Community policing seems to be dying

When the police administration launched the community policing unit (CPU) on August 13, 2011, all Ghanaians hailed the innovation, as it was aimed at making our communities safer and more habitable.

Community policing also promotes a joint effort by the public and the police to keep at bay miscreants who may want to perpetrate crime and thus make people live in fear.    

The concept of community policing is also intended to empower citizens to contribute towards ensuring safety in their communities as well as transparency and accountability in the performance of the police.

Through community policing, vital information needed to save lives is provided as a result of the collaboration between the police and strategic partners like the community. The concept is also to assist fight crime and improve police public relations that is built on trust, respect and commitment.

However, since its launch in 2011, the initiative seems to have lost its essence, as a result of which people now take the law into their own hands when a community member errs on the side of law. People have now taken responsibility for their own safety because they believe that the police cannot protect them.

They have cited instances when distress calls to the police emergency lines did not go through and times when the police failed to act and attributed their failure to the lack of logistics such as vehicles or personnel. But community policing is meant to address all these lapses through effective collaboration and partnership with community members. 

Communities now live in fear, feel neglected or abandoned by the police, and thus members procure all sorts of implements to defend themselves against armed robbers and people who would seek to do them any harm.

Community policing does not refer to the visibility of the police at major intersections of our city roads, nor is it the presence of police stations or posts in the community. It is also not the presence of patrol teams during the night or times when communities are mostly deserted.

It is always said that the policeman is a friend to the community. Community policing, therefore, seeks to bring back the lost communal spirit that brought people living in the same neighbourhood together to pursue goals of common interest such as security, sanitation and the provision of utilities.

In recent times, however, the camaraderie brought about by the communal spirit is no more, with everyone minding his or her own business, sometimes to the detriment of the safety of community members. Even when danger is sensed, people would rather stay away than offer help to the distressed.

However, not too long ago, neighbourhood watch committees and individuals in the communities liaised with the police to smoke out suspicious characters and brought to book perpetrators of crimes in the communities. At its peak, the CPU was able to unravel many mysteries in various communities that the police on its own would have found very difficult to expose.

In previous years, everyone knew his or her next door neighbour and what they did. Now, however, probably due to urbanisation and the exigencies of the time, many people leave their homes very early in the morning and return very late and repeat that lifestyle every day. As a result, neighbours hardly speak to each other, especially during the week.

Individualism has brought about the situation where people erect tall walls to protect their properties instead of short or see-through walls that make neighbours part of everything that happens in the neighbourhood.

We believe, though that the community policing concept holds the key to bringing back our lost communal spirit and ensuring our safety and so it must be rejuvenated at all cost. Security is our collective responsibility and we all have a stake in ensuring it is firmly rooted in our communities.