Police is a service dedicated to the protection of life, liberties and properties of citizens and the battle arm of the society to deal with criminals and lawless elements. Powers given to them under law alone will not enable police to perform these duties to the satisfaction of the people. They need full cooperation, moral and material support of the populace. Police have a significant role to play in the political development of a society by keeping under check forces of disintegration and disorder. Indian Police had stood as a bulwark against all threats to National Integrity and acted as islands of sanity during communal and caste frenzy. Yet they are despised by the people. Why?

Reasons are not far to seek. A liberal Democracy stands for freedom, dignity, respect for Human life and Rights, privacy of individuals and upholding the concept of Rule of Law and Equality before law. Police operations entail restraint on individuals, intrusion on privacy, use of force and emphasis on maintenance of authority. These two basically differing perceptions, create a conflict in the minds of people and results in their antipathy towards police organisation.

To resolve this conflict, the role of police should be properly and clearly defined. Police Act of 1861 under which police function, gives them a negative and restricted role to play in society. While people perceive police role as all embracing from decimating dacoits to delivering babies, police organisation and policemen assume that their role is only to fight the criminals and nothing more. Unless, congruence between the goals and perception of role of police by the community, police organisation and individuals policeman is brought about, this conflict would persist. As a first step, Police Act of 1861 should be scrapped and the role of police should be redefined to give them a positive role in the development of our democracy. Secondly, police should function in a more transparent manner and involve the representatives of the public in setting goals and objectives for the force in different areas. At present, police totally ignore the public in identifying the needs of the community and their operations evoke little public interest or cooperation. Police do not take pains to explain to the public the rationale of their actions and seek their cooperation. Be it traffic restrictions; law and order arrangements during festivals etc., except on rare occasions, police do not take public into confidence. Transparency in working will create conditions for credibility and confidence.

Thirdly, defective strategies adopted by the police organisation in their day to day work antagonises the public. Basic strategies of the police are: visibility, apprehension, counselling and education. Visibility, like foot patrolling, movement of police control room vehicles etc. induce confidence in the public. Presence of police assure the citizens of peace and order. Counselling aims at teaching citizens not to break the law and advise them to follow the right path. This has positive effect while dealing with organised groups like labour, youth and juveniles when use of force could be eschewed with tact and patience. Education aims at keeping the general public informed of do’s and dont’s in society. The much talked about London Bobby adopts these three strategies. he is always available to the people - visibility; He helps and guides people - counselling; and London Metropolitan Police Department reaches out to the community by actively meeting school children, youth, senior citizens and others.

On the contrary, in India, police concentrate on the strategy of apprehension only - arresting the citizen. At the drop of the hat, citizens are marched off to police station and thrown into the lock-up till the procedural formalities are over and the sluggish judiciary wakes up to release the citizen from the custody of police. Police Departments all over India, should lay emphasis on changing their strategies and emulate the London Bobby.

Police training should aim at attitudinal change of policemen. As part of the punishment oriented criminal justice system, all endeavours of police are to get the citizen punished by a Court of Law. If the evidence is not sufficient to secure a conviction, then police hand out the punishment themselves. This would explain the prevalence of ‘Fake-encounters’, ‘Third Degree’ and ‘Bihar Blinding’. In police training, special efforts are to be directed to change this attitude. The basic principle of jurisprudence, that no man can be held guilty until the accusations are proved beyond reasonable doubt should be made to sink in. It should be made clear to police trainees, as Law Enforcers, that they are to place the facts and evidence before judicial adjudicators to pronounce the guilt and they have no authority to pronounce the guilt and administer punishment. Police training which is at present highly skills oriented should be recast to aim at behaviour modification and inculcation basic human values.

There is need also to change the organisational culture of the police. Police should reach out to the public and act as a social workers in uniform. Police stations should become places where the citizen in distress gets sympathy, empathy and compassion.

We need a good base to make improvements. The police constable is the gate keeper of the mighty criminal justice system and on his discretionary enforcement of laws, peace and tranquillity of the society depends. He is paid less than a skilled worker and standards of recruitment are low. It is time that the society gave a serious thought to the question whether lives and liberties of citizens could be entrusted to better quality personnel. There is need to upgrade the educational qualifications for recruitment to the constabulary and they should be paid well to attract the best in society. In many States, thanks to many kinds of reservation provisions, police constables and officers are being recruited beyond thirty years of age. Needless to add that it will be difficult to inculcate good values at the ripe age of thirty plus. Unless we catch them young, our efforts at training will be a waste. It is time that all States agreed to peg the age for entry into Police Service to below 25 years.

The poet wondered, can a leopard ever change its sports. Genetic engineering has achieved this feat. We can certainly humanise Indian police, if these suggestions are implemented.