Sunday Times 2
Commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Sri Lanka Police
View(s):- Police vs. Community
- Complex dynamics in civilian policing
By Asoka Wijetilleka
In every civilized society, a police system exists for the common good of the entire community. World over, the primary duty of any police force is the prevention and the detection of crime and criminal law enforcement with the view to apprehending perpetrators of crime and collecting evidence against them enabling them to be prosecuted in courts of law and to maintain public tranquility.
Of course, based on the nature of the structure of the State and its organs and the system of law and justice, the structure and the powers and functions of the police vary from country to country. Due to 130 years of British colonial rule, Sri Lanka inherited a police system similar to it’s former colonial rulers- the United Kingdom.
Traffic management: The police spend a great deal of time and resources but most tasks are carried out by motorists who have to abide by road rules.
In many countries including in Sri Lanka, the laws and statutes specify the functions of the police force, the obligation for it to be an Institution for crime prevention and to function in this capacity. However, it meets with misunderstanding and often veiled opposition when it seeks to assert its preventive and social role. This attitude which is widespread among the public, must be changed. The police essentially needs to secure the willing cooperation of the public in voluntary observance of the rules of law.
Law and order is the basic foundation of any civilized society. The most fundamental issue for the police is dealing with the community. Over the passage of time the tasks of the police in serving the community have become more complex and extensive. The police has to accomplish the impossible and therefore has to develop an operating mode that is acceptable to most of the people most of the time. The role of the police is vastly different to the approaches of other state apparatus with a totally divergent “culture” and an arduous 24 x 7 duty to perform, which needs to be understood by society.
The fundamental duty of the police is to serve mankind; to safeguard lives and property; to protect the innocent against deception, the weak against oppression or intimidation, and the peaceful against violence and disorder, and to respect the constitutional rights of all people to liberty, equality and justice.
Nevertheless, the community most of the time seem to be unaware that they expect the police to perform an arduous and a difficult task. Moreover, they are often a scapegoat for the community’s social and moral default. The police in Sri Lanka are primarily responsible for the maintenance of law and order, prevention of the commission of crime, detection of crime, investigation of crime with the view to identifying and aprehending suspects, collecting evidence and thereby facilitating their prosecution in courts of law.
When excercising this primary duty the police is often criticized for its coercive role, while on the other, its attempts at purely preventive and social work are ill-received. “That’s not its job” is often heard with allusion to the alleged incompatibility between its coercive functions and its preventive aspirations.
Due to serious security threats faced by the country as a result of separatist terrorism prepetrated by the LTTE up till mid 2009, which propagated establishing a mono-ethnic, mono-political separate sovereign State in the Northern and Estern Provinces of Sri Lanka, the Sri Lanka Police was compelled to assume additional responsibilities for the protection of the State, sovereignty, its national leaders, the civilian population and property. In this regard, the Sri Lanka Police was required to perform uncoventional duties similar to those performed by the security forces. The deployment of police presonnel to perform national security functions did lead to virtually one half of the entire 85,000 odd police force being deployed either in the Northern or Eastern Provinces referred to as ‘operational areas’.
As a result, the number of police personnel available to perform conventional police duties such as patrolling for the purpose of preventing the commission of crime, early detection of crime and receiving intelligence and conducting criminal investigations, became far less than the actual number required in carrying out such duties and responsibilities effectively.
Be it either for the former or the latter reason, the police alone cannot solve the problem of crime or order. The police certainly could do better with the active participation of the community. The civic community must support compliance with the rule of law, instead of looking to the police as merely an institution responsible for controlling criminality, public tranquility and/or law and order. An excellent case in point is the last general election. The public well understood the importance of good behaviour and obedience to law and order, except in a few isolated negligible number of incidents. This perceptive approach of the public made the role of the police relatively uncomplicated in discharging their duties in the enforcement of law and order with a positive note for the conduct of a fair and a peaceful election. This undoubtedly enhanced the public trust towards the police.
Going by this illustration, of the police as the enforcing arm of the law, it is needless to say that the public adherence to discipline and observance to the rule of law undoubtedly rest as pre-requisites, they being the main stake holders to achieve this objective. This is the most important fabric and foundation, essentially needed if we are to progress as a nation.
C. Wright Mills in his book “Sociological imagination” has referred to the social problems quite correctly as a threat to values. The high level of literacy, social mobility and the long history of excercing the adults franchise cannot be single handedly considered influencing forces to transform behavioural patterns of individuals. Efforts to prevent crime must therefore include the teaching of conventional values. In this context, it is also neccessary to find ways to strengthen individual bonds to society, commitment to the conventional order and participation in conventional activities. The best way is to strenghten the Institutions that socialise people and continue to regulate their behaviour throughout life- the family, the school and the work place and address the individuals as part of the society and teach the necessary values for social well-being. In this backdrop, personal or inner controls are as important as social or external controls in keeping people from committing crimes and for the observance of the rule of law.
