FUNCTIONS OF POLICE

Crime prevention

 Crime prevention has become an increasingly important component of many national

strategies on public safety and security.

 Crime detection and its prevention is a very crucial aim of the police worldwide. It
involves not only the deployment of personnel on patrol duties but also to detect crime.

 The police are committed to explore all measures both proactive and reactive to ensure
a safe and peaceful environment for all.

 Crime prevention is a term describing techniques used for reducing crime and criminal
activities as well as deterring crime and criminals. It is applied specifically to efforts
made by governments to reduce crime, enforce the law, and maintain criminal justice.
 Crime prevention

 Most crime prevention results from informal and formal practices and programs located
in seven institutional settings.
 These institutions appear to be ―interdependent at the local level, in that events in one
of these institutions can affect events in others that in turn can affect the local crime rate.
 These are
 communities,
 families,
 schools,
 labour markets,
 places,
 police, and
 criminal justice
 Crime prevention

 Several police activities are at least partially justified by the assumption that they contribute to
crime prevention.
 Here, we discuss three such functions:
 surveillance,
 crime analysis, and
 offender tracking.

1. Approaches to Crime Prevention:

1. 2.1. Environmental crime prevention:
2. 2.2. Situational crime prevention:
3. 2.3. Urban design and planning:
4. 2.4. Social crime prevention:
5. 2.5. Developmental crime prevention:

6. 2.6. Community development:

 Police Patrolling

 Police Officers are trained to be systematically random while on patrol e.g. "doubling back" on
locations, especially if looking for someone.
 They patrol their assigned beat or assigned sector, unless they are given permission to do or
assigned to other duties.
 Extra attention will be given to closed business,
 bars at closing time,
 trouble spots such as gang areas or troubled housing developments,
 parks,

 all night businesses (some known as stop and robs.)

 Theaters,
 churches or sporting events open at night;
 hospitals,
 high vehicle traffic areas, and residential areas reporting repeated crimes
 Police Patrolling

 A Police station should have 2 Sumo/Gypsy with 1 driver, 1 Sub Inspector, 1 Assistant
Sub-Inspector and 4 Constables in each car.
 The SI and ASI can be armed with a 9mm pistol and
 the Constables should be armed with rifles (preferably 5.56mm INSAS).

 These armed patrols will act as the command and coordination centre for the bike patrol
and provide armed support to the Beats or other police personnel on ground.

 While patrolling, the patrol parties can stop at public places and the team can fan out in
buddy pairs to talk to people and gather information, after a set time they can regroup
and move to their next location
 Police Patrolling

 In this section we give our recommendations as to how police patrolling can be improved
to deter crimes and collect information, the recommendations have been drafted after
drawing in experiment results and contemporary factors that affect police like (financial
resources, human resources, size of beat area and population).

 But before we recommend anything, it’s important for our readers to know that police in
Indian are more focused on law enforcement rather than crime prevention.

 Police personnel in India are inherently trained to respond to post-crimes scenarios rather
than take measures to stop crime from happening in the first place.
 SURVEILLANCE

 Police surveillance is one activity justified by its potential effect on crime prevention.
Proponents of surveillance claim that it prevents crime by deterrence,

 especially when overt surveillance activities remind potential criminals of police

presence and observation.

 Critics contend that surveillance may simply displace crime to unobserved locations,
rather than prevent it.
 SURVEILLANCE

 Regardless, it is the case that if an area under surveillance becomes a crime scene, the
surveillance can both alert police to the need for an operational response and/or provide
evidence for subsequent criminal investigation and prosecution.

 Because of the many factors involved in contact between police and private citizens,
surveillance technology that transmits information to police may have significant
advantages over eyewitness surveillance.

 Technology that records video or audio information may also be especially valuable for
supporting investigation and enabling prosecution.
 OFFENDER TRACKING
 Interviewees and focus group participants supporting this study painted a pessimistic
picture of offender-based tracking systems.

 Most such systems are between 20 and 30 years old and, like most legacy systems, are
now difficult to use and maintain.

 It is relevant to note that this also represents a situation where public opinion and
liability risk may represent a factor encouraging rather than discouraging technology
adoption.

 Victims of crime perpetrated by offenders turned loose in communities without being

adequately tracked are beginning to bring lawsuits against state agencies for not having
or effectively providing information that could have potentially prevented crime
 MODUS OPERANDI

 The term is often used in police work when discussing crime and addressing the
methods employed by criminals. It is also used in criminal profiling, where it can help in
finding clues to the offender's psychology.

 It largely consists of examining the actions used by the individuals to execute the crime,
prevent its detection and facilitate escape.

 A suspect's modus operandi can assist in their identification, apprehension, or repression,

and can also be used to determine links between crimes
 Investigation related duties and jobs

 This would include police functions like:

 (a) crime registration

 (b) guarding, protecting visit to the scene of crime

 (c) lifting, handling and packing of exhibits and sending them to various places like the PS, SP office, FSL and other places calling
witnesses and serving notices to them Sec (60), Model Police Act 2006

 (d) calling witnesses and serving notices to them

 (e) arresting criminals and suspects

 (f) search and seizure proceedings during an investigation

 (g) interrogation of suspects, witnesses and criminals

 (h) collection and recording of various types of evidences i.e. oral, documentary and expert opinion etc.

