Police citizen interface a study of select districts of Haryana

Abstract

Police-community participation has been the latest paradigm of policing in modern times. Furthermore, the United Nation s concept of Good Governance has also recognized Citizen Participation as one of its basic tenets. Thus, community policing has emerged as the latest concept that calls for increasing the interface between the police and the citizens. The study analysed the police-citizens interface initiatives in the selected three districts of the state of Haryana i.e. Faridabad, Ambala and Panchkula. The study also focused on the perception of citizens as well as the police towards the police- citizen initiatives and schemes in Haryana. The time period of the study has been from 2011 to 2015. The present study assessed the perception of both police personnel and citizens regarding functioning of police in the selected three districts of Haryana for improving the interface between police and citizens in Haryana. The analysis of primary data shows that majority of respondents were aware regarding the institutional mechanisms of Haryana Police pertaining to police-citizen interface. However, it was found that Haryana Police has not been able to create awareness about police-citizen interface initiatives among the citizens as majority of the respondents were unaware about them. Further, it was found that use of Information and Communication Technology by Haryana Police facilitated overall improvement in police-citizen interface in Haryana. On the contrary, majority respondents felt that the adverse image of Haryana Police amongst the citizens needs to be improved for successful implementation of initiatives of police-citizen interface in the state. Furthermore, it was found that various measures such as training related to police-citizen relationship, awareness about human rights, liaison groups, participation of educated citizens and so on should be adopted for effective implementation of police-citizen interface initiatives in the state. newline