Kingsley Wickremasuriya

(Ed. note: Wickremasuriya is a retired senior deputy inspector-general of police in Sri Lanka. The following is his opinions on the roles of citizens and government in improving the police force. In the last two issues of Human Rights SOLIDARITY, we published Wickremasuriya’s other views on police reforms.)

According to the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals (1973), studies have shown there is substantial evidence to suggest that when governments are unresponsive to their needs, citizens tend to seek redress and to fulfill needs through extra legal means. When citizens find government complex, confusing and unwilling, a chasm can develop between the citizens and the government. Much of the alienation may arise from the lack of power the citizens feel in relation to the institutions that have been set up to run their lives. Citizens are more likely to resort to violence when they are alienated and perceive themselves as members of a group that has less access than other groups to valued resources. Therefore, political violence can be the substitute for other forms of power. Further, when any part of the system becomes aware that its interests are not being served by those in control of the system, the coercive power of those in control may be challenged. If a minority is committed to power coercive strategies, or is aware of no alternatives to such strategies, they may organise discontent against the present control of the system and achieve power outside the legitimate channels of authority in the system. A minority (or a majority) confronted with what they see as an unfair, unjust or a cruel system of coercive social controls may dramatise their rejection of the system by publicly revolting against it. Political violence in Jaffna reminds us that it is one of the ultimate weapons of any people whose political aspirations remain significantly unfulfilled after other alternatives have been exhausted.

The interplay of legitimacy and power is directly related to the political actions of the government, and political violence can be the political response of the citizens to the perceived illegitimacy of many forms of governmental action and their own feelings of relative powerlessness in the fact of such action. In other words, it seems that one of the crucial factors driving individuals to collective behaviour promoting political violence is the feeling of powerlessness in such circumstances.

Police and Citizens

Governing is the principal function of the police, and knowledge of the governed is essential for progress towards a safe community and a fair, more caring police. The function of the police is not to govern a reluctant people by force but to protect the public from a lawless minority. Police forces are not an arm of the State but servants of the community whose confidence they must secure. Success in this depends upon police officers understanding the fear and apprehension of all groups of people within the community, including ethnic minorities, and doing whatever is necessary to enable all citizens to go about their lawful business. The problem of obedience is central to the understanding of government. If the police are to secure the confidence and assent of the community they must try to strike a balance between the measures to enforce the law and the maintenance of peace. This means they have to work on the principle of policing by consent, rather than coercion.

Police perform a vital democratic function in a free society. The police is the institution of government that poses the most constant presence in the life of many citizens. They carry not only the burden of the law, but the symbolic burden of all that is government. Therefore, it is not surprising that the tensions and frustrations of the citizens come to focus on the police. Power and legitimacy are the key variables that affect the proper discharge of the police function. The way police handle situations, therefore, can contribute substantially to mutual antagonism, disaffection with government and disrespect for the law. The capacity of the police to maintain their power and authority in their relations with the citizens depends to an important degree upon their ability to establish and maintain legitimacy. Police can gain legitimacy and maintain their authority by sharing their power with the community. They who have been on the outside looking in, who have experienced the helpless feeling of inability to exert power within the system must, therefore, be given a participatory role.

Citizen Participation

Citizen involvement in crime prevention and control is not an unrealistic expectation, because historically citizenship included the responsibility for maintaining peace and justice. Today many citizens are apathetic and prefer that criminal justice specialists be responsible for keeping order, thus relieving the citizens of that responsibility.

The obligation of law enforcement and social control rests with each individual, however, and citizen involvement is necessary to make the system work. Even though police may be charged with the role of protecting citizens and their property, their typical duty is investigatory. Usually, the police react to an event that has already happened. The traditional expectation of the police as the sole deterrent force should at least be questioned.

Besides, citizen participation is both an effort to implement the values inherent in democratic theory and an organisational technique to help individuals obtain a voice in shaping policy of the affairs of government (institutions) that affect their lives. It is a means of mobilising unutilised or underutilised resources and energies, a source of productivity and manpower not otherwise tapped. It constitutes a source of special insight, information and knowledge and experience, which both validates government effort and correct defects, inequalities and false assumptions forming the basis of government progress. Open responsive government can encourage citizen participation. However, this depends on the willingness on the part of the police to reconstitute their role and adopt themselves to novel and emergent circumstances. "The Jaffna Experience" demonstrated this and suggests that community-oriented policing is one way of achieving this goal.

Implications

It reinforced the mutual relations between the police and the public, changed perceptions about each other and even brought about a positive change in the behaviour of the police. This "good behaviour" eventually led to increased public trust, confidence and consequently to public approval. It increased their legitimacy and power. On the other hand, by not only giving the citizens a voice in the affairs of policing their community but closer access to the police, it also increased the sense of power, influence and status of the community. As a result it changed the entire political situation by creating a climate conducive to dialogue.

