Local police for skirmishes of the locality
( Created date: 25-Sep-2013 )
The President is deeply committed to consultation of the grass roots and swift responses to the needs that are expressed. Unfortunately I do not know of any other government departments that have acted to institutionalize this policy, and the IGP therefore deserves double commendation for his imaginative work in this regard.
I should note though that the idea of Community Policing is not new. Its first exponent was Mr Osmund de Silva, the first Sri Lankan to become IGP by promotion from the force – though I should note that he would have preferred the term Police Service to Police Force. Unfortunately Mr de Silva came under suspicion from politicians, who were just establishing themselves as central decision makers on all subjects. Naturally they felt threatened by the symbiotic relationship between police and people that Osmund de Silva was trying to develop, and wanted to stop such threats to their own increasing control of all aspects of life.
This is a pity, because politicians cannot solve all problems. They function at too great a distance for this to be possible, whereas the police can ensure close contact at all levels as well as conveyance of problems that cannot be resolved locally to the next decision making level. Sadly politicians tend to dislike alterntive sources of satisfaction being developed, though if they thought more carefully they would realize that they could take advantage of such practical mechanisms.
Thus I am regularly told, at Divisional Reconciliation meetings, that matters brought up at Divisional Development Committee meetings are thereupon ignored by the politicians who chair these meetings. This leads to strong criticism, which I believe is misplaced since, in defence of my colleagues, I should note that it is physically impossible to remember everything they are told.
Indeed, I have noted as a general principle in life that the person who asks for something remembers the request and grows more resentful with every day that passes during which it is not fulfilled; whereas the person asked has forgotten the request totally. Thus, at COPE, we find that one institution claims it has informed another which denies such information. This does not mean either is lying, rather it means that the less concerned institution has forgotten – and given that we do reporting and maintaining records.
Community policing would then help to focus attention where it matters on local problems. Sadly, Osmund de Silva’s vision was not shared by either his predecessor or his successor, who were not policemen, but administrators, so they stuck to the old British system of administration and policing. That was paternalistic, government officials being at the top of a hierarchical view of society, and the villagers, about whom Osmund de Silva cared so passionately, being at the bottom.
Sadly, while British administrative practices have changed, to promote greater accountability, we are still stuck in some respects in a colonial mindset. Thus I believe it was only one of the best IGPs of recent times, Rudra Rajasingham, who studied and wrote about what Osmund de Silva had attempted – though given the terrorist problems that were developing in the early eighties, IGP Rajasingham was not able to innovate as perhaps he would have wished.
It has been left then to the present IGP to finally work towards entrenching this important idea. His determination to allocate at least one police officer to every Grama Niladhari Division was the first recognition of the central nature of the role of the Grama Niladhari, the first interface between government and people. A dedicated policeman was the first government officer allocated to the GN Division, though I am happy to say the Ministry of Economic Development has now followed suit.
In both cases good training and clear instructions are vital, though in the case of policemen, one assumes their basic training will help with the range of tasks arising from their responsibility for a particular GN Division. What was most heartening though was to see that, at least in the Eastern Province, clear written instructions have been issued as to how coordination should be developed. Even more importantly, there are clear instructions too about the need to maintain records, and to pass information on to the next layers of the administration.
Tomorrow I will be talking at the Progress Review of the Civil Defence Committees, which have been set up for every GN Division, so I will confine myself here to the work of the Advisory Committee for every police station. This means 45, the same number as there are Divisional Secretariats, though unfortunately these are not identical in area. I think this is a great pity, and I have indeed written more than once, with regard to the North as well as to the East, to the IGP about changing this.
This is essential if we are to work in terms of the teams that the idea of Community Policing entails. Though it is argued that police stations have to be organized in terms of courts, in the first place the placing of courts too needs to be reviewed – given for instance the absurdity of people living in the Divisions of Mullaitivu that lie west of the A9 having to travel to its Eastern extreme to attend courts. More importantly, the vital functions of the police should be recognized as being keeping the peace and preventing crime, not punishing it. For this purpose their relationships with the communities in which they function, and the other government officials who can contribute to security of all sorts, are more important than their relationships with the courts.
I was more impressed with the core components of the team you have built up. In requiring that educationists and medical personnel and religious dignitaries are included in the Police Advisory Committees, you have recognized that health and education and spiritual needs are vital for promoting the personal security that people need. That in turn improves the possibilities of consultation and cooperation, without which small problems are apt to fester.
Incidentally, while I believe this sort of team will help with what might be termed protection needs, we should also develop at the grass roots teams that look at development and livelihoods. One of our biggest problems in this country is the incapacity of government institutions to work together, which is why it is essential to institute mandatory consultation mechanisms at least at Divisional Secretariat level. Training needs in each division, planning for greater agricultural productivity, the promotion of small enterprises, all require greater coordination than government now provides.
To return to the systems you have instituted, I would suggest that even the local committees should have mandatory representation of the health and education sectors, as well as of religious bodies and non-governmental organizations providing substantial services. These individuals would constitute the core team that an administration requires for advice as well as for monitoring of the ground situation.
In the days of my grandfather, who was the first Sri Lankan Government Agent, there were regular informal meetings between the GA, the local police chief (who was usually just a Superintendent in those days), the Magistrate, the MoH. I believe that later on, with Kannagara’s seminal education reforms, the local Director of Education was also seen as a worthy.
Of course as time passed the level at which such consultation was meaningful moved from the Province to the District. Now it should be at least the Division, though sadly that sort of team building no longer operates. If an when it does, perhaps we should move to Grama Niladhari level too, while recognizing that making decisions at that level might be difficult, so greater concentration on the Division would make sense.
I believe that would help solve many of our problems. I am immensely grateful therefore to the police for having taken the lead in working cohesively at this level, with statutory input from community representatives. I wish these efforts all success, and hope they will be replicated all over the country.
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