A Cop-Out With Numbers

The Economic Times 1st January 2021 Save

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Context: The assumption that understaffed, under-resourced and overworked police officers are a primary reason for the general inefficiency of Indian police must be rejected.

Arguments against the Direct Relation between Police Strength and it’s efficiency

There is no UN recommendation on police personnel ratio: instead, Vienna-based UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) gives a numerical recommendation of 222 police personnel per lakh population.
- While India’s actual strength (sanctioned strength is 181) nears 140 per lakh.
Possibility of shortcomings in police strength statistics: is admitted by 2010 European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control paper, ‘International Statistics on Crime and Justice.’
- It also says that a police force is not a monolithic entity with similar structures and tasks worldwide.
- It may not be prudent to judge India’s police strength (122.5) democratic set-up with and West Asian monarchies like Brunei (1,087) and Kuwait (1,065.2) and Bahrain (1,866.7).
Police workload is minimal: Serious crimes (Murder and rape - 1% each, rash driving- 11% of total crimes) are less compared to petty crimes like Prohibition Act (28.9%) and Motor Vehicles Act (10.5% ).
- Police workload on account of law and order situations, whether as per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data or the annual police stations survey is not overwhelming.
- A total of 63,359 offences registered against public tranquillity during 2019 means 3.8 such instances per police station in a year.
Increasing strength does not improve law and order:
- Nagaland (1,108 police personnel more than sanctioned) and Uttar Pradesh (police were raised by one lakh personnel in a year) show no sign of improvement in law and order situations.
- Determining the sanctioned strength lacks an assessment of the policing requirement.
- India has the largest police force in the world (more than 20 lakh police personnel).