Neither friend nor foe: exploring potential development impacts of Pakistan's community policing practice
Creators: name: Abbas, Muhammad
Publisher: name: RMIT University
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 440211
subject: Police administration, procedures and practice
classificationCode: 440402
subject: Humanitarian disasters, conflict and peacebuilding

description: The changing nature of conflicts globally has shifted the focus of national security from the state to individual well-being and development. These conflicts have largely become internally focused, involving domestic terrorist groups, criminal gangs and private militias. In parallel, the responsibility of local law enforcement agencies such as the police to provide safety and security for the public has increased significantly. This in turn has contributed to deteriorating relationships between the public and the police in many post-conflict and fragile societies, undermining the capacity of the police to provide protection against such threats. These concerns highlight the importance of police reforms to enhance public legitimacy and improve their performance. Given this deteriorating relationship between the public and the police in Pakistan, this thesis examines the application of community policing reform in building and sustaining peace, security, trust and development.

This research examines three main areas of the interrelationship between security, development and policing: human development and human security; the implementation of community policing as a policing reform strategy; and the analysis of how community policing as a development strategy is put into practice. The thesis argues that the potential role of community policing in development has not been well researched, and this research therefore investigates this missing feature of research on police policy and practice. This thesis is based on the critical view that the narrow, militarised vision of state security, the lack of legitimacy and the ineffectiveness of the state (policing) institutions in promoting human development objectives accounts for the lack of security in Pakistan.

To this end, this study asks, 'what is the role of community policing reforms in promoting development and security in the Pakistani policing and socio-cultural context?' This principal research question is addressed via four sub-questions: (1) How do police officers define and implement community policing? (2) How do these strategies enhance police effectiveness and legitimacy? (3) How do these strategies support social development? and (4) Can this be a model for other countries seeking to build stability, development and police effectiveness?
 
The thesis contributes to the existing scholarship on community policing by unpacking the different strategies employed by the Islamabad Capital Territory Police to promote police legitimacy and effectiveness, and social well-being and development. The study findings indicate that community policing enhances police legitimacy and effectiveness through the promotion of trustworthiness and local ownership. Police trustworthiness in the Pakistani socio-cultural context relies on lawfulness, preventing crimes (including terrorism), and countering corruption and misuse and abuse of authority. At the grassroots level, community policing strategies engender a sense of local ownership through participation of a broad range of actors, specifically encouraging socially disadvantaged segments of society, including women, minorities and the poor, to contribute productively to building and sustaining security. The thesis concludes that, eventually, these processes will result in more legitimate and sustainable social development for the whole community.