Straight Line
Law enforcement imperatives
WELL-meaning Bangladeshi citizens can hope that the elected government of the not-too-distant future will ensure that power and hunger for more resources shall not become ends in themselves. Protecting the status quo from all challenges shall not become the prime activity of the government.
Devoting the energy and resources of the establishment for solving people's problems and maintenance of order in the society should be the main focus of rulers, as against the use of government machinery to keep the rival claimants to power in check.
It may be pertinent to remember that our system of general criminal administration consists of a four-tier network, i.e. the judiciary, administration, police, and representative democratic institutions. It is important that these institutions should not act at cross-purposes. A coordinated, intertwined and integrated set-up for their smooth working needs to be evolved. This is because crime is a complex phenomenon and requires the whole-hearted involvement of the community as a whole.
In the short-term solution, no basic structural changes in the existing system of criminal administration are proposed. The thrust is on strengthening the existing system and bringing about a harmonious working relationship among the judiciary, administration, police, and representative democratic institutions.
Successive governments, in their eagerness to project themselves as proponents of development, kept eroding their own authority. Development plans categorised maintenance of order and administration of criminal justice as non-developmental functions with low priority.
Activities like family planning and management of nationalised banking and industrial units consumed significant administrative energy and financial resources. Courtrooms, police stations and jails remained neglected. There was occasional increase in police manpower and equipment. These measures were, however, ad hoc in nature and failed to correspond to the magnitude of the problem. Resource allocation and resource-content did not take into account the proper requirements of the police and crime increase.
Urbanisation, hi-tech gadgetry available to criminals, organised crime, gun-running, drug mafia, foreign funded terrorism, and exposure to foreign media and its impact have compounded the crime control problem. What is required is a massive effort on part of the government and society to cope with the challenge. The challenge is not yet insurmountable, and the will of the government to act promptly and resolutely will salvage the situation.
Policing in Bangladesh is conducted in a paramilitary fashion. Police officers are expected to perform some of the duties of a soldier, and some aspects of the role of a police officer inevitably fall between the two roles. It is, therefore, imperative to adopt a proper policing style. It will include the following:
- Institutionalisation of community policing.
- A sound police-media policy.
- Crime prevention cell.
- Introduction of alternative dispute resolution and village court.
It is commonly known that there are neither enough policemen nor judges to deal with all cases speedily. The government cannot meet the requirement because of its limited resources and the great demand for development works. Therefore, it will be easier to meet the deficiency by reducing the workload rather than increasing the number of policemen and judges.
The handing over of less important cases to alternative dispute resolution and village court will allow more time and resources to the police to deal with serious crimes. Their efficiency will naturally improve when they have to deal with only about one-tenth of the cases. Consequently, crime control will be ensured, particularly in rural society, which is very conscious of its rather exaggerated sense of self-respect.
Often, clashes in rural areas are due to temporary bursts of emotions, and both sides are quite ready to patch up once they have cooled down. While the heat generated by emotions does not take long to dissipate, the case with the police does. It is after a great deal of loss of time, money and energy that the parties are able to get such a case settled at the investigation stage or during the court proceedings. However, a settlement will be a matter of a day or two if the matter goes to alternative dispute resolution and village court, with the guilty party getting suitable punishment at the same time.
The thrust of the traditional approach is an incessant rhetoric of police-magistracy co-operation and an amplification of the thesis of police excesses, inefficiency and corruption without considering the limitations imposed on policing by a retrogressive criminal administration system as a whole. The developmental approach, wherein lies the hope for improving police effectiveness, has remained unarticulated, because it was rarely, if ever, considered in policy terms.
The basic propositions underlying the development approach are:
The police function is distinguished from all others in the field of public protection and public safety by its reliance upon the minimum and not the maximum use of force, its necessary subordination to the decrees of the courts, its strict adherence to the essential rule of law, and its attachment to the concept of human rights.
The discretionary police use of power for crime control and imposing reasonable order involves the art of compulsion by personal persuasion, through which the police endeavour to reflect the will of the people. They prevent crime, detect offences, maintain order and keep the peace. They do not administer justice, deny civil liberties, engage in reprisals or terrorise communities. They should not be used as sticks to thrash opponents of the well-to-do and the influential into submission.
The above-mentioned functions can be performed by a police force having a self-contained organisational structure where there is no distortion of command and no dilution of accountability. For the achievement of the above goals, formal intervention is required in the shape of an overhauling of laws and procedures relating to the system of criminal administration.
The intervention must be bold and decisive. It should give the democratic national interest a definite preference over the minority group interests of any class of civil servants, howsoever strong the lobby may be.
The fundamental reality has to be absolutely clear that the law and order situation is the primary cause of macro-economic instability, which is reflected in fluctuation and variations in prices, production of goods and services, and other related economic variables. On the contrary, a country having no law and order crisis gets the benefits of macro-economic stability and sustainable economic growth.
Simultaneously, one has to remember that strategies of economic development pertaining to urbanisation and social sectors like health, housing and education, or even growth-rate oriented policies with a perception of inequality in the distribution on income, adversely affect crime prevention and criminal justice issues.
Muhammad Nurul Huda is a columnist for The Daily Star.
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