INTRODUCTION

Politics is a study of state and government and, of course, it cannot be studied in isolation being

inextricably linked with the society, as the interdependence of state and society is all-pervasive.

"Politics is concerned with the conditions and consequences of human action" (Hans Eulau).

Politics, as an activity, is the discourse and the struggle over the organisation of human possibilities.

It is about the capacity of social agents, agencies and institutions to maintain or transform their

environment, social or physical. Politics is a phenomena also found in and between institutions and

societies. It addresses all the relations, institutions and structures that have an influence, implication

in the life of societies. Politics creates and conditions all aspects of our lives and it is at the core of

the development of collective problems, and the modes of their resolution. The study of politics

involves much more than the study of the state as it is enmeshed in the societal structures and the

way both conditions each other. It is a fundamental requirement, as a part of the inter-disciplinary

approach of politics, to understand the dynamics of the relations and processes of the state and their

place in shaping society.

THE PROBLEM

State and Security- Coercive Apparatus and Social Order:

The State as an enduring form of human association has served its purposes at the various phases of

its development, since individuals' search for security led to its evolution. The aspect of individual

security relates to social threats in various forms like physical threats, economic threats and threats to

position or status, which are not mutually exclusive. The existence of these threats to individuals'

security within the context of human society points to the great dilemma, as to, how to balance the

freedom of action for the individual against the potential and actual threats which such freedom

poses to others. 1

In consideration of the emergence of the state based on the contractarian theoretical

assumption of the 'state of nature' image, that postulates a primal anarchy in which the conditions

for the individuals involved are featured by unacceptably high levels of social threats, viz., chaos and

disorder, the state becomes the only mechanism by which people seek and achieve adequate levels of

security against social threats. 2

Changes in the material conditions of society and its structures led to changes in the notions

of the state. As society develops around the state, it becomes increasingly dependent on the state as a

lynchpin for other social and economic structures. As the symbiosis of society and state develops

along more complex, sophisticated and economically productive lines, the 'state of nature' image

becomes more and more unappealing as an alternative. The state, then, is irreversible and

indispensable. There is no real viable option of going back, and the security of individuals is

intrinsically entangled and fused with that of the state.

Thus, security and society hang together and constitute an existentially inseparable unity.

The principal cause of security is the fundamental offshoot for a peaceful life. The observational field

of the social scientist - social reality - has a specific meaning and relevance for the human being

living, acting, and thinking within it. Engaged in a life of interdependence, living their daily life

within their social world, the thinking men [sic] of the society produces an 'order', through a social

1 Barry Buzan, Peoples, States and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations, Whearsheaf Books Ltd., Sussex, 1983, pp. 18-20.

2 Ibid.

process, evolved by using a series of common-sense constructs to pre-select and pre-interpret this

world which they experience as the reality of their daily lives. In contrast to the assumption treating

human beings as objects for practical purposes of scientific inquiry contained in correctional

criminology, the approach of symbolic interactionist theory to problematise the social world with

the view that humans are conceived as subjects because their behaviour is subjectively meaningful;

the socially meaningful character posits man [sic] as the author of action.

It is a matter of sociological 'common-sense knowledge' that the construction of social order

is a societal project and the means for its formulation involved the use of values, norms and beliefs

by members of society. It also follows as endorsed by the sociologists that these norms, values and

beliefs in turn give rise to 'problems', as socially defined. Therefore, the construction of social. order

and along with the identification of certain forms of human behaviour and activities categorising

them as undesirable in terms of the given and accepted notion of social order constitute social

processes. An explanation of social processes that include an examination of the processes of social

interaction rests on three simple premises of symbolic interactionism:

• Human beings act towards things on the basis of meanings that the things have for them.

