Preventive law enforcement needed

PREVENTIVE enforcement of law and order is more effective and efficient in curbing law and order problems and disruptions.
It requires the police to be in the city streets, villages and settlements on foot patrols, bicycles, and motorbikes and collecting intelligence for the enforcement of law and order, as well as preventing it from occurring in our communities.
Preventive enforcement is consistent with the well-known and famous medical advice of “prevention is better than cure” because it reduces the overall cost in terms of resources and time required for enforcement of law and order and prosecution of offenses in the courts of law.
The police force, as an institution, is seriously ineffective and inefficient.
It is crumbling while law and order problems have significantly deteriorated in Papua New Guinea.
The major structural problem of the police force is that it lacks the capacity for preventive law and order enforcement.
The inefficiency and ineffectiveness are obvious in many forms such as police personnel spending their entire time travelling in motor vehicles, locking themselves away in their offices, using police vehicles to transport families and relatives and doing personal errands using police vehicles.
Some personnel spend time and resources of the police force in pursuing matters of personal interest.
The recent newspaper publication on Jan 25 and Feb 26 showed that senior policemen were refusing to take up their new postings in the country while some were seeking court orders to nullify the appointments by Police Commissioner David Manning on personal interest rather than in the interest of the public.
Some police personnel even waste time and public resources on pursuing criminal activities of their own choosing.
For example, it is common knowledge that policemen in Port Moresby travel around in tinted four-wheel drive vehicles chasing PMV and taxi drivers for cash during non-pay week.
This is a serious breakdown of law and order within the police force.
PNG needs a forward looking police force founded on prevention of law and order problems and disruption in public interest rather than reacting to law and order events as it is doing at the moment.
A structural overhaul of the laws and police force, including the establishment of a police board and an independent appointment process of the police commissioner and his deputies is urgently required.
All police appointments, recruitment and training should be done independently using fit-and-proper test requirements.
Police personal must also be required to do patrols on foot, bicycles and motorbikes, using modern communication equipment and technology.

Concerned Citizen,
Pom