Thus, it would be seen that the solution to control crime is not only in the hands of the police. It has a combination of multiple factors, to put it very simply, public behaviour, their perception; attitudes; more importantly obedience to law, respect for authority, upholding values, investment in customs and traditions – they all too play a major role – a role that will certainly be supportive in the maintenance of law and order by the police. Therefore, civil society essentially plays a pivotal role and needs to be a driving force to support the police in the flow of information to curb crime or could group together to support crime prevention mechanisms and other violations, adversly affecting the well-being of the community and respect and observe the rules of law.
In the light of what is said, the conception of its vocation in the field of crime prevention must, at the outset, be shared by all those who are capable of helping the police either through moral influence in the country or through their professional relations with the police such as judges, sociologists, criminologists, social workers, probation officers, and above all by peace loving citizens.
It must be regarded with no separation that policing in a democratic society are public political functions. These processes emanates from the three divisions of the government namely, the executive, legislature and judiciary. All of this is subjected to civilian oversight, with the community finally responsible for all the processes dealing with crime and criminals. What the police are, what they do, how they do, how well they fulfill the expectations, how professional they are and what improvements they need are political questions, inevitably needing to be viewed as pre-requisites for enhancement and enforcement of the laws.
On the other hand, reinforcements of informal controls on individual behaviour are the most vital way to reduce the incidence of crime. Compliance with most laws does not depend upon the likelihood of them being enforced, but upon the acceptance of informal norms and a concern for the feeling of others. The participation of all social institutions towards the maintenance of peace and public order is a must and they could be partners in systematic crime preventive action through more effective police community cooperation, which is a seriously lack in our country.
If you look back, history reveals that crime has been analyzed in the last centrury from every aspect; biological, theological, sociological, psychological and economical. Evolution theory has taught us that we evolved from an animal state where killing and being killed was part of nature’s design. Milions of years have passed and we have shed more of our instinct. Our minds are however, still pre-occupied with the most predatory instincts and society is pervaded by overt and covert forms of violence generating a general climate of irrationality.
No police system in this world has ever succeeded by functioning in isolation. No police force in the world has been able to effectively deal with crime and other law and order problems without the active support of the community it serves. Therefore, as leaders of the civil society, as conscientious community and social leaders, as responsible citizens of Sri Lanka, all should help the police in the discharge of its duties and functions.
Given this orientation, crime and disorder, are major concerns to be dealt with by the police and could be termed “community malignancies” that would imperil the quality of living and morality to a very harmful extent. It is in this theoretical matrix the community’s role and responsibility in crime prevention has to be viewed decisively.
Unlike in totalitarian systems, in a democratic society, the police function depends to a considerable degree on self-policing by every citizen. This dictum comes into play as a pivotal role as law observance is the most salient part of law enforcement. Traffic management is a case in point. The police spend a great deal of time and resources doing it, but most of the actions (tasks) are carried out by motorists who has to abide by the road rules. Hence, the order cannot only be secured only through fear of punishment and the public too have an important role to play to obey the “rules of law”.
Ironically with the social changes, the approach of the police in dealing with law and order has to be generally one of professional development, including elevation of recruitment standards, extensive training covering a wide range of subjects including police community relations, strengthening against submissions to the demands of politicians and expansion of specialized training, resources to some degree and gradual emergence of police community relations.
The purposes of these areas and developments in the recent past, has been to strengthen implementation of equal protection under the law for all citizens, to foster and improve communication and mutual understanding between the police and the community and to enhance police education and training especially to deal in social and behavioural attitudes to meet the ever changing challenges, vastly different to the conditions of yesteryear.
In this backdrop, the social behaviour of people must be also well understood. The current social behaviour is that many people becoming preoccupied with their own personal issues that they pay little attention to larger community problems. This situation has distanced the people from supporting the police by way of providing true and genuine information and responsiveness to curb crime and for productive enforcement action.
Further, as in the past, large numbers of today’s youth do not submit to traditional behaviour controls, in or out of schools. Problems of discipline loom large in and around class rooms. School behaviour, to say the least, especially at the upper levels, is often marginally, criminal, often violent, as many witness during big matches and the newly emerged ‘demonstration culture’, the situation turning dangerous and frightening and even to the extent of students man handling the teachers. Therefore, obviously the maintenance of order continues to be important in a school setting. The fact is that if anger or hostility is accompanied by physical attack upon school staff, fellow students or property, as witnessed in school demonstrations in recent times, the optimum atmosphere for teaching or learning is bound to rapidly deteriorate. Teachings at school levels and homes and improving the quality of instructions and monitoring the activities and behaviour of students will improve the discipline and order to make children good citizens.