• The meanings of such things is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with one's fellows in the society, and

• These meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things he encounters. 3

How certain forms of behaviour are ascribed as undesirable depends on the meanings attributed to

it. Certain acts that contain unacceptable properties, construed as undesirable pass through the

interactional and organisational processes of what particular meaning is conferred on it, how the act

is interpreted by following a set norm and then selected and identified as profane - the cause of

social problems.4

Thus according to Spector and Kituse, social problems may be conceptualised as those

activities that impinges on the context creating certain forms of conditions and circumstances

claimed and defined as problems by governments, the media, the private and public welfare agencies,

as well as problem spokespeople amongst the general public. In other words, social problems are

defined as

the activities of individuals or groups making assertions of grievances and claims with respect to some putative conditions. The emergence of a social problem is contingent upon the organisation of activities asserting the need for eradicating, ameliorating, or otherwise changing some condition.5

Social problems, then a product of social interactionism, reflect what members of society are

concerned about, what they claim something should be done about, what people find undesirable

and in need of eradication. The most fundamental and overarching of these concerns is the problem

of 'social order' .6

Christopher Morris considers basic security of persons and possessions as 'social order' and

threat to that interest of security is a threat to 'social order'. Both Morris and Michael Taylor

conceive 'social order' as "public or collective good" and that life (of social interaction) without it is

undesirable because it is a precondition for the pursuit and attainment of a variety of desired ends.7

3 Stephen Hester and Peter Eglin, A Sociology of Crime, Routledge, London, 1992, pp. 8-11. 4 Ibid, pp. 10-11, 13. 5 Ibid, p. 1. 6 Ibid, p. 2. 7 Christopher Morris, A Hobbesian Welfare State and Michael Taylor, Social Order Without the State, in Andrew Levine

(ed.), The State and Its Critics, Vol. II, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., Aldershot, 1992, pp. 10-11, 42-48. 2

The individual has an absolute and inescapable dependence on society for the continuous

attainment of security. People do not stand merely as isolated individuals but as 'particulars' and as

'universals' and thus the quest for security (the provision for life and freedom) goes considerably

beyond the purview of sheer physical survival. This dependence takes a variety of forms and "the

degrees of interdependent action that societies evidently display," according to Giddens, in a social

world of interactional processes constitute social relations.

Society sees the prior necessity of imposing a central order on the inter-relations so that the

ends they severally pursue may be possibly harmonised and thus made attainable in organised

activity, treated as interactional accomplishments by ethnomethodology. Hence, for the regulation of

social relations in order to establish an operable social order and social cohesion, a central institution

characterised as the crowning point of the modern social edifice, takes over the maintenance and

development of the essential system of rights and obligations accepted by the society. Thus, the

production and recognition of social order as given is accomplished by a process: "the process

through which the perceivedly stable features of socially organised environments are continually

created and sustained" in observance of an internalised culture of a set of rules prescribing normative

behaviour that treats the members of society as oriented to rules in the course of their interactional

process designing their particular actions in accord with the rules. Rule-governed as the actions of

'rule-using creatures', the setting may be said to be organised by rules - an imposed set of

relevances. 8

Therefore, "seekers after security," man's [sic] dependence on society takes a variety of forms

and correspondingly 'society' displays a great multitude of manifestations in larger groupings and

formal institutions. The modern state emerged as the central social formation responsible and best

left in its capacities for the maintenance of society, secured its primacy over all other forms of human

associations and unequivocally and universally regarded so than any other social grouping as it

offered prospects of ordered peace.9

The security of individuals being immutably fastened to the state, the state as the dominant

political structure appears to be all-pervasive (in public and private life as well). To put it in a

formulation that captures the Weberian perspective, it regulated the conditions of our lives through

a system of continuous administrative, legal, bureaucratic and coercive apparatuses. Therefore, the

state is not an independent structure above society but deeply embedded in the total social processes

that attempt not only to structure relationship between civil society and public authority in a polity

but also to structure the functioning of society, at large, through a set of established laws. 10 In the

process of functioning of the state, arises the dilemma as to how to enhance the liberation of

community without amplifYing oppression by authority.

The state properly conceived is a set of administrative, policing, and military organisations

headed, and more or less well coordinated by, an executive authority. 11 The legitimate claims of the

modern state and its exercise of the structures of authority to regulate citizens' most vital interests as

8 Hester and Eglin, op. cit., pp. 14-17. 9 R.N. Berki, Security and Society: Reflections on Law, Order and Politics, J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., London, 1986, pp.

27-28; Harold J. Laski, An Introduction to Politics, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1981, pp. 11-12; David Held, et al (eds.), States and Societies