Daily Post 1506
NATIONAL CRIME AUDIT
Crime meetings and crime reviews have been regular tools of the Police supervisory officers to keep track of the general direction in which crimes are moving in their geographical jurisdiction and simultaneously keep track of the heinous cases. Layer after layer of inspection is done of Police Stations and of other police offices. The spiralling of a few cases in the last couple of months certainly indicate that there needs to be a greater appreciation of the prevailing crime investigation and accountability situation. Few of them are certainly not complex cases from the investigation point of view but have caught the nation’s imagination.
There is no denying the fact that once a case is blown out of proportion, a huge amount of Police’s time and energy is lost in it. It is way better to do a full proof investigation rather than get mired in unnecessary and sometimes even embarrassing issues. The situation also gets vitiated. It does not do any good to the already sagging police image. To ward off such situations is the need of the hour. The law remains the same, but internal processes, besides the mandatory legal requirements, of vintage need to change.
Crime investigation has moved in the direction of getting digital, the earliest it becomes fully digital, some of the ills can be brought down and higher levels of transparency gets automatically ushered in. What is required in the changed scenario and the needed checks and balances, which for some reason were missing, can be documented based on knowledge, expertise & experience. This becomes the business logic of the software. With regular audit control and escalation matrix built in, the responsibility and accountability part can also be fixed. This whole business of enquiry can be sorted out to a considerable degree.
An inbuilt quarterly detailed crime audit, to be initiated by the supervisory officere, will bring unwarranted case closures etc to notice and would bring accountability right to their doorstep. Same accountability for both the parties involved in the audit. With this level of documentation and cross referencing for all purposes, subjectivity would come down considerably. Quality investigation and predictability of punishment are the real deterrents. State Crime Audit and National Crime Audit built on an objective fully digitally controlled system, would certainly bring down lots of unnecessary bad blood.
TRANSPARENCY IS TRUST. IT DEVELOPS OVER A PERIOD OF TIME.