New Delhi

Public view for police reforms

Though statistics are often used for analysing the performance of the police force, they are not always the best of yardsticks for the purpose and there is a dire need to develop “perception indices” to identify the genuine areas of public concern about law and order.

Stating that the statistical approach to performance assessment should be shunned, former Delhi Police Commissioner K. K. Paul once said that the quality of service provided by the force and the level of public satisfaction should rather form the basis.

In fact, it was during his tenure as Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) that the system of getting feedback from complainants through postcards was initiated way back in 1978.

Again, as Delhi’s Police Commissioner, Dr. Paul revived the programme and this time e-mail addresses were widely circulated through the media inviting feedback from the public including the complainants.

While the feedback system was a great idea to start with to cross-check the performance of the local police, many now feel that the requirement of “perception indices” is vital for a holistic understanding of the level of public satisfaction.

Kiran Bedi, former Director-General of the Bureau of Police Research and Training, feels that statistics can be of importance in analysing trends but only when treated with the right research tools: “They can be analysed through both neutral and guided questions. In the second case, statistics are approached knowing fully well what the answer would be.” Hence she advises developing perception index on areas of policing.

“During my tenure in the BPRD, I had involved several universities and institutions to carry out such studies. In fact, some institutions including the Tata Institute of Social Sciences had carried out studies on the status of registration of cases in Delhi and select cities of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh,” says Ms. Bedi, adding that social scientists through universities, with the willing support of the University Grants Commission, and civil society should be roped in for such an exercise that will be fruitful in the long run in reforming the police.

According to another senior police officer, such projects -- commonly known as “fear of crime” studies -- are taken up regularly in several countries. The officer cites an inquiry conducted into the investigation of the murder of Stephen Lawrence in London in April 1993 which had brought bad publicity to the police there.

During the inquiry instituted in 1997, a detailed study of the events surrounding the murder and the police response to it was carried out to identify the lessons to be learnt for investigations of “racially motivated” crimes. It also involved a study of community-police relations. The study led to a sea change in the policing approach in the United Kingdom. It was followed by research undertaken between 2002-04 to assess the impact of the Lawrence Inquiry, which noted significant improvements in certain areas of policing.

Endorsing the idea of carrying out such studies to bring in necessary police reforms, many seasoned police officers say the ethos of the police force has to change to win over public confidence. “The police need to realise that it is essentially a service organisation,” says a former Police Commissioner.

Devesh K. Pandey

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