By Amin Kef Sesay
It is no hidden secret that every day at the checkpoints that they man across the city and along the highways and roads in the provinces, Police nakedly and shamelessly demand and receive bribes on a daily basis in the form of booking from commercial vehicle drivers.
What is most appealing about this disgraceful practice is that traffic Police Officers have been joined by Traffic Wardens in carrying out these blatant dastardly acts of corruption; with the victims being passengers and conveyors of goods, forced to pay high transport fares.
We have several times drawn the attention of the Inspector General and the Police Executive Management Board to the undermining of the fight against corruption by this act of shamelessly demanding money for rendering their services which is also rampant among officers at Police stations in investigating matters taken to them by members of the public with no positive response towards addressing it.
This age old unaddressed corruption within the Police Force has made many citizens to state that the Government’s fight against corruption is mere lip service as the Police Force which should enforce the law is deeply corrupt and only interested in money making.
Many citizens complain that given the method of recruitment, wherein relatives and those who pay money to be taken are favored, many junior Police Officers do not follow what they were taught in training school and thus engage in bad policing. As a result, crime is high and public confidence in the Police is low.
The Police, in the performance of their duties of protecting lives and properties and deterring crime are accused of lacking proximity to the citizens and disrespect for human rights and the rule of law. In addition, a lack of transparency causes corruption and abuse of power. As a result, the instability of the State is intensifying.
In terms of equipment, the Police have inadequate equipment and logistics. Police officers do not receive sufficient training to carry out their tasks professionally and diligently within standardized organizational and accountable working processes.
In terms of prosecution, there is a need for better cooperation between the Police and the Judiciary in terms of providing prima facie evidence for prosecution and ensuring that the right for bail is not violated.
In order for the Police to be seen as professional, the institutional and human resources capacity of the Police as an institution responsible for maintaining law and order has to be strengthened; based on the principles of rule of law. Strengthening human rights in police work is a particular focus.
In order to build stability, there is a crying need to strengthen the legitimacy of the Police Force by increasing transparency, professionalism and partnership with citizens.
In this context, procedures for internal control, accountability and managing complaints should be brought to the fore by the EMB in order to enable prompt action on reports of bad policing from the public. The involvement of civil society and citizens in Police decision making will go a long way in improving the population’s trust in the security authorities.
Several solutions and actions to create fair and effective policing practices have been recommended:
1) Create use of force guidelines and ensure that they are followed to the letter by both rank and file in the performance of their duties
2) Hold Police departmental heads strictly responsible for negligence.
3) Screen recruits for intelligence, bias and aggression
4) Focus on employing robust collaborative community approaches to policing
5) Encourage consistent monitoring and screening of officers in the field; particularly with regards this Press’s repeated whistle blowing on traffic officers and wardens having turned bribery and corruption in the commercial transport sector into a very lucrative business; albeit totally illegal and deplorably unacceptable by the citizenry.
