Police public partnership

On 26 May 2014, I attended an interaction program on community policing with the senior police officers at national police academy. Community policing is based on the philosophy of cooperation and partnership. The community's interest with the police is safety and security from crimes and violence. The police's interest is to solve criminal problems in the society. The police cannot do this job all alone. They have to seek cooperation from community members. For this purpose, they seek help from community members. In a way, they work in partnership with community for a desired goal. The police may use two tactics in this process: establish permanent units in the community or work with community as and when required. In other words, they work in partnership with community to solve a specific security or crime problem and when it is achieved, they withdraw.

There are some myths associated with community policing. These are:

-community policing solves all problems

-community policing is different police from regular police force

-community policing is soft policing or lenient to crime and criminals

No! Unfortunately all above myths are not true. Community policing is only strategy of police force to solve specific crime or law and order problems.

Who funds this program? As this is a police duty to protect community from crime and violence, it becomes the duty of government to fund the activities of all community police.

Who owns this program? The community, the whole police force and government must own this policing style. It should be mentioned in the law and policies of the government and police in particular.

What could be best way to foster such policing style? The recruitment of local people for policing in their localities will be the best way to enhance this strategy. In other words, the police should be made accountable to local communities or local bodies, like, v.d.c. and municipality.