In a recent article in an American newspaper, the doyen among police scholars, Prof. David Bayley, expressed his anguish over what he considered to be a crisis in U.S. law enforcement. In his view this was caused mainly by three factors: race, police training and guns. There was an undeniable need for reform, but the prospects for this happening were bleak because of a multitude of factors, including the size of police forces, lack of political and community support.
The Indian police is exactly in the same situation. People are dissatisfied with the quality of service they are getting from the grass roots. They are frustrated with the same old alibi trotted out by the police: political interference.
Do rudimentary courtesy to the public at a police station, registration of an FIR when a complaint is received, and acting against harassment of women in public spaces all need political direction?
Not at all. The system therefore needs drastic restructuring, beyond cosmetics, in order to make policing more professional and more acceptable to the common man. Look at what other professions have done.
How to professionalise
Those propounding evidence-based policing, a movement launched more than a decade ago both in the U.S and the U.K., often refer to success in the area of health care to strengthen the case for experiment-based law enforcement.
Their plea is unexceptionable, especially in India, where the popular image of the police is not flattering. This is despite some remarkable work done by policemen at the cutting edge level. Notwithstanding some token efforts initiated by a few dynamic IPS officers in the larger cities, there is an overall reluctance to experiment with measures that could transform the police from a traditional outfit into a sleek modern force that is constantly looking for ways to upgrade delivery of its service.
A recent international conference organised by the Institute of Criminology at Cambridge University was the occasion for some serious brainstorming on the issue of how to infuse some fresh thinking into the twin problems of maintaining public order and combating conventional crime.
In effect, the task was how to make the police shed their slumber and arbitrariness in reacting to field developments and make them acquire a fresh mindset to cope with the dire needs of a society under attack.
On the face of it, the subject may appear cliched. In reality, however, the task of policing the community has become far too complex to permit the smug feeling that throwing increased manpower and use of new technology in themselves would be enough to steady a deteriorating situation. If this were so, policing all over the world would be in clover.
The fact is, even in countries that have a strong legacy of clinical public administration, there is increasing disenchantment with the way the police handle major crises. This again leads us to only one question: can things improve with a greater scientific approach, and not necessarily the use of gadgets, to day-to-day police operations?
Simply put, policing has acquired many new connotations and a certain immediacy which cannot brook any delay. Terrorism and cyber attacks in particular are heightening the levels of fear of the community. How well have the police responded to this serious challenge to stability?
Stop muddling along
The basic truth is that policing has become far too routine and mechanical at a time when there is need for a drastically different response to events. Reactive policing was adequate to a community as long as it had its fundamentals unshaken.
We are now living in tumultuous times, where violent crime grips major cities across the globe. How else would you account for the increasing number of homicides in an otherwise placid State such as Tamil Nadu?
Here, anyone speaking against a rival political faction or a rival caste group now faces imminent threat. This in a region where there was until recently a fear of the law and an esteem for the police’s capacity to swoop on the offenders in quick time. Now, hired goons rule the day, and the police are afraid of them.
Styled as a conference on evidence-based policing (EBP), the gathering of academics and active police leaders at Cambridge endorsed the imperative to fine-tune traditional styles, which placed an emphasis solely on the mechanical use of police resources rather than an intelligent application of available skills.
Known as the father of EBP, Prof. Lawrence Sherman, the leading light of the Institute of Criminology, is a relentless crusader, who holds that mindless policing to appease the polity is wasteful and misdirected. He and his fellow scholars are pushing for rigorous experiments on the field and appraising their findings against the realities of the daily fight against crime. In their view, a controlled experiment will throw up any number of facts that could help sharpen police professionalism. They draw from the remarkable progress that medical science has made in recent decades by encouraging bold experiments.
Prediction and prevention
There are two areas in which EBP could deliver. These are prediction and prevention. The strategy is one of identifying ‘hot spots’ of crime and spotting problematic individuals in a community.
The former task requires an analysis of events which are either crimes by themselves or border on crimes defined by law. There are certain geographic areas in each police jurisdiction which report more incidents than others.EBP goes beyond statistics and pinpoints the time and opportunities presented to a potential offender.
As the seminal essay ‘Broken Windows’ carried by the Atlantic magazine several years ago pointed out, where there is public apathy and civic neglect, the prospects of crime are high.
Fixing a street light that is not burning for several days, for instance, is an action that could contain crime. EBP studies phenomena such as these and highlights findings that are germane to crime prevention.
Similarly, monitoring patterns of behaviour of a class of individuals who had come to the adverse notice of law enforcement is a logical way to predict whether they will again lapse into crime. Despite the unfairness in targeting those who had indulged in anti-social behaviour in the past and keeping a tab on their day-to-day activities, there is an expected benefit of being able to predict future criminal behaviour.
It is not as if every convict will go back to crime once set free. Several studies have strengthened the belief that recidivism is not uncommon, and that many future crimes can be foiled by pinpointing who, more than others, could be expected to offend once more. There is a certain inexactitude in this approach that one should learn to live with.
These are the fundamentals to EBP, a discipline that is gaining credibility by the day. To dismiss it as pure academic hogwash would be irrational and blind to a fast deteriorating scene marked by high crime. Exposing our police officers to this concept would make them more professional, something that would certainly enhance the Indian police’s image, which is currently dismal.
