Police Stations Visitors Week (PSVW), 2011 for Good Governance

Demand for human security is universal all over the countries. The responsibility of ensuring justice and security of the citizen in every country is vested with police. In every continent, there are police services striving to become more professional and more effective in dealing with crime. In Bangladesh, the government has taken some initiative for modernising and developing police services. Still the colonial legacy remains in some areas of police activities. However, the duty, activity, style and strategy of policing have been reformed a lot in last decades in Bangladesh. There are both internal and external pressures on police department for more human approach to the justice- and security-seeking people. The strategy in dealing with crime varies in almost every country. There is an inverse relation between democracy and good policing. The more a country is democratic, the more the police personnel are respectful in treatment with citizens. In a county with low democratic tradition and system, there are many incidents of human right violations. But in any country the police personnel are facing the challenge of building good relations with the citizens they serve. Our police are also ready to help our citizens to their capabilities and out citizens definitely want to get more services from Police. Then what is the problem? Problem is communication. Mass people have some traditional fear about police and the law enforcing agency has some typical approach towards mass. Since recent years some organisations and alliances have been working for good governance in policing by bringing the police and the public perusing closer for ensuring justice and human security. Altus is such a global alliance working across the continents to minimise the gap between police and the public by forming a multicultural perspective to improve the public safety and justice. In April 2004, six established non-government organisations (NGOs) and academic centres joined together to form a unique Alliance called Altus. With members spanning five continents, Altus offers a truly global perspective on issues of safety and justice, a greater capacity to work across boarders, and a large role of civil society in advancing justice. Since last year, The Good Earth, an NGO in Bangladesh, participated with Altus to work in Bangladesh. To address the communicative problem and also build up friendly relation between police and the members of the community, local and international level initiatives have been taken. Altus global alliance is observing its worldwide Police Station Visitors Week from October 31 to November 06, 2011. As part of these initiatives 10 police stations of Bangladesh are being visited by the members of the civil society to assess the quality of the services delivered from the police stations with permission from the Bangladesh police headquarters (H.Q). The Good Earth, an NGO in Bangladesh in collaboration of Altus Global Alliance, has organised Police Stations Visitors Week (PSVW) 2011, an event aimed at strengthening the accountability of police to the public. Ten police stations of Dhaka Metropolitan area, Comilla, Chandpur, Gazipur are to be visited by 10 teams to assess the quality of services provided by police stations. This event is being held in 30 countries including India, Pakistan, the USA, Brazil, Peru and Malaysia. The theme of this event is to adapt the best practice services of the police stations that are rendering quality services locally and globally. Altus helps public officials identify or develop empirically tested models of respectful policing, quality legal services for the poor, and other good practices that fit local needs. Altus also helps NGOs around the world work more effectively with government and plays a larger role in shaping rights-conscious solutions. For scholars, Altus offers a new body of comparative knowledge about safety and justice as well as crosscultural research methods and tools. And for donors, Altus provides an efficient vehicle to connect visionaries and reformers around the world and make progress on issues of global importance. Police Stations Visitors Week (PSVW) 2011 is a unique global event organised by Altus to assess the quality of services delivered in the participating police departments, to identify some of the best practices in use by police, to strengthen the accountability of police to the local citizens whom they serve and to promote human rights standards. The visitors have a special kit for use, developed by Altus to guide their visit, following protocols that are the same around the world. Immediately after each visit, the visitors are needed to answer 20 questions about what they observed. Altus collects the scores over a secured web site and verifies them. The scores are based on visitors' individual perceptions about the police stations. Expectations for police service vary across countries and within localities. As a result, the scores measure the extent to which visitors perceive the police in particular stations to be meeting or even exceeding local expectations in globally comparable areas of service. The Police Stations Visitors Week Kit (Police Week Kit) is a 20-question tool developed by Altus for assessing the extent to which a police station is designed to serve the public. The questionnaire is based on variety of international standards and agreements in the areas of human rights and police accountability, such as the UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the UN Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons Under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment. Bangladesh Police has been extending its cooperation with this great event. Target of the week is to build up a close tie with people and police. So the five core categories of the police station assessment are: Community Orientation, Physical Conditions, and Equal Treatment of the Public without bias based on Age, Gender, Ethnicity, Nationality, Minority Status, Age or, Sexual Orientation, Transparency and Accountability, and Detention Conditions. The Altus members formed an alliance because commonalities in the delivery of justice in countries around the world today are already more important than the differences, and because greater justice anywhere can spur change around the world. The Good Earth has been organising the police station week in Bangladesh since 2009. In the last year, the score obtained by Mohammadpur PS indicates that police governance is progressing toward transparency and accountability step by step.The progress of good governance and services in police stations are remarkable in last few years. A number of stakeholders have contributed to pull the police services in the right and desirable track such as 1) police reforms; 2) lessons learnt from good practices across the country; 3) stabilisation of democratic institutions and values; 4) pressure of civil society; and 5) media campaign. Kits used are not sufficient indicators to measure the quality of governance. There are some other things which are also considered to be effective instruments to judge the quality of services. Some of these are humanitarian attitude and compassion of the police to the people for whose services they are employed. It is hoped to achieve more humanitarian attitude in all our police stations by adopting good practices methods of the best performing police stations across the countries. The Police Station Visitors Week provides an opportunity for the public to be acquainted with the services delivery in police stations. Police will benefit from the visits as they seek ways to further improve their services. Observation of PSVW brings the community and police together to understand each other. The writer can be reached at email: info@thegoodearthbd.org or thegoodearth2001@gmail.com