How to rid our urban spaces of crime
The introduction and utilisation of modern technology is one important factor that helps in crime reduction.
The writer is a security analyst and a Fulbright Scholar for 2011-2012.
Pakistan is facing a weak writ of the state in two geographical categories. The first category includes peripheral tribal areas, also known as Fata and rural areas of Balochistan, also called ‘B areas’. The second category includes pockets of instability in big cities of Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta, etc. While Fata and ‘B areas’ of Balochistan require amendments to the legal-constitutional framework of Pakistan to create long-lasting stability, it is the second category that can be easily fixed through innovative policing, improved regulatory mechanism and better governance.
A cursory look at the security landscape will reveal that Lyari, Manghopir and Sohrab Goth have become defacto ‘no-go’ areas in Karachi. In Quetta, Saryab is an area where the state is exercising minimal writ. Peoples Colony of Faisalabad is infested with criminals. In Peshawar, Badbher and Mattani have become risky bottlenecks that can strangulate the security of the city. In fact, the situation has become so serious that travelling at night between Peshawar in the north and Kohat in the south is like signing a death warrant. People now circumvent the Badbher-Mattani bottleneck by travelling via Attock and Mianwali to reach the southern districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
This state of violence in our urban centres is the product of the cumulative effect of our policies for decades. For instance, one of the hallmarks of urban policing throughout the developed world is to reduce anonymity. However, our forward policies in Afghanistan in the 1980s led to a high influx of Afghan refugees in the urban centres of Peshawar, Quetta and Karachi. A second wave of refugees’ influx followed the US invasion of Afghanistan. Similarly, military operations in tribal areas, which were a necessary component of counter-insurgency operations, had the collateral damage of increasing IDPs in Karachi, Rawalpindi and Peshawar. Such external and internal kinetic operations not only disturbed the ecosystem but also destroyed the fragile security equilibrium in the urban centres. The influx of refugees and IDPs heightened anonymity in big cities, increased competition for limited resources that led to a rise in tensions and violence among various ethnic groups and social strata. This incognito presence has substantially facilitated the activities of criminals, militants and terrorists in our urban spaces. Not surprisingly, some of the top militants have been fished out from our main cities.
Since the services in urban centres cannot cater for this sudden and disproportionate influx, the regulatory mechanism of the state weakens, which is exhibited in the form of unregulated housing, unlicenced vehicles, unchecked weapons and informal systems of governance. This gives birth to ‘mafias’: land mafias, drug mafias, smuggling mafias, etc. Instead of the state, private individuals or their groups provide essential services of security. The monopoly of the state to use violence is diluted. Warlords and drug lords then dictate their rules. On the other hand, the state abdicates its responsibility and outsources security to privatised militias, for example, the aman lashkars in Peshawar. This informalisation and privatisation of services, in turn, leads to repressive policing, extrajudicial killings and gross violation of rule of law in the weak-writ areas. To cater to the public and political demands, the police resort to oppressive methods, which lead to militarisation and ossification of policing. ‘Rangerisation’ is another facet of a failing urban police where authority is delegated without responsibility. Not surprisingly, the workload of Edhi and Chhipa increases manifold.
To reclaim our urban spaces from various mafias and criminal syndicates, the introduction and utilisation of modern technology is one important factor that not only helps in crime reduction strategies but also offers multiple benefits. Firstly, introducing hi-tech does not require constitutional amendments or strategic political consensus but needs administrative measures. Secondly, it enhances the productivity of law-enforcement agencies by facilitating information sharing and enabling officers in combating crime more effectively. Thirdly, it helps in detecting crimes, which cannot be otherwise detected. It includes DNA evidence, forensics, ballistics, etc. Fourthly, it is cost-effective and success or failure becomes quantifiable.
One common policing tool adopted by modern police departments throughout the world is Compstat. It is an acronym for Computerised Statistics and the technology was adopted first by the New York Police Department in the 90s when crime became rampant in the megapolis of New York. In this system, crimes are geo-coded so that law-enforcement commanders can analyse where crimes are occurring and then deploy resources to enforce order. This identifies ‘hot-spots’, i.e., areas which experience a disproportionate amount of violent crime in urban spaces. It is also a good management tool where responsibility is shifted to the lower tiers of the police department and success is measured over time for each geographical or hierarchical unit. The four principles that form the basics of Compstat are: accurate and timely intelligence (i.e., ‘know what is happening’), effective tactics (i.e., ‘have a plan’), rapid deployment (i.e., ‘do it quickly’) and relentless assessment (i.e., ‘if it works, do more. If not, do something else’). New York, which became the crime capital of United States in the early 1990s, showed a decline of 70 per cent in murders and robberies in the years following the introduction of Compstat. Shot-spotter is another state-of-the-art technology that can be very effective in areas like Lyari and Kati Pahari, where gang wars are common. This technology detects gunshot by using audio sensors that triangulate the location of a gunshot. It facilitates the police to respond to gun crimes more quickly. It has the additional advantage of collecting evidence and locating injured victims.
Another very efficient technology to counter urban vehicular crime, as well as vehicle-borne terrorism is ‘Licence Plate Reader’ (LPR). LPRs can be installed at the entry-exit points of big cities like Lahore, Karachi and Rawalpindi to monitor licence plates electronically for vehicles that have been reported stolen or as carrying explosives, etc. This technology can be integrated with databases of excise departments of all provinces to make it more effective.