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- In the Large States category (overall), Chhattisgarh ranks 1st, followed by Odisha and Telangana, whereas, towards the bottom are Maharashtra at 16th, Assam at 17th and Gujarat at 18th. Gujarat is one State that has seen startling performance ranking 5th in the PAI 2021 Index outperforming traditionally good performing States like Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, but ranks last in terms of Delta
- In the Small States category (overall), Nagaland tops, followed by Mizoram and Tripura. Towards the tail end of the overall Delta ranking is Uttarakhand (9th), Arunachal Pradesh (10th) and Meghalaya (11th). Nagaland despite being a poor performer in the PAI 2021 Index has come out to be the top performer in Delta, similarly, Mizoram’s performance in Delta is also reflected in it’s ranking in the PAI 2021 Index
- In terms of Equity, in the Large States category, Chhattisgarh has the best Delta rate on Equity indicators, this is also reflected in the performance of Chhattisgarh in the Equity Pillar where it ranks 4th. Following Chhattisgarh is Odisha ranking 2nd in Delta-Equity ranking, but ranks 17th in the Equity Pillar of PAI 2021. Telangana ranks 3rd in Delta-Equity ranking even though it is not a top performer in this Pillar in the overall PAI 2021 Index. Jharkhand (16th), Uttar Pradesh (17th) and Assam (18th) rank at the bottom with Uttar Pradesh’s performance in line with the PAI 2021 Index
- Odisha and Nagaland have shown the best year-on-year improvement under 12 Key Development indicators.
- In the 60:40 division States, the top three performers are Kerala, Goa and Tamil Nadu and, the bottom three performers are Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar.
- In the 90:10 division States, the top three performers were Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Mizoram; and, the bottom three performers are Manipur, Assam and Meghalaya.
- Among the 60:40 division States, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are the top three performers and Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Delhi appear as the bottom three performers.
- Among the 90:10 division States, the top three performers are Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland; and, the bottom three performers are Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh
- Among the 60:40 division States, Goa, West Bengal and Delhi appear as the top three performers and Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Bihar appear as the bottom three performers.
- Among the 90:10 division States, Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh and Tripura were the top three performers and Jammu & Kashmir, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh were the bottom three performers
- West Bengal, Bihar and Tamil Nadu were the top three States amongst the 60:40 division States; while Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan appeared as the bottom three performers
- In the case of 90:10 division States, Mizoram, Assam and Tripura were the top three performers and Nagaland, Jammu & Kashmir and Uttarakhand featured as the bottom three
- Among the 60:40 division States, the top three performers are Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa and the bottom three performers are Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Goa
- In the 90:10 division States, the top three performers are Mizoram, Sikkim and Nagaland and the bottom three performers are Manipur and Assam
In a diverse country like India, where each State is socially, culturally, economically, and politically distinct, measuring Governance becomes increasingly tricky. The Public Affairs Index (PAI 2021) is a scientifically rigorous, data-based framework that measures the quality of governance at the Sub-national level and ranks the States and Union Territories (UTs) of India on a Composite Index (CI).
States are classified into two categories – Large and Small – using population as the criteria.
In PAI 2021, PAC defined three significant pillars that embody Governance – Growth, Equity, and Sustainability. Each of the three Pillars is circumscribed by five governance praxis Themes.
The themes include – Voice and Accountability, Government Effectiveness, Rule of Law, Regulatory Quality and Control of Corruption.
At the bottom of the pyramid, 43 component indicators are mapped to 14 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are relevant to the States and UTs.
This forms the foundation of the conceptual framework of PAI 2021. The choice of the 43 indicators that go into the calculation of the CI were dictated by the objective of uncovering the complexity and multidimensional character of development governance
The Equity Principle
The Equity Pillar of the PAI 2021 Index analyses the inclusiveness impact at the Sub-national level in the country; inclusiveness in terms of the welfare of a society that depends primarily on establishing that all people feel that they have a say in the governance and are not excluded from the mainstream policy framework.
This requires all individuals and communities, but particularly the most vulnerable, to have an opportunity to improve or maintain their wellbeing. This chapter of PAI 2021 reflects the performance of States and UTs during the pandemic and questions the governance infrastructure in the country, analysing the effectiveness of schemes and the general livelihood of the people in terms of Equity.
Growth and its Discontents
Growth in its multidimensional form encompasses the essence of access to and the availability and optimal utilisation of resources. By resources, PAI 2021 refer to human resources, infrastructure and the budgetary allocations. Capacity building of an economy cannot take place if all the key players of growth do not drive development. The multiplier effects of better health care, improved educational outcomes, increased capital accumulation and lower unemployment levels contribute magnificently in the growth and development of the States.
The Pursuit Of Sustainability
The Sustainability Pillar analyses the access to and usage of resources that has an impact on environment, economy and humankind. The Pillar subsumes two themes and uses seven indicators to measure the effectiveness of government efforts with regards to Sustainability.
The Curious Case Of The Delta
The Delta Analysis presents the results on the State performance on year-on-year improvement. The rankings are measured as the Delta value over the last five to 10 years of data available for 12 Key Development Indicators (KDI). In PAI 2021, 12 indicators across the three Pillars of Equity (five indicators), Growth (five indicators) and Sustainability (two indicators). These KDIs are the outcome indicators crucial to assess Human Development. The Performance in the Delta Analysis is then compared to the Overall PAI 2021 Index.
Key Findings:-
In the Scheme of Things
The Scheme Analysis adds an additional dimension to ranking of the States on their governance. It attempts to complement the Governance Model by trying to understand the developmental activities undertaken by State Governments in the form of schemes. It also tries to understand whether better performance of States in schemes reflect in better governance.
The Centrally Sponsored schemes that were analysed are National Health Mission (NHM), Umbrella Integrated Child Development Services scheme (ICDS), Mahatma Gandh National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SmSA) and MidDay Meal Scheme (MDMS).
National Health Mission (NHM)
INTEGRATED CHILD DEVELOPMENT SERVICES (ICDS)
MID- DAY MEAL SCHEME (MDMS)
SAMAGRA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN (SMSA)
MAHATMA GANDHI NATIONAL RURAL EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE SCHEME (MGNREGS)