Enforce discipline in police force

POLICE abuse and brutality is an ongoing issue that makes newspaper headlines both locally and internationally.
It has a long history, and it seems to defy all attempts at eradication.
The problem is national: no police station in the country is known to be completely free of misconduct.
Today, among both officials and rank and file officers, it is widely recognised that police brutality hinders good law enforcement.
A media statement from the Police Commissioner who is also the State of Emergency Controller David Manning says the Internal Affairs Directorate (IAD) continues to receive reports against police through the toll-free number with approximately 75 per cent of complaints received being against NCD police for various alleged criminal and abusive behaviours.
A Joint Investigations Task Force Team has been set up to investigate several major allegations in the NCD.
We would like to see that this situation is not hopeless. Policing has seen progress in some areas.
Several commanders have introduced foot patrols in their bid to get police officers closer to the people.
All the efforts can be complimented with the police hierarchy reviewing regularly, for a clear understanding, police officers powers of arrest and the procedures to adopt upon and following arrest and for the command and supervisory officials to issue and enforce clear standing orders on arrest procedures; debrief the officers involved after every arrest.
The police hierarchy has always appealed for the public to register reports of police officers involved in brutality cases at the IAD for it be investigated.
There is a pathway to hold officers accountable for their actions and the people should not be afraid to use it.
Most victims maybe are afraid of retaliation and some are reluctant as they view the process as too tedious, going here and there and then not knowing the progress of the investigation or how to do a follow-up. Over the years, the state has spent millions fighting and settling lawsuits involving alleged police misconduct, injuries on public property and a range of other legal challenges.
The former solicitor-general Faith Barton told the annual Police Commissioners conference in 2016 that the State had spent over K131 million in compensation on police abuse cases.
Over 8,600 cases of State litigation were registered with the solicitor-generals’ office, of which 19 percent relate to police abuse.
Of that 60 to 70 percent of these cases were results of police negligence, in which police officers had acted outside the scope of their operational requirements.
Previous media reports say the lack of communication between police and the Office of the Solicitor-General often resulted in default judgments obtained against the State.
There isn’t much comfort to be found in an atmosphere where calling the cops for assistance could potentially be your own death sentence.
Some officers continue to commit acts of savagery towards innocent people because their superiors either cannot control them or simply condone their actions.
These uniformed thugs should be removed from the police force as a matter of urgency.
They are a deadly menace to civil society.
The challenge is now on the commanders and provincial police commanders to enforce discipline so as to reduce the number of police abuse cases happening across the nation.