Sunday Times 2
Police Intelligence for crime control
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‘Police intelligence’ may be described as the product resulting from the collection, collation, evaluation, analysis, integration of collected information, for dissemination as and when necessary, to those concerned.
Police intelligence discussed in my previous articles was in relation to public security. Police intelligence for crime control serves law and order generally. This notion is now in the doldrums. For, police intelligence simply is, neither more nor less than policing. Can there be policing without intelligence and intelligence without policing? But this order has been broken down in the recent past so that this basic in police intelligence needs now to be reasserted.
Police Intelligence
Outlining the duties and liabilities of police officers, Section 56 of the Police Ordinance says: “Every police officer shall for all purposes in this Ordinance contained be considered to be always on duty, and shall have the powers of a police officer in every part of Sri Lanka. It shall be his duty … (e) to collect and communicate intelligence affecting the public- peace….”
Thus, it will be seen that intelligence is a statutory duty of the Police as has been from the very inception of the police. Stipulation by law confirms this basic fact. Policing cannot operate except with intelligence. Police intelligence then is essentially something to be done on the field. Police intelligence cannot thus be confined to the police station. Police intelligence entails further action; it nudges and is nudged, in all manner of preventive action on the field. In early gamsabha days, police intelligence was policing which extended even as far as prosecution. The rationale then was clear, unmixed, a plain fact. Since the 1856 law stipulation, Police intelligence has been a statutory function of the police. And that order stood for well over 100 years.
Police intelligence and policing are essentially matters on the field. But today, conspicuously and plainly, Police on foot are absent from the field, and from the roads in the night. Criminals have a free run. They need only to avoid police in a vehicle by simply stepping aside for cover. Violent crime as murders and housebreaking in the night are freely recorded for later public view. By contrast, misguided police are present in numbers at public demonstrations and work with an eagerness to dispatch the demonstrators to Mullaitivu.
Within the last few decades, Police intelligence has suffered some change. Police intelligence is now not considered an integral part of policing — only an addition. This variation was the result of police neglect and even as the separation of the duties as was endorsed by higher authorities, the National Police Commissions (NPC). To the NPC which dealt with promotions, performance appraisal was now barely based on intelligence and related policing. To these bodies their primary consideration was seniority and age. Performance came to be detached from promotion, in a form of a populist approach.
Such disjoint between performance and promotion has significant repercussions on crime control, law and order. Furthermore, such disorder in police intelligence work is only within recent years. In that disarray, police intelligence is lost to the ‘unintelligent’ intelligence in the name of public security. Good governance for law and order and crime control has been completely obstructed by the idea of ‘intelligence’ for public security. But this reality does not engage authorities dealing with public security. The taking away of the intelligence apparatus from the police and handing it over to the military is a move beyond comprehension.
Police intelligence is at a discount elsewhere too. Even Police officers trained in police-intelligence policing are relieved of this task when they work at the Bribery Commission (CIABOC). With corruption before their very eyes, police can avoid that glare by reason of some ‘law’ provision of the CIABOC, whereby action has to be taken only when a complaint is received. Police intelligence entails a quality of action which intrudes into nearly all stages of the judicial process. At various stages this continuity was disturbed by the law, by law professionals, and by courts. A certain amount of conflict fouls the intelligence process. This conflict was not one of principle, but one of power considerations. These considerations beset the smooth functioning of intelligence for crime resolution. Sometimes the issue asserted itself as one of judicial power against peoples’ power.
This article was to focus on law and order and crime control. Invariably, however, the angle has had to encompass public security because they are closely entangled.
This deviation from Police intelligence enables the authorities to exploit ‘intelligence’ for ulterior political purposes. Even intelligence that Kerala ganja sent to the Island are but a product of jihadi extremists in Kerala is, perhaps, snuffed in the bud by the arrest here by the local police of a local professor doing research on ganja! This incident may perhaps be an example of the cross purposes of police intelligence and public security. This merits investigation, since the facts are not well known.
Police intelligence for crime control has now been even taken over by an idea/concept of intelligence units of a sort: in Sinhala, buddhi anshaya, instead of police intelligence for ALL police officers. In effect, these new segments appear to be ‘hit-squads’, plainly for what it means. A recent incident of one from the buddhi anshaya being identified and hooted away at Hiniduma confirms this; buddhi anshaya stands exposed before the very eyes of the public. The CID is inundated with ‘hit squad’ cases. Normal police are not drawn into this though their competence is no less than the CID. CID cases are referred to them from outside, above the IGP. Arrest is unnecessary. Suspects could be noticed to appear in court, under Bail law. But that will not serve for ‘hit-squads’. The action of the CID may mature in the form of ‘hit squad’; only arrest, no bail!
Today, the idea is for 97 new police stations. For what avail? The criminals know the ground situation well. Till police intelligence returns, the roads will be left open to them in the nights.
(The writer is a Retired Senior Superintendent of Police.
He can be contacted at
seneviratnetz@gmail.com
- TP 077 44 751 44)