The New Nation - Internet Edition

Razzak Raza

The concept of community policing spread world-wide during the late quarter of the last century. The limitations of police ability to combat crime and the rapid generalization of police duties made the policing approach impending that it involved the whole community to solve the whole gamut of community problems.

Policing approach isolated from the community participation may lack legitimacy for many of police actions. Especially, the use of deadly force, random and mass arrest after a predatory felony the police-high handedness over the community creates gulfs of distance by sprouting mistrust and misunderstanding between the community members and the police. In a society where the police are viewed as an out-side entity the traditional way of policing, is not, at all, sufficient to improve the public order.

The police system works in the community and the very existence of the police is for the community. The community is the customer of police services. Therefore, there may arise question, what product do your customers cherish? And how the customers want their services to be delivered? The controlling of crime and maintaining of orders in the society for which the police primarily exist, is impossible if the community keep aloof from the police initiatives. It was discovered that only a small part of police work is related to criminal law enforcement. Most of police works involve order maintenance and service activities.

The fear of crime is much more dangerous than the actual crime. Continuous decay of orderly set-up in the neighborhood compels the law-abiding citizens from the community based activities. It might be that a very few community members fell prey of actual crime; but the community feel that the society is not safe. Police, by their earnest effort can make the arrest number bigger, can increase the conviction rate in the court, but the fear of crime may still be high. So, different approach than the high handed crime fighting should be made to salvage the community members from the fear of crime.

It is now viewed that involving the community to the police work, delegating a portion of police power to them and to declare them as the partners of police responsibilities will work as a panacea against the fear of crime. Police approach, to reduce crime and the fear of crime, therefore, experienced a sea-change. Police officers began advocating that they are no more merely a crime fighting force; they are, rather, a community-service-rendering agency. Putting off the traditional garments of criminal law enforcers the police organization imbued with the philosophy of community policing promises to solve all sorts of community problems as a partner of the community they are assigned to serve.

Community Policing is a philosophy and an organizational strategy which contains a wide range as well as a very high domain. The implementation process of community policing philosophy may welcome a variety of innovative initiatives. They may vary from place to place and agency to agency. So, the understanding of the mass people about community policing is not accurately incorrect. The police officers are not also very far from the actual spirit of it. But the intellectual truth is that nobody's conception is clear.

The concept of community policing was also very much hazy to the police chiefs of the USA for many years. "While community policing was being ushered into police departments across the USA, studies had illustrated that few understand the underlying concept''.

Community policing is a policing concept with multiple and practical dimensions. The goals of community policing are to reduce crime and disorder, promotes citizens, quality of life in communities, reduce fear of crime, and improve police-citizen relation [2]. To achieve these goals different strategies are adopted. Popular strategies include instituting foot or bicycle patrols, establishing neighborhood police substations, identifying neighborhood problems, dealing with disorder, organizing community meetings or conducting community survey.

Community policing redefines the role of the police in the society. Traditional policing measures the police performances in term of crime control. It judges the end results of an incident and merely enforces laws. So, in a situation where the law ends or the legal provisions are not clear the police officers remain inactive. They cannot help the people, as because, law does not permits to interfere with the situation, that is, their role is limited by legal provisions. So, community policing urges the police officers to extend their limited role of criminal law enforcement up to the role of social workers and reformers.

To materialize the philosophy of community policing three essential efforts are needed. These are - (1) Community Partnership, (2) Organizational Transformation or Change and (3) Problem Solving Exercise.

People living in the community are considered as the co-producers of public peace and safety. Sir, Robert Peel remarked that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence. So, the co-operation between the police and the citizenry makes the police efforts more successful.

To establish a collaborative partnership between the police and the public two things, such as, community consultation and community mobilization are essentially needed. Consultation is a face to face interaction with the general public, which are done by community meetings. Community consultation rapidly makes up the distance between the police and the public. It eliminates the mistrust and misunderstanding among the partners of social safety.

Community mobilization is the involvement of community members in actual police efforts such as foot-patrol, night watch, community forums. In these efforts police and the community members, as well as, the other agencies work side by side or under a single umbrella to control actual crime and eradicate the fear of crime. Police activate and accelerate the other agencies to perform their own duties and link all the public service agencies together. To mobilize the community into problem solving the police will train and encourage their own members; they will motivate the individuals as well as the social and political organizations in the community.

Changing the police organization to allow the community members to be the partners of police responsibilities is a major obligation of community policing philosophy. But perhaps the most difficult part of community policing initiatives is the transformation of the police organization. The Police are a highly bureaucratic centralized organization. The hierarchy of the police bureaucracy is specifically defined. Decision comes from the top to the down. Rank and file officers are tied up with organizational rules, regulations and established culture. Root level officers of the police are more accountable to their senior officers, than they are to the community.