Thus, it brought the police and the community together in a unique experience. They jointly contributed to the creation of an atmosphere of peace and tranquility. It was a qualitative change from the days of fear and tension and directly contributed to the quality of life in those parts, with the major outcome of the programme being the complete absence of political violence (not a single life either of the police or of the civilians was lost during this period).

It also demonstrated the importance of commitment to democratic values, norms of openness, trust between persons, lowering of status barriers between parts of the system, and mutuality of parts as necessary contribution of the re-educative process and demonstrated particularly the value of normative re-educative strategies to the police. It introduced new values to police-community relations, giving both the community and the police an opportunity in leadership training through the participation in this new relationship. It further demonstrated the strategic importance of the small group as a medium for change.

"The Jaffna Experience" makes it amply clear that force by itself is not a very effective method of obtaining compliance of the citizens. Voluntary compliance is much more consistent and effective than compliance which depends upon brute force. It has shown that citizen participation can not only bring about a change of attitude and group perceptions but also change of behaviour and conciliation.

The experience in the United States as well as in Sri Lanka evidently reinforce these trends. In Flint, as citizens began handling minor problems themselves, it significantly reduced calls for service. The citizen as well as the officers felt safer and better integrated. It also minimised the sense of isolation, alienation and fear of the officers. "The Dallas Experiment" on the other hand showed that the programme brought about at least a few changes in behaviour and attitudes of the officers.

In Sri Lanka, the Rural Development Programme at Kegalla as well as in the North-Western province settled minor disputes and helped the citizens to be more self-reliant. It brought about a fundamental change in the outlook of the police. The conception of their obligation to the public and their duty to the country underwent a radical change. The net result was an all-round improvement in their standard of work and conduct. It also changed the attitudes of the public towards the police. The active cooperation between the police and the public broke down the old barriers of fear, suspicion and contempt for the police. Instead, it developed mutual understanding, respect and trust. These trends are consistent with democratic values.

Besides promoting these mutually reinforcing and supportive trends, the strategy is a useful management took as well. Much police work is performed without close supervision. Members of the public can assist police agencies in the evaluation of individual officer performance. Letters commending outstanding performance by officers, or complaining of police misconduct, are some of the valuable community input for police management. Such community involvement assist police administrators and does much to reinforce the close ties between the public and their police. "The Jaffna Experience" as well as the programme of rural development implemented in the 1930s have shown this to be true. They demonstrated that increased interaction with the community reduced opportunities for malpractice and indifference to work and that it improved morale and discipline.

Further, it is also an effective change strategy. Difficult as it is to change a conservative organisation like the police from within as was seen in the case of the Dallas Police Department (in the redefinition of what the police should do - the heart of the proposals), the interaction between the police and the public emphasised in the police-community relations programmes makes this change more natural and easier to achieve. It has proved to be a catalyst in community wide change both in Flint, Kegalla and Jaffna.

But what is most striking was the ability of the strategy to bring increased legitimacy to the police, in both countries. The events have demonstrated that community-oriented policing has the potential for generating legitimacy and power. As was illustrated by the programme experience in both countries (notwithstanding the cross cultural differences), sharing of power increased legitimacy, and increased legitimacy increased power. Therefore, the strategy carries far-reaching implications both for law enforcement policy as well as research; for those who are genuinely interested in law enforcement strategies based on the principle of "policing by consent".

Propositions

Based on the foregoing analysis, we can now draw the following propositions:

The interplay of power and legitimacy is directly related to the political actions of the government, and political violence can be the political response of the citizen to the perceived illegitimacy of many forms of governmental action in the face of such action.

Police carry not only the burden of the law, but the symbolic burden of all that is government. The way police handle situations, therefore, can contribute substantially to mutual antagonism, disaffection with government and disrespect for the law.

The capacity of the police to maintain their power and authority depends on their ability to establish and maintain legitimacy. Community-oriented policing is one way of achieving this goal. Community-oriented policing is not only an effective strategy for conflict management in certain circumstances, but also a good management tool.

In general, the basic premises underlying the community-police concept seems to remain the same, whether in the United States or in Sri Lanka. The broad objectives of most community-oriented programmes are improved police-community relations, reduced tension and greater mutual understanding between the police and the public. It is an attempt to bring the officers closer to the communities served, to improve the rapport with community residents. This rapport ultimately fosters a better two-way exchange of information. Officers help community residents learn skills which may prevent crime; they receive, in turn, information that can be useful both to prevent and solve crime. The formula is basic: contact – communication – trust - exchange of information. Even with the best will in the world, the police themselves cannot ever hope to achieve satisfactory results unless they are backed by the rest of the community. Crime always remains the collective responsibility of the community as a whole.

Community relations, however, are not the exclusive business of specialised units, but the business of the entire department, from the chief to the patrolman. Community relations are not a matter of special programmes but encompass all aspects of police work. They must be considered in the selection, training, deployment and promotion of personnel; in the execution of field procedures; in staff policy-making and planning; in the enforcement of departmental discipline; and in the handling of citizens’ complaints. No community relations or recruiting or training programme will succeed if courteous and compassionate behaviour by policemen in their contacts with citizens is not encouraged.

