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Prerequisites for community policing and its successful implementation
Razzak Raza
The concept of community policing spread worldwide during the last quarter of the last century. The limitations of police’s 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 various police actions. Especially, the use of deadly force, random and mass arrest after a predatory felony the police highhandedness 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 outside entity the traditional way of policing, that is, “more police, more patrol, more detectives and faster response time” 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. 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.
The fear of crime is much more dangerous than the actual crime. Continuous decay of orderly setup in the neighborhood compels the law-abiding citizens from the community based activities. People feel that they are not safe, their residences are not safe and their children are not safe. 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.
Partners of police
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.
The term ‘community policing’ is always used very simplistically by many police officers as well as by the stakeholders. Some people describe community policing with respect to foot patrol in a particular area by the general people. Some police officers limit the community policing only at imparting information by the community members about criminal activities and thus helping the police to arrest the law-breakers. They cannot think community policing beyond some ceremonial activities which focus on improving the existing police-public relations.
Community policing is a philosophy and an organisational strategy which contains a wide range as well as a very high domain. The implementation process of community policing philosophy may require 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.
Community policing in US
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. For example, one national survey of law enforcement agencies found that only about 50 percent of the police chiefs and sheriffs queried had a clear understanding of what community policing mean”.
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. 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, organising community meetings or conducting community survey.i Some people mingle the strategy for implementing community policing with the philosophy. Frequently heard terms like problem-oriented policing, zero-tolerance policing etc, are merely strategies by which community policing could be implemented.
Role of social workers
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. But research shows that only less than a quarter of the whole gamut of police work is directly related to crime fighting. Police officers having successful careers spend most of their time to maintain orders, resolute conflict and other social service related to non-criminal problems. 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.
Root causes of crimes
Community policing addresses the root causes of crimes. It adopts pro-active approaches to the social problems and enables community members to solve these problems using their own resource, and intellect. Community Policing broadens the police role in a society beyond the police officers’ duties written in the books.
To materialise 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 mobilisation 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.
Social safety
It provides a forum for the citizens to express their problems and needs and allows the police to educate citizens about crime and disorder in their community. It also allows citizens to express complaints involving the police and provides a forum for the police to inform the community about their success and failures. So, community consultation eliminates the mistrust and misunderstanding among the partners of social safety.
Community mobilisation 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. Police make the other agencies to understand that if they neglect or avoid their own responsibilities they will help decaying the neighborhood.
So, the police encourage the public works department to mend their broken windows, tell the city-corporations to clear the garbage, make the security guards or night-guards of a private company to become alert. The police, by community mobilisation, link all the public service agencies together and make them understand that every thing is related to police problems. To mobilise 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 organisations in the community. They will explain the philosophy and strategy of community policing to the local and national media, the professionals, businessmen and political leaders.
Major obligation
Changing the police organisation 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 organisation. The Police are a highly bureaucratic centralised organisation. The hierarchy of the police bureaucracy is specifically defined. Decision comes from the top to the down. Though the rank and file officers of a traditional police organisation may enjoy enough discretion to enforce the laws, they have a very little scope to make decisions from their own to solve the community problems. They are tied up with organisational rules, regulations and established culture. Root level officers of the police are more accountable to their senior officers, than they are to the community.
Decentralised police
But community policing demands a decentralised police organisation where officers of the lower ranks will enjoy enough leverage and decision making freedom. Community policing demands a flexible police organisation where non-police resources will be welcomed and will work as the equal partners of the police officers. So, to make a police department suitable for embracing community policing philosophy, its organisational structure, culture and management strategies should be changed or at lest should be altered. Some proponents of community policing philosophy demand that the police organisation should flatten the pyramid like hierarchy reducing the number of ranks, especially, the ranks at the supervisor or managerial stage. The bosses will delegate powers and responsibilities to the lower ranks and thus allow them to make decisions of their own to solve the local problems.
The change of organisational culture is a major pre-requisite for implementing community policing. Organisational change is necessary for two reasons: first, to stimulate and encourage the police officers to perform community policing functions; and second to make the organisation more flexible and amenable to developing community partnerships and creative problem solving strategies.
