Beat Policing in Bangladesh: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Beat policing is a community policing strategy designed to make an individual police officer responsible for the community’s policing needs in a defined geographical area or the beat. It is a philosophy and management approach that seeks the community involvement in the policing system. Community policing as one of the most widely adopted police strategy in the last several decades. Due to not getting expected result from community policing program, police professionals, community members, and policy makers are seeking an alternative model of policing that would be better for public safety and security. Because of high population and institutional limitations of police, public security has disrupted alarmingly in recent years. The beat policing is a door-to-door watching and proactive policing system which involves the beat residents with the police to work in partnership and mutual coordination. Beat officers are encouraged to take ‘leadership’ of their area and employ proactive strategies to identify the causes of crime and community problems within their beat. In addition to that information collection, one to one communication and increase surveillance by residents of their own neighborhoods are key strategies of beat policing system. It is a remarkable shift from the traditional model of policing to the beat area based model of policing. The main objective of this paper is to establish a conceptual framework of beat policing from the appropriate theoretical perspective and also the Bangladesh viewpoint.