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Improving the system of policing

A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

The police should be trained to improve professionalism and enhance operational efficiency. While making use of the latest technologies, they should also serve as a model for conduct and discipline.

THE CHENNAI Metropolitan Police have done a good job over the past 150 years and built a robust institutional framework. In my view, it is essential to increase the strength of the Chennai Metropolitan Police by a minimum of 10 per cent from the present 18,000, based on the crime pattern and societal needs. In this changed scenario, the role of the police force in general, and the city police in particular, has become even more emphatic and important. Our efforts to grow as an economy are hindered very often by violence propagated by some misguided elements. Such inequilibrium in society may impact our economy. Our security forces generally work away from the limelight. Their successes and sacrifices always go unsung while their failures make news.

I have certain challenges for the police force as well as an ideal profile of a police force, which will play a pivotal role in the transformation of India into a developed nation. Our police force needs to be friendly, corruption-free, responsible, tolerant of ambiguity and pressure, and must have compassion and empathy for the people. It should be efficient and time conscious, stress tolerant, mentally and physically fit and robust, able to provide high quality leadership potential at all levels of the hierarchy, and be a model for conduct and discipline. Police stations ought to be equipped with adequate facilities and safety in difficult areas. It is the responsibility of senior leaders to ensure that periodic training for the police constable is organised and the police stations have operational amenities and electronic connectivity. Accountability should flow from the highest level of the police force down to the police constable.

Latest technological advancements should be made use of. There is a need for Wi-max and Wi-Fi connectivities with state-of-the-art security for police communication. Data about habitual criminals, including fingerprints and DNA, should also be available online to all police stations through a centralised data centre with an appropriate mechanism for validation and verification without duplication of data. Video conferencing should be used in an effective way. The Chennai Metropolitan Police may take the initiative of suggesting multi-media conferencing facility from the central prisons to some of the city courts in order to ensure that time and money are not spent only for production of undertrials before courts.

There is a need for adequate training to personnel at different levels to improve professionalism and enhance operational efficiency of the system as a whole. This should be kept in mind while augmenting the police force. It may also be useful to consider exposing our police force to the international models where modernisation has already taken place. The focus must be on innovative approaches to application of sophisticated technologies in the field.

Our capabilities such as communications, rail and business infrastructure are exposed and vulnerable to terrorism. In this scenario, intelligence agencies and police have to have an integrated approach. Those who threaten our security and our peace often can intermix with our public and may become indistinguishable particularly in the cities. They use very high-end technologies. Innovative flow charts have to be evolved with experience to find how this phenomenon is taking place and how intelligence agencies can counter it.

One of the major revolutions in information has been the advent of the World Wide Web. It contains a vast amount of information. In the earlier days, intelligence used to be gathered by field officers, working directly near the source of information. Today, intelligent mining of data from newspapers, websites, and so on, can give ample information about possible groups, their intentions, and their connections. Regular monitoring of the Internet can give clues about terrorist groups, their origins, and their supporters.

Combating cyber crime

Economic prosperity will also mean that many Indians will be doing business in the digital world on the web. In this new era, crime, law, and justice will be completely different. Under the present laws, for example, the jurisdiction will correspond to the location where the crime is committed and where the damage occurs — very often both being the same location. Whereas in the digital world, the crime may originate from a strange place even outside our own shores and may damage organisational wealth, which will be in the digital form, in multiple locations. Our police have to build the capacity to define jurisdictions in a way that any crime committed against India or its assets by anyone from anywhere shall be punishable by Indian law. The police community must enable formulation of progressive and innovative crime detection systems for the digital economy.

Women generally feel they are not safe in certain places. In addition, there are a number of incidents of violence against women. Kidnapping, abduction, and extortion have become a serious problem in certain States. Several methods are used by individuals and groups to create large scale scams and frauds. Even educational and medical institutions are not spared from leakage of question papers. Every election sees episodes of criminal attacks on candidates, booth capturing, tampering with ballot boxes, and methods to disturb the democratic process. Nobody wants to be a witness in a trial due to the sense of insecurity and lack of confidence in the system. The jurisdiction issue many times results in FIRs not being filed on time, thus giving an opportunity to the criminals to destroy all evidence.

Every Station House Officer (SHO) should be instructed that he is bound to register a complaint immediately. Every police station should be provided with a computer for registration of complaints and the e-mail address of the SHO should be published. There should be the option to send the complaint by e-mail to the officer concerned with a copy to the higher authorities whose e-mail id should also be widely published. Every complainant should get a receipt for the complaint launched with intimation to the higher authorities. Procedures for registering complaints should be widely publicised in leading newspapers and the electronic media. The higher authorities should be apprised of the progress of the cases. It must be made mandatory that all police officers should give an action taken report within ten days to superior officers. All police officers should abstain from pressuring the complainant to withdraw or compromise his or her complaint. If such circumstances are found, higher authorities should take action against erring police officers.

Technology could be made use of for force augmentation and making the system more efficient. To attract and retain talented youth in the police there is a need to design attractive service conditions. The aim of training should be to provide a cultural change by emphasising ethical and moral values. The organisational culture and behaviour should be made conducive to nurture and promote the values taught in the training institutions. The training package may include multi-level gender sensitive training to both women and men. The police need to promote an organisational culture where the concept of reward and punishment becomes the spirit of functioning of the organisation. This will be needed to sustain the motivation level of the personnel.

A master plan for a city traffic system should be evolved for the short term, medium term, and long term — using a mathematical model. The objective should be to halve peak hour commuting time and fuel wastage, and lower carbon emissions. IITs and other academic institutions can be the partners. For the short term, put in place staggered working hours and working days especially for schools, offices, factories and courts. Create intelligent traffic light systems to ensure fast and smooth movement of traffic.

Long-term infrastructure development for traffic decongestion has to be planned and executed, taking into account the growth of the city's population, through public-private partnership such as build, operate, and transfer schemes. A police call centre (IT-based) should be established to provide service to the citizens of Chennai against the different types of crimes, create awareness among the people about their rights and responsibilities, in short function as become a citizens' help desk.

(Adapted from President Kalam's address at the 150th year celebrations of the Chennai Metropolitan Police held in Chennai on January 5, 2007.)

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