In short, our urban spaces can be more easily reclaimed from violence as compared with the troubled peripheral areas. The use of modern technology is one means to that end and it can be utilised through administrative measures, thereby short-circuiting the legal-constitutional amendments.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 22nd, 2013.
A cursory look at the security landscape will reveal that Lyari, Manghopir and Sohrab Goth have become defacto ‘no-go’ areas in Karachi. In Quetta, Saryab is an area where the state is exercising minimal writ. Peoples Colony of Faisalabad is infested with criminals. In Peshawar, Badbher and Mattani have become risky bottlenecks that can strangulate the security of the city. In fact, the situation has become so serious that travelling at night between Peshawar in the north and Kohat in the south is like signing a death warrant. People now circumvent the Badbher-Mattani bottleneck by travelling via Attock and Mianwali to reach the southern districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
This state of violence in our urban centres is the product of the cumulative effect of our policies for decades. For instance, one of the hallmarks of urban policing throughout the developed world is to reduce anonymity. However, our forward policies in Afghanistan in the 1980s led to a high influx of Afghan refugees in the urban centres of Peshawar, Quetta and Karachi. A second wave of refugees’ influx followed the US invasion of Afghanistan. Similarly, military operations in tribal areas, which were a necessary component of counter-insurgency operations, had the collateral damage of increasing IDPs in Karachi, Rawalpindi and Peshawar. Such external and internal kinetic operations not only disturbed the ecosystem but also destroyed the fragile security equilibrium in the urban centres. The influx of refugees and IDPs heightened anonymity in big cities, increased competition for limited resources that led to a rise in tensions and violence among various ethnic groups and social strata. This incognito presence has substantially facilitated the activities of criminals, militants and terrorists in our urban spaces. Not surprisingly, some of the top militants have been fished out from our main cities.
Since the services in urban centres cannot cater for this sudden and disproportionate influx, the regulatory mechanism of the state weakens, which is exhibited in the form of unregulated housing, unlicenced vehicles, unchecked weapons and informal systems of governance. This gives birth to ‘mafias’: land mafias, drug mafias, smuggling mafias, etc. Instead of the state, private individuals or their groups provide essential services of security. The monopoly of the state to use violence is diluted. Warlords and drug lords then dictate their rules. On the other hand, the state abdicates its responsibility and outsources security to privatised militias, for example, the aman lashkars in Peshawar. This informalisation and privatisation of services, in turn, leads to repressive policing, extrajudicial killings and gross violation of rule of law in the weak-writ areas. To cater to the public and political demands, the police resort to oppressive methods, which lead to militarisation and ossification of policing. ‘Rangerisation’ is another facet of a failing urban police where authority is delegated without responsibility. Not surprisingly, the workload of Edhi and Chhipa increases manifold.
To reclaim our urban spaces from various mafias and criminal syndicates, the introduction and utilisation of modern technology is one important factor that not only helps in crime reduction strategies but also offers multiple benefits. Firstly, introducing hi-tech does not require constitutional amendments or strategic political consensus but needs administrative measures. Secondly, it enhances the productivity of law-enforcement agencies by facilitating information sharing and enabling officers in combating crime more effectively. Thirdly, it helps in detecting crimes, which cannot be otherwise detected. It includes DNA evidence, forensics, ballistics, etc. Fourthly, it is cost-effective and success or failure becomes quantifiable.
One common policing tool adopted by modern police departments throughout the world is Compstat. It is an acronym for Computerised Statistics and the technology was adopted first by the New York Police Department in the 90s when crime became rampant in the megapolis of New York. In this system, crimes are geo-coded so that law-enforcement commanders can analyse where crimes are occurring and then deploy resources to enforce order. This identifies ‘hot-spots’, i.e., areas which experience a disproportionate amount of violent crime in urban spaces. It is also a good management tool where responsibility is shifted to the lower tiers of the police department and success is measured over time for each geographical or hierarchical unit. The four principles that form the basics of Compstat are: accurate and timely intelligence (i.e., ‘know what is happening’), effective tactics (i.e., ‘have a plan’), rapid deployment (i.e., ‘do it quickly’) and relentless assessment (i.e., ‘if it works, do more. If not, do something else’). New York, which became the crime capital of United States in the early 1990s, showed a decline of 70 per cent in murders and robberies in the years following the introduction of Compstat. Shot-spotter is another state-of-the-art technology that can be very effective in areas like Lyari and Kati Pahari, where gang wars are common. This technology detects gunshot by using audio sensors that triangulate the location of a gunshot. It facilitates the police to respond to gun crimes more quickly. It has the additional advantage of collecting evidence and locating injured victims.
Another very efficient technology to counter urban vehicular crime, as well as vehicle-borne terrorism is ‘Licence Plate Reader’ (LPR). LPRs can be installed at the entry-exit points of big cities like Lahore, Karachi and Rawalpindi to monitor licence plates electronically for vehicles that have been reported stolen or as carrying explosives, etc. This technology can be integrated with databases of excise departments of all provinces to make it more effective.
In short, our urban spaces can be more easily reclaimed from violence as compared with the troubled peripheral areas. The use of modern technology is one means to that end and it can be utilised through administrative measures, thereby short-circuiting the legal-constitutional amendments.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 22nd, 2013.