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 organisational 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. Intensive motivational training, therefore, is a must to adopt the new culture.
As community policing address the root causes of crime and disorder, initially every problem will be of police problems. Police officers cannot fight shy of citizens’ complains on the plea that they are not cognizable or of civil natures. They may not tell flat to the community members that they have nothing to do with the broken windows of a public apartment building which facilitate for frequent burglaries. Or they should not simply indicate the community members to the office of the City Corporation for the removal of garbage from the roadsides which stray dogs and pick pockets use for safer den. They must take notice of and proper steps for removing the community concerns. So, the police officers may think and thus will be afraid of that ‘community policing would blur the lines of authority between police and citizens, and put unreasonable demands on the police to solve all community problems making them over burdened with unsolvable tasks.
The most important feature of the community policing philosophy is problem solving. Problem solving consists of scanning diversified problems encountered by the community members, analysing 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.
Recognising criminals
Community policing is dominantly a preventive and proactive policing approach which prefers to dig out the underlying causes of criminal activities and engage necessary efforts and resources to eliminate the causes. “Problem solving is essential to effective prevention. With this tool, police are not merely responding to the same locations and individuals over and over to address crime; they are addressing underlying problems that can eliminate, or at least reduce, future occurrences.’’
In Problem Solving Exercise the community may prioritise problems of different gravities and even in opposite gravities than the police do. Robbery in the market installations may be the highest concern to the police. But the community may argue that it is the drug dealing and eave teasing which should be addressed first. The police officers as the driving force should make a bridge between the diversified opinions of the two partners. In problem solving the community members along with the other social organisations should give necessary input to the police efforts so that the police management may overcome the limitations of resources including monetary budget and manpower.
Problem solving may include training for the community members by the police officers or other criminal justice excerpts on how to prevent crimes; recognise the criminals and to minimise the cost of criminal activities. 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 Bangladesh, people are prone to believing that community policing is a policing system where people will be treated as police officers. They will be engaged in conflict-reduction, mediating disputes. 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. They think that it is nothing but the traditional policing approach to make people transiently satisfied, and, so long as the present influx of crime will subside, the police will go back to their original authoritarian position. It is, therefore, the police authority and the government who will come forward to explain the philosophy and strategy of community policing to the people.
Essential components
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 concept reveals that the implementation process of community policing (as it is now) lacks the essential components. Organisational 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 organisation and its command and control, the implementation of community policing is a far cry.
Bangladesh Police is a typical centralised bureaucratic organisation 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 executiveii. But community policing demands the police organisation to be more accountable to the community than to the police hierarchy. It is, in fact, the desire and need of the community members which will guide the police authority to make decisions, and, the rank and file officers will independently adopt most of the critical decisions. But, so far, there are no visible initiatives for changing the police organisation’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 organisations. 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 people of ordinary identity or with government portfolio think that community policing is a day today police program to reduce the crime rate. But the community policing program should be and must be a nation-wide program and the participation of every citizen as well as every social organisation is a sine qua non for its success.
Confusion in 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’, ‘organisational 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. It is mentionable that in the western countries, especially in the USA, the community policing is viewed as national programs and the federal government allocate funds to the police agencies. They recruit additional police officers, professionals and experts for community policing purposes. They also set up Community Policing Institutes to train the police officers as well as the stakeholders. They have developed Problem Oriented Policing Guides for the officers and trainers. In the basic training of the newly recruited police officers, lessons on community policing cover a wide range of space. They mobilised the whole community to problem solving and built up durable police- public partnerships.
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, it appears to be a bad start from the part of the police bosses. The police leadership might have different opinions and explanations of it. However, I think, still there is time. 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 organisation 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 will also feel the urge to build an efficient and effective police service. Finally, every community member should know that the implementation of the community policing is not just an experimental policing approach, it is, rather a proven strategy which all the police organisations across the globe have taken for granted as the way of better police performance.
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