CHENNAI: Is the Friends of Police (FoP) scheme another classic example of an Indian initiative that could be replicated in a Western society but not sustained back home? Going by the two cases - one a FoP volunteer stealing a policeman’s motorcycle and the other, an ex-volunteer spearheading a gang of robbers - it appears so.
Besides the irony of an initiative aimed at preventing crime in a city that was churning out criminals, the concept, introduced in 1993 in the Ramanathapuram district by Prateep V Philip, then superintendent of Police, and now the Inspector General of Police (Social Justice and Human Rights), has failed to yield results here.
According to a senior police officer, the scheme was successfully implemented across the State with the Government imparting training to one lakh (50,000 police personnel and 50,000 volunteers) people on community policing this year. Only in Chennai, its implementation is lagging.
Though the then city police commissioner G Nanchil Kumaran focussed on the programme and extended it in the Nandambakkam and Valasaravakkam areas, the initiative was not pushed further. Now, in most of the police stations in the city, the volunteers attached with the friends of police programme are neither given orientation nor training on community policing.
Recalling the effectiveness of the friends of police in crime prevention, a senior police officer said that between 2000 and 2003, FoP played a decisive role in crime prevention in North Chennai, which was know for anti-social activities.
“Out of the 1,000 FoP volunteers, we have selected 500 volunteers, including 150 women volunteers, and formed a Special Security Team. We have given them special uniforms and also trained them to control traffic in school zones and during peak hours,’’ said the officer.
“It also arrested the spreading of rowdyism in North Chennai, as most of gang leaders found it difficult to recruit the unemployed youth in their gangs as the youth themselves were volunteers with the police,’’ he added.
Though they were not paid for the job, through sponsors we gave them a stipend of Rs 300 per month. The photographs, residential address and fingerprints of the FoPs were also maintained and special preference was given to them while recruiting police personnel or home guards, the officer added.
The scheme primarily aimed at involving youth in local policing, intelligence gathering, attending to people’s problem expeditiously, crime prevention and augmenting policing. It also aimed at imbibing values among the unemployed youth, keeping them away from the influence of local rowdies. The youth were mainly involved in night patrol, said a senior police officer.
However, over the years, the programme lost its sheen and degeneration is showing up.
