FOR A CHANGE

COMMUNITY POLICING Trichy
GOPU MOHAN
Inspector General J.K. Tripathy is an officer who mulls over crime and punishment and the duties of policemen in equal measure. Cause and effect are important in his book and civic issues like power cuts and water supply, and social parameters like literacy and employment are important to him in tackling crime.
“A streetlight that is not functioning is an excellent cover for a criminal and problems in water supply can create unrest among community members, which are often taken to the road,” reasons the 1985-batch IPS official.
“‘When I joined service, I was worried about the poor image and failure of the police in executing their duties. The police look at everybody with suspicion, which in turn creates fear in the mind of the public,” he says.
To tackle this, Tripathy initiated community policing in the Trichy Corporation in Tamil Nadu, where he was commissioner between 1999 and 2001. His first step towards taking the police to the people was creating a beat system where a fixed team of constables were put in charge of a colony and had to interact with its residents.
“This instilled confidence in the community and won respect for the policemen. These ‘beat officers’ knew every possible detail about everyone in the area, enabling them to identify a stranger at first glance. This interaction made the people feel secure and encouraged them to share information with the police without any fear.”
Then he took it further by installing a system where citizens could file a complaint, give information to the police or even register complaints about a corrupt policeman through SMSes or emails. Complaint/suggestion boxes were also installed at many places.
One of the most innovative steps that he took was to organise a slum adoption programme where juvenile criminals were given an opportunity to join the mainstream. That changed quite a few things. For instance, in a slum, Kulapatti in Trichy, most of the dwellers were involved in illegal brewing and criminal activities. In fact, even the police were denied entry there. Tripathy found out that the slum lacked a proper road, which was affecting the lives of its residents.
His offer was simple: stop illegal and anti-social activities and get a road. After a six-month-long probation, the response from the community was so positive that the police co-ordinated with the civic body and NGOs and built a road, which this JNU graduate proudly calls ‘the corridor of bond.’
As a result of all these measures, the number of crimes in Trichy came down from 11,289 to 7,750 in just two years, says Tripathy, who won the prestigious International Community Policing Award of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), Washington, in 2001, and also the gold medal for Innovations in Governance by the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management in 2002 for the community policing model he instituted.

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