rampant terrorism and burgeoning crime. Like other countries of the world, they are facing menaces, more severe and complex, than any they have ever faced. Ironically, they are plagued with dearth of manpower and paucity of funds. They are over-stretched and under-resourced therefore they need to resort to innovations and alternatives to handle the new challenges.
One conceivable way is introduction of Intelligence-led policing (ILP). The concept of ILP is to spend more time to target offenders than responding to crime. The modus operandi is to increase the use of intelligence, surveillance and informants to target major offenders so that police could preemptively fight crime rather than responding to it. ILP can help develop strategy and priorities through a more objective analysis of criminal environment.
Our police force is designed to come into action after a crime is committed or at times when it’s taking place. The yardstick of success is to arrest the culprit or recover the looted articles. The police don’t have the training, capacity and mandate to take preemptive action. Watch and ward system, considered to be meant for preemptive action to deter the criminals, is also in doldrums.
Historically, the police of subcontinent used to rely on informants to track and trace absconders and offenders. There used to be detective foot constables (DFC) in pre-partition era police of subcontinent. There were institutions like Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) and District Intelligence Branch (DIB), which used to carry out intelligence in the realm of crime control. Special Branches also used to keep an eye on the crime and police performance. Over years these arrangements have either paled into inactivity or have become non-existent. Special Branch, despite being the part and parcel of police, is not expected or allowed by the uniformed police to dabble in crime control affairs.
Despite limitation, ILP is considered to be the most important law enforcement innovations of the twenty-first century. It has been employed in UK and the United States. Pakistan can follow the suit as per its own requirements. Here ILP can be introduced in urban centres in a gradual manner with the active assistance of intelligence agencies to fight crime guided by effective intelligence gathering and analysis. Police and CTD are already maintaining close liaison with Intelligence Bureau for countering terrorism. Seeking help of intelligence agencies is also important because increased use of surveillance is not only expensive but can also be questioned as an intrusive and excessive tactic for the government to employ against (often minor) offenders.
A couple of years ago, the Lahore police had tasked the staff of all police stations to gather information about criminals. It cannot be considered ILP. ILP is hierarchical and emphasises the top down approach to law enforcement. Its introduction can be successful only when the senior officers fully get involved in it. Strategy and decision making on basis of intelligence is to be done by the higher echelon of police.
Nevertheless, before fully adopting ILP, the government should go through long-term studies of police forces that have fully implemented and adopted ILP to know its crime reduction benefits. It is also imperative to identify the likely limitations, hiccups and internal implementation problems including technical, organisational and cultural factors that might inhibit an adoption of intelligence-led policing. For example, our police associates success in crime reduction with higher number of arrests. ILP and community based policing aim at preventing crime therefore a different yardstick would be required to assess the effectiveness of these paradigms.
ILP can be greatly helpful in ensuring foolproof security on sensitive events like Muharram processions, public gatherings, and VVIP security and against extortionists, land grabbers and gangs. Patterns developed through intelligence can help devise preventive strategies. It is time to give ILP a try in order to deal with the challenge of an increased crime rate with innovative methods.
The writer is Honorary Director Centre for Peace and Security Studies, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Masters in International Security, War Studies Department, King’s College London. Tweets at N Elahi@Aaibak
Published in Daily Times, August 8th 2017.