Editorial
Police reforms
The first step is to stop political interference in its work
WITH the army back in the barracks after an 87-day countrywide clampdown on criminal, punctuated with alleged deaths and violence in custody, there is an apprehension of a surge in crime and violence in society. The responsibility clearly lies with the police to dispel such misgivings with efficient and effective law enforcement. However, the police have, as Prime Minister Khaleda Zia summed up at the Police Week function on Saturday, "crisis of confidence" to overcome. Needless to say, the government of the day only highlighted the crisis when it had called the troops out of the cantonments to arrest an alarming law and order downslide. In other words, the Khaleda administration itself gave a ringing indictment on police credibility while launching the Operation Clean Heart. Nevertheless, now is the time for the police to redeem themselves and it will not be possible without the government's full weight behind the law enforcers.
To this end, the first thing the government should do is to undertake the long-overdue, comprehensive police reforms. The men of law need to be motivated, empowered, trained and equipped which call for a complete overhaul of the police forces. This, the government has over the years, talked at length about, but never quite paid serious attention to. As the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) pointed out in its country report last year, the police do lack an operational environment and the government of the day needs to make sure that the inadequacies are properly dealt with. Alongside motivation and training, there is the dire need for a revision of the police pay-structure, which, everyone would agree, is grossly out of touch with reality.
Beyond personnel and logistic supports, what the government must ensure is that there should be no political interference with day-to-day operations. It has been said over and over again that the police need operational freedom to live up to public expectations. However, successive administrations have found it convenient to use the police as a tool to further their partisan objectives. While the prime minister talks tough on negligence of duty by the policemen, she could not be oblivious of the fact that political interference from within has traditionally inhibited the police from delivering goods.
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