Arrest deterioration in the police service

Inspector General of Police Lucky Kodituwakku has, as we reported the other day, recommended a crash course designed to inculcate discipline in the police department. It has been viewed as part of an attempt by the police top brass to snuff out the deterioration of the police department.

That the canker of indiscipline has eaten into the very core of the police department is obvious. It is reeking with bribery and corruption and nothing, it is said, gets done there unless someone’s palm is greased – an act most people flinch from even at a cost. Hence the deep-seated frustration of the people as regards the police.

There are many in the police who have not sullied their good name and deserve a commendation as good cops. But the decadence is so widespread and serious that it is natural for someone to forget the exception to the rule and tar all cops with the same brush.

If not for corruption in the police, the country would not have been reeling under the plethora of crimes and other nefarious activities prevalent in society today. Under the very noses of the police, the illicit liquor trade is thriving. So are drug trafficking and gambling. The crime wave, the velocity of which has reduced the police to the level of a mere onlooker, is paralysing the country. Daring heists have become the order of the day. Worst of all, the number of people killed by criminals and the incidence of rape are soaring very high. It is therefore natural that the police are blamed for all this.

But why bash only the cops? Can they be immune to the all round deterioration of discipline in society? The police are another government department which cannot be any different from others. Take for example, the Motor Traffic Department, where grafting is the only way to have anything done. It is here driving licences are sold not issued. Then there is the Health Department. In the so-called National Hospital of the country, it is alleged, a bed -ridden patient has to bribe attendants to get a bed pan or a urinal. What about the Education Department which is entrusted with the task of moulding the little ones into useful members of society. It is here, many a sanctimonious principal wearing saccharine smiles lines his pockets at the expense of the parents whose children seek admission to popular schools.

The public are no better. Take for example, how they use roads. The law of the jungle prevails on our roads with motorists driving coach and six horses through the Highway Code and the jay walking pedestrians.

Children on the other hand are given crash courses by their parents themselves in lying before facing interviews for school admission. Deeds are prepared and documents doctored. Can discipline be expected from a society whose members are trained to lie at a tender age?.

This is the kind of public who ride the moral high horse crusading for inculcating discipline in society.

Politicians, on the other hand, must also be blamed for this sorry state of affairs. They nestle criminals close to their bosoms and issue orders to the police. There are only a few cops who dare defy them and pay the price. They are relegated to the wilderness by means of transfer. What they expect of the police is obsequiousness, not honesty and bravery. And is it surprising at all that stooges are ruling the roost in the police and every other government institution? Doesn’t it look as if a special course has to be designed to discipline the entire society?

That the plague of indiscipline has affected society as a whole of which they are only a part, should not however be trotted out as a lame excuse by the police for not putting their cop shop in order. The IGP has done well by taking a step in the right direction and he should be given every encouragement to pursue what he has initiated.

His crash course, however, will fall short of the target unless coupled with measures to depoliticise the police and bust the nexus between them and the underworld. The new IGP’s task in this regard will doubtlessly be Herculean not so much because of the protective occupational culture of the police which resists change but as a result of non cooperation on the part of the high and mighty politician, who want to keep the police as his minutemen. Kodituwakku will be really lucky if he can overcome this difficulty without baulking at it.