The Hindu : New Delhi News : Focus on shifting policing from crime figures

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Saturday, Sep 30, 2006
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New Delhi

Focus on shifting policing from crime figures

The new Police Act plans radical changes. Prashant Pandey tells more...

Evaluating police performance on the basis of crime figures has often led to allegations of the police fudging these figures to show that they have performed well. But if the provision of preparing a strategic police plan and reviewing it on a regular basis -- as proposed in the draft outline of the new Police Act -- is implemented, such practices that neither truly reflect the existing crime situation nor are comprehensive assessments of the police performance may become a thing of the past.

To encapsulate the proposal, the draft outline envisages that the State Government shall, in consultation with the State Police Board, draw up a strategic policing plan for a three-year period duly identifying the areas of priority and a plan of action to overcome the problems. Within three months of the Act coming into force, the strategic plan would be placed before the State legislature and reviewed every three years thereafter.

Also, the State Government would place reports on the action taken in connection with the plan before the legislature annually. The strategic plan, the annual reports and the reviews shall be made readily available to the public.

The policing plan will be prepared on the basis of inputs received from the districts on policing needs. The superintendents of police would formulate these inputs in consultation with the community.

With the involvement of the people at the grassroots level and their representatives in the legislature ensured, the policing plan is likely to be more practical and participatory.

Also, since the State Police Board itself will not comprise solely of police officers, a mechanism can be put in place where the focus would be on the quality of policing. Thus, in all likelihood, the police would take a break from number crunching and finding "ingenious" ways to keep them in check.

As far as the Delhi police are concerned, there has been an effort to take the focus away from the numbers game in the past few years. On the one hand there has been a grudging acceptance by the police leadership in the past that burking (shirking from registration of cases to keep crime figures in check) existed, and on the other there has been a conscious attempt to take the figures away from the limelight and focus instead on the quality of policing. But such attempts are subject to priorities of the police leadership that can change.

The involvement of the legislature -- Parliament in case of the Delhi police -- is also more or less nominal as a "policing plan" is often limited to budgetary allocations. A substantial increase in budget is often treated as an "aye" for the police performance.

On the other hand, police functioning is usually discussed when there is a sudden spurt in a particular crime at a particular place or for the excesses inflicted by the police in a certain situation. In other words, there is little constructive appraisal of the policing.

It is in this context that the strategic policing plan will create a mechanism that will facilitate a continuous interaction between the State executive, the legislature and the people in general on what is essentially a service as crucial as, say, health or municipal services.

However, crime figures would not completely cease to be meaningful. These can well be used for various studies and analysis that can ultimately help in developing a more relevant policing plan.

At the end of it all, the proposal -- though not entirely new as many other countries have adopted the mechanism -- is known to have worked for those who have tried it. What is important is that the provision should be included in the final statute and implemented in its true spirit.

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