Therefore, mutual assistance among the various components of society will certainly encourage the police to become more functional. The best solution is to have only one urge and that should always be allowed to exist; the urge to live in peace. In this context not only the police but the people too have a vital role to play.
The community must understand that police needs the community in their role and such participation is equally beneficial to all segments of the community. Public interest in the police community relationship at times surmounts adversely when civic peace and order are threatened by dissident groups in street demonstrations, confrontations and the like. Unfortunately such treacherous actions have now become very common compared to the past. Often these events spill over into violence and police are quickly accused of being “villains”, forgetting the fact they are guardians of the law.
Today, people are used to a culture of taking to streets, blocking roads, thus inconveniencing the peace loving public, to bring-forth their grievances in the form of protests seeking the intervention of the authorities to resolve their problems. Such situations have since of late been a common site with no single day passing by without a demonstration taking place. The publicity drawn on such events for public consumption has also led to the replication of occurrences in the guise of democracy, little realizing the ill effects to the community in particular and public tranquility in general.
Citizens must understand that the prevention of violent situations is not the responsibility of the police alone. A just social order for all is the ultimate answer and reaching this goal is a vital responsibility also in the hands of the community. One of the most enduring policing tenets attributed to Sir Robert Peel – the 19th Century British Home Secretary, who played a key role in the establishment of the Metropolitan Police Act is the adage “The police are the people and the people are the police”. The truth of the saying could be made real only when the community play a hands-on role making their neighbourhood safe and observe the rules of law. The citizens essentially need to understand the core values of the society in which they live and collaborate with the Police to uphold and maintain law and order.
It is unlikely that many instances of police action have ever been completely satisfactory to everyone concerned; for no matter how brilliant or efficient they may be, it is at most times not viewed with enthusiasm by the thwarted or apprehended offender or his or her family, friends and/or interest groups. Constructive critism must come by the way to improve the efficiency of the police but cetainly not in the way of destructive criticism to incapacitate and/or ridicul its image. Therefore, the community needs to alter this adversarial element in the relationship with the police, to understand that in all their functions, the police carry out a multifaceted responsibility assigned to them by the community they serve. Public participation to assist the police in their duties must be understood as a civic right of the community and not to enable the police to win popularity contests.
Reduction of crime through community involvement, reduction of fear of crime, solicitation of information from the public, involvement of community in police functions and improvement of the image of the police force are some of the key factors that require to be listed.
The police needs the public in their role as a supportive body. The public has frequently taken the position of not wanting to get involved and then point the finger of blame at the police for rising crime. This is not to say that the police can simply point the finger of blame back at the public. What it means is that the responsibility of an efficient police force is two-way; it needs public support and participation to deter offenders working against society and on the other hand the police needs to improve their professionalism to serve the public.
Public support, community-wide interest and individual participation, therefore are all important to be enlisted. In other words the information that allows the police to exert formal control must be supported by the people. However, information must be truthful and should not be brought-forth due to other dubious reasons, such as personal enemity, professional and personal jealousy, resentment and intervention of interest groups to fabricate evidence. Such irresponsible transgressions will only divert the attention of the police on a wrong trail, making the end result pessimistic and negative.
Citizens must be the ones who are the major reporters of crime, witnesses of crime and accusers of wrong doers-they are the information sources for police to act swiftly for the benefit of the community at large.
The police requires community based support in crime prevention and to enforce the rule of law. This approach of the public will exemplify the problem solving proximity to police and community relations, in which citizens could function as the eyes and ears of the police. The public should not remain passive, only to protect individual interest. Public support is few and far between. Although one can observe a descending trend in civic engagement in all continents across the globe, it is amply clear that at least a minimum level of civic participation is essential to sustain effective implementation of the rule of law. The civic consciousness undisputably still holds great value and correspondingly needs citizen mobilization as a driving force, if we are to translate the enforcement of law and order.
Citizen involvement in crime prevention and control cannot be considered an unrealistic expectation in today’s context; many citizens are apathetic and prefer that police alone be responsible for maintaining law and order. Citizens must, therefore, not forget the fact that all policing is community policing and the job of the police will be easy if the citizens obey the rules of law.
Abraham Maslow has said that “when one’s only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail”. The public participation in assisting the police is twofold: to be disciplined and to cooperate with the police in the prevention of crime and the preservation of public tranquility.
The creation of this kind of community participation requires the collaborative effort by all social agencies as a complementary option to conventional law enforcement. The impetus of building police-public partnership will certainly bring-forth success in civilian policing for the wellbeing of the community and is bound to ameliorate the maintenance of law and order to enhance the quality of life.
(The writer was a Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police and Secretary – General of the International Police Association.)