Community policing-ensuring crime control through public participation in India

Abstract

Community Policing has been in practice since long and the idea has now gained fillip, as various countries have felt encouraged from the success of different community policing schemes across many jurisdictions. The essence of Community Policing is to bridge the distance between the police officers and citizens in such a way that the police officers become an integrated part of the community that they serve. In other words, the individual police officer should know each member of the community and the community members should in turn, know the police officer. One key to the success of any Community Policing Project is the ability of its ‘sponsors’ to ‘sell’ the project to its beneficiaries for this it is necessary that the beneficiaries are clearly identified and wooed. Communities rely on police departments to protect and serve and the police, in turn, rely on community support and cooperation, but the relationship is not always harmonious. To maintain the harmonious relationship between police & community it is very important to minimize gap between police and community. The present paper examines the concept of community policing in all its dimensions and its role and utility in crime control and prevention. The aim here is to assess the experience and success of community policing in many national legal systems and its desirability in and the extent to which it has been incorporated and applied in Indian legal system.