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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 1:32 am
Time: 1:32 am
Results for policing (commonwealth nations)
1 results foundAuthor: International Advisory Commission of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative Title: Police Accountability: Too Important to Neglect, Too Urgent to Delay Summary: Some of the best policing in the world is found in the Commonwealth, and also some of the worst. But by and large, its 1.8 billion people do not have the policing they deserve. Police reform is too important to neglect and too urgent to delay. In too many countries, governments are failing in their primary duty to provide the public with an honest, efficient, effective police service that ensures the rule of law and an environment of safety and security. Today, membership to the Commonwealth is premised on countries practising democracy - and democratic governance requires democratic policing. The only legitimate policing is policing that helps create an environment free from fear and conducive to the realisation of people's human rights, particularly those that promote unfettered political activity, which is the hallmark of a democracy. Nevertheless, barring a few honourable exceptions, there is too much wrong with policing in the Commonwealth for the association and its member states to persist in closing their eyes to the fact that the continued presence of unreformed policing - powerful, unaccountable, coercive, biased, and corrupt - remains a badge of a long gone colonial subservience rather than a mark of confident sovereignty. Common colonial antecedents provide Commonwealth police structures a core resemblance but post-colonial histories have shaped present day policing in each country. The strengths and capabilities of police in the Commonwealth are now as diverse as the association itself. Sizes vary from less than 500 in tiny Dominica to more than a million in India. More importantly, population to police ratios vary: in South Africa for instance, there is one police officer per 404 people1; whereas in Bangladesh, it's one officer for every 1,200 people2. Some have huge financial and human resources to back them, while others must struggle to afford even basic stationery. Some - for example, Nigeria, Kenya and Canada - usually carry no lethal arms while others like South Africa, Jamaica, Sierra Leone and Northern Ireland routinely go armed. Some, like Malaysia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Fiji are strongly centralised while others are decentralised to state, provincial or local levels, such as Nigeria and the United Kingdom (UK). Some countries have a combination of national, state and local police forces. Canada and Australia, for instance, both have a federal police organisation, as well as state-level police organisations and Canada also has municipal police organisations. South Africa has one national police service and five separate municipal police services. India has 35 police forces and a proliferating number of paramilitaries and specialist forces, some directly under the control of the states while the ones at the centre fall under central government control. The evolution of policing values has also been influenced by individual national histories. In a few countries policing has benefited from relative affluence and long unbroken periods of peace and stability. Elsewhere policing has been negatively influenced by long periods of dictatorship, apartheid, one party rule, coups, internal conflicts, overweening executives, militarisation and politicisation and everywhere policing is now being shaped by the recent preoccupation with terrorism. But perhaps above all, poor policing in unreformed jurisdictions has been perpetuated and even fostered by the temptation of ruling regimes - elected or self-perpetuating - to retain a force wholly in its control and designed to suppress opponents and dissent with a heavy hand. Such police have proved especially valuable apparatus in retaining power at election time when rivalries and threat perceptions are heightened. The regime bias in policing has helped ruling elites topple governments as has happened in the Solomon Islands, retain them in the Maldives and assist in keeping them safe from challenge in many more. Details: New Delhi: Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, 2005. 116p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 29, 2012 at: http://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/publications/chogm/chogm_2005/chogm_2005_full_report.pdf Year: 2005 Country: International URL: http://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/publications/chogm/chogm_2005/chogm_2005_full_report.pdf Shelf Number: 114626 Keywords: Police AccountabilityPolice CorruptionPolice MisconductPolice ReformPolicing (Commonwealth Nations) |