Problems

While the growth in community policing efforts in the United States indicates some success in attaining objectives, the debate concerning the relative merits and drawbacks of the community policing concept has been extensive and intense. In the past few years police administrators and other citizens have sharply questioned the basic concepts behind many police-community relations efforts.

Neither the majority of the police nor the majority of most communities are all that excited about the prospect of comprehensive police-community programming. Attempts to involve the community in programmes to prevent crime and improve police-community relations have often been met by both public apathy and resistance within police agencies. Many middle managers and police officers, accustomed to taking public support for granted and dealing primarily with law violators, have little faith in community-oriented programmes. Members of the public accustomed to relying upon the police to deal with crime were slow to respond to public involvement programmes. Many police do not regard this as very important. And most communities are difficult to organise for any time-consuming public activity. Consequently, police-community relations seem to be a high priority programme for only a minority of individuals: some police, some other public officials and some private citizens. Currently, most community relations efforts tend to be paper programmes. Part of the "police-community programme problem" is that most programmes are conceived as a response to a dramatic community crisis. Thus, they are usually gestures towards reducing immediate discontent rather than carefully planned, long-range proposals. But even those "good intentions" are typically heralded with high hopes and loud fanfare as cure-alls for sorely troubled situations.

Academic researchers also have problems with this "common sense" approach, because it poses numerous methodological problems that make such programmes difficult to assess and evaluate fairly. The impossibility of controlling all the variables posed in a dynamic community makes systematic and thorough evaluation difficult. Therefore, researchers commonly criticise community policing as a preoccupation with the past. Many contemporary police administrators also express difficulty with the community policing concept. Typically, they argue it is not cost-effective, it makes officers targets for political corruption, and, most importantly, it does not mesh with today’s high-tech, computerised age.

In Sri Lanka, on the other hand, despite the encouraging results shown in Kegalla district and the North-Western province, the momentum seems to have been lost in subsequent years. Even though there was interest shown in police community relations in later years, the efforts at resuscitating the "Rural Volunteer Movement" started in the 1930s were lukewarm. Public relations programmes did appear from time to time. But in the absence of clear departmental policy, they were mostly cosmetic. Commenting on the system, the Police Commission remarked that its drawback was that it depended on the type of superintendent or the assistant superintendent of police in charge of the province or the district for the time being, and that it had not been adopted as a part of the policy of the police department.

This brings us to the leadership issue that seems to have been central not only to the success of the various programmes but also to the continuance of the programmes, particularly in Sri Lanka. What seems to be obvious is that the programmes have depended mostly on the initiative of the police leaders concerned. Their beliefs and personalised styles have accounted for either the initiation of programmes or their demise. Perhaps this is one reason why on their departure from that particular area the programmes died. Police leadership, therefore, is bound to play a major role in the adoption of community-oriented policing as a police strategy in the overall enforcement policy.

Perhaps the main reason that community policing tends to be undervalued stems from the fact that quality-of-life issues are routinely ignored in most assessments of the programme’s worth. Academic researchers regularly omit qualitative considerations from their studies, since quality of life does not readily lend itself to quantifiable data. Judging programmes solely on narrower standards such as whether the cost is totally justified by the resulting reduction in crime rate fails to assess the programme’s contributions to the broader aspects of life in those communities. Police administrators also tend to underestimate the positive impact community policing has on improving the quality of life experienced by community residents. Central to the qualitative issue is the question of what role community residents themselves - the citizens - should play in determining how their communities will be policed.

Lord Scarman, the one-man commission who inquired into the London riots in 1981, laid particular stress on the importance of policing by consent, and he saw consultation and accountability as two ways to realising it. He recommended that statutory provisions should be made to require local consultation between the police and the community. This may perhaps be one solution to the problem. Nevertheless, it remains an issue for future research.

Limitations

While community-oriented policing has proved effective in certain circumstances, it is not a panacea for all political situations as was the experience of the author in 1983. 1983 was the period that terrorism was spreading to the Batticaloa district. During the latter part of 1983 separatist organisations from Jaffna were actively recruiting members in the Batticaloa district. The recruited members were ferried across to South India where they were trained in terrorist tactics. No amount of community vigilance could stop recruitment because of the strategies used by the terrorists. Once waves of trained terrorists were back in their own areas, violence spread rapidly and the frequencies and the incidents increased. Even though community support was active by way of information and even private funds for the security of police stations, the strategy failed to halt the violence against the determined and trained separatist "terrorists".

Though community-oriented policing can be an effective answer for every problem that may have to be confronted by the police, particularly when actors who understand the dynamics of situations manipulate the conditions in the polity by providing sanctuary, training, supplies and encouragement, as was the case with the militant Tamils in Sri Lanka. In the face of such external support, community-oriented policing is unlikely to produce the encouraging results that have already been the experience both in the United States and in Sri Lanka.

(Source: The article was taken from the author’s thesis for his master’s degree.)