 (i) taking criminals to courts for police/judicial custody and trial

 (j) raids for various purposes.


 Crime prevention and preservation of peace and security

 This would include:

 a) Gast and patrolling, including nakabandi, performing picket and ambush jobs, checking vehicles and
frisking passengers

 b) surveillance and checking of bad characters

 c) preventive arrests

 d) collection and transmission of criminal intelligence

 Collection of Intelligence
 Police are required to collect intelligence about:

 a) any incident of law-and-order

 b) political activities

 c) labour activities

 d) student activities and agitations thereof

 e) communal tensions and events

 f) employees' associations and strikes by them

 g) criminal activities

 h) miscellaneous activities and events tending to destroy peace and tranquillity.

 Collection of Information
 Police should collect information about every movement, state of feeling, dispute or
incident, which may lead to a breach of peace.

 Communication of such information should be sent to the concerned authorities for

taking action and to use the information for the purpose of preventing or detecting the
associated crimes and for preventing breach of peace.

 All police measures and actions, their efficacy and use depend on the quality of
intelligence gathered and its use.
 Interrogation

 The Police personnel carrying out the arrest and handling the interrogation of the arrestee should
bear accurate, visible and clear identification and name tags with their designations.

 The particulars of all such police personnel who handle interrogation of the arrestee must be
recorded

 The arrestee may be permitted to meet his lawyer during interrogation, though not throughout the
interrogation in a register.

 One Officer must be entrusted with the responsibility for the safety of any arrested person kept in the
Police Station. He must make sure that no Policemen get opportunity to carry out any unauthorized
interrogation of the accused.
 Interrogation

 There are nine steps to the Reid interrogation technique, briefly described below.
 1. The positive confrontation. The investigator tells the suspect that the evidence demonstrates the
person's guilt. If the person's guilt seems clear to the investigator, the statement should be
unequivocal.

 2. Theme development. The investigator then presents a moral justification (theme) for the offense,
such as placing the moral blame on someone else or outside circumstances. The investigator presents
the theme in a monologue and in sympathetic manner.

 3. Handling denials. When the suspect asks for permission to speak at this stage (likely to deny the
accusations), the investigator should discourage allowing the suspect to do so. The innocent suspects
are less likely to ask for permission and more likely to “promptly and unequivocally” deny the
accusation. “[i]t is very rare for an innocent suspect to move past this denial state.”
 Interrogation

 4. Overcoming objections. When attempts at denial do not succeed, a guilty suspect often makes
objections to support a claim of innocence (e.g., I would never do that because I love my job.) The
investigator should generally accept these objections as if they were truthful, rather than arguing with
the suspect, and use the objections to further develop the theme.

 5. Procurement and retention of suspect's attention. The investigator must procure the suspect's
attention so that the suspect focuses on the investigator's theme rather than on punishment. One way
the investigator can do this is to close the physical distance between himself or herself and the
suspect. The investigator should also “channel the theme down to the probable alternative
components.”

 6. Handling the suspect's passive mood. The investigator “should intensify the theme presentation
and concentrate on the central reasons he [or she] is offering as psychological justification . . . [and]
continue to display an understanding and sympathetic demeanor in urging the suspect to tell the
truth.”
 Interrogation

 7. Presenting an alternative question. The investigator should present two choices, assuming the
suspect's guilt and developed as a “logical extension from the theme,” with one alternative offering a
better justification for the crime (e.g., “Did you plan this thing out or did it just happen on the spur of
the moment?”). The investigator may follow the question with a supporting statement “which
encourages the suspect to choose the more understandable side of the alternative.”

 8. Having the suspect orally relate various details of the offense. After the suspect accepts one
side of the alternative (thus admitting guilt), the investigator should immediately respond with a
statement of reinforcement acknowledging that admission. The investigator then seeks to obtain a
brief oral review of the basic events, before asking more detailed questions

 9. Converting an oral confession to a written confession. The investigator must convert the oral
confession into a written or recorded confession. The website provides some guidelines, such as
repeating Miranda warnings, avoiding leading questions, and using the suspect's own language.
 Law & Order
 The field police officers should realize that society is full of factors and potentials which might cause
disruption to normal peaceful conditions.

 Police, therefore should always keep a close watch on various social, political, economic, religious,
cultural and other activities and issues so that these might not take an ugly turn and convert
themselves into situations of law and order.

 The police, therefore, are required to handle a large variety of law and order situations including
student unrest, political agitation, social demonstration, cultural and religious processions, industrial
agitation, various types of strikes, Dharnas and Gheraos etc.

 Each of the above categories of law and order situation would have its own specific and special
contexts and the police will have to tackle it accordingly
 Traffic Regulation
 Smooth flow of traffic, safe and secure vehicular and pedestrian movements have
become basic to the modern living because of concentration, congestion, road jams and
varied types of movements of vehicles and human beings on the roads.

 Safe, secure and smooth flow of traffic has become inevitable conditions of overall
progress, prosperity and development of human existence today.

 Smooth and effective traffic regulation, positive and safe road conditions, driving time
and overall road security scenario have become an integral part of the emerging trends
of traffic managements today.

 The police, nay, the traffic police have an onerous duty to perform all these duties in an
efficient manner