| The British and US system of Policing We are presently undergoing a Mid Career Training program at National Police Academy, Hyderabad which has just begun. Today, there were some important discussions. One of the most important was about the USA/UK system of policing. These are of great relevance to us because- 1. Firstly, our system was framed by the British and we are carrying it forth 2. The USA and UK are generally regarded as role-model in so many areas of governance including policing An important fact about these two countries is that in both countries there are a large number of Police forces. While in USA this number is truly large, nearly 18,000 police forces (up to Municipalities), in UK there are 43 such police forces (up to Counties). But what makes their Police forces much different from us are the following- 1. The Police department works on a Tripartite structure- that of Home Secretary, Police Authority and Chief Constable. 2. Police Authority is a committee consisting of members from public to whom the Chief Constable is responsible for its functioning but the operational control lies solely in the Chief Constable. Thus political interference is very minimal 3. Their entry is only at one level, that of Constable 4. A typical Constable gets promoted to a Sergeant in 4 years, then to Inspector in 3-4 years, an Inspector in another 4 years, then Chief Inspector, Superintendent, Chief Superintendent, Assistant Chief Constable, Deputy Chief Constable and Chief Constable. In Metropolitan areas, these ranks are known as Assistant Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner and Commissioner. Thus a Constable finally rises to become a Chief Constable 5. The organizational structure is highly pyramidal, where the number of persons moving to the next grade is lesser and lesser. Hence performance is a big parameter 6. Till the rank of Chief Superintendent, all the promotions are done by the Chief Constable or his designated officer 7. Only the Assistant Chief Constable, Deputy Chief Constable and Chief Constable are selected by the Police Authority but once selected, they can't make any operational command 8. The person having full power to arrest and to exercise personal discretion in this is a Constable 9. In crimes are recorded, even if they prima-facie might seem to be incorrect or fake 10. For police complaints, there is an Independent Police Complaint Committee where complaints go through public report or self declaration. 11. Among self-declaration of complaint is any death of a person who came in police contact in any manner within the last 24 hours of his/her death In fact, I do find each of these characteristics quite alluring and helpful but the only thing is whether we are willing to adopt these measures and to what extent? Amitabh,
IPS,
# 94155-34526 | 
No comments:
Post a Comment