But community policing demands a decentralized police organization where officers of the lower ranks will enjoy enough leverage and decision making freedom. Community policing demands a flexible police organization. So, to make a police department suitable for embracing community policing philosophy, its organizational structure, culture and management strategies should be changed or at lest should be altered.

The police sub-culture is highly exceptional. Police officers enjoying power of arrest and using deadly force as an inherent authority may not easily think the public as their partners. Sticking to long-practiced organizational values and confining to established routine duties are very dominant in the police department. But community policing is an innovation-welcoming philosophy. It demands the police officers to cope up with new situations with innovative and chanced values in the police sub-cultures. As community policing address the root causes of crime and disorder, initially every problem will be of police problems.

The most important feature of the community policing philosophy is the problem solving. Problem solving consists of scanning diversified problems encountered by the community members, analyzing the underlying causes and engaging available necessary resources to address them. It also includes the assessment of the response strategies. Community policing addresses the whole gamut of social problems which actively or inherently affect the normal lives of the community members. Problem solving is the exercise of brain storming not only by the police officers, but it is a practical exercise of the community where the police officers are the parts.

In problem solving the community members along with the other social organizations should give necessary input to the police efforts so that the police management may overcome the limitations of resources including monetary budget and manpower. The problem solving initiatives may suggest the partners to take up such measures as the perpetrators may find committing crime is impossible or at least difficult.

In these days, community policing has become a buzzing word to the police leaders. Some police officers are earnestly trying to implement this philosophy in their areas of responsibility while some are just carrying out the orders of their senior supervisors. Committees are being formed in the ward, union, thana and district level. News papers, sometimes, publish reports on colorful inaugurations and orientations of these committees. But the fact is that very few police officers of Bangladesh Police, let along the common people, understand the core concept of the community policing philosophy.

In Bangladesh simple-thinking people are prone to believing the community policing as a policing system where people will be treated as oath-taking regular police officers. They love to think that 'community-police' members will be awarded with government funds. Some local elites aspire that under the flag of community policing they will exercise domination over the common people. So, people of bad reputation or of relatively low profile are trying to be included in the proposed committees of community policing. On the other hand, respectable persons of the community are having skeptical opinions on the ongoing community policing initiatives thinking it a traditional policing approach to make people transiently satisfied.

In their first-ever strategic plan Bangladesh Police have singled out community policing as the second field of priority demanding that the implementation is going on.

But a close look into the philosophy reveals that the implementation process of community policing (as it is now) is lack of the essential components. Organizational reform duly preceded the community policing in the action plan. But the reform is yet to begin. The police bosses are trying to get an ordinance approved by the government and then promulgated by the Honorable President.

But their attempts are seemed to be futile. Without bringing necessary changes in the existing police organization and its command and control, the implementation of community policing is a far cry.

Bangladesh Police is a typical centralized bureaucratic organization which inherits the colonial structure and culture. Under the system of police governance established by the 1861 Act, the police forces in India/Bangladesh were unaccountable to anyone except their own hierarchy and the colonial political and administrative executive. But community policing demands the police organization to be more accountable to the community than to the police hierarchy. But there are no visible initiatives for changing the police organization's command and control to the line of community policing.

The successful implementation of the community policing philosophy demands the whole hearted participation of the other government and non-government organizations. That is, the community policing program will be the whole nation's program. But in Bangladesh, the community policing is still viewed as the program only of the police.

The rank and file officers of Bangladesh police are fairly confused on the community policing issues. Their basic training could not give them square ideas on community policing. They are not given in-service training on this new philosophy. Terms like 'problem solving', 'community partnership', 'organizational transformation,' etc., are still intangible to the field level officers and even to some of the mid-level supervisors. Literature on community policing is still at the rudimentary stage in our language. So, self-learning on this new philosophy is not possible for the officers.

A good beginning ushers in a successful completion of any program. But Bangladesh Police are far from it. The preconditions for implementation of community policing, in the true sense, are not fulfilled. So, the police leaders will have to show due prudence and necessary predilection for implementing this philosophy. The government, especially the elected political leadership must be convinced of the necessity of implementing community policing.

It is not at the purview of the police leadership to enact or amend laws appropriate to support the necessary changes of the police organization which is one of the preconditions of the successful implementation of the new policing philosophy. In a democracy, the political leaders promise the citizens a safer and better society to live. Effective policing is the only mean to make a society safe. So, the political leaders should feel the urge to turn Bangladesh police an efficient and effective social service rendering organization for which community policing is both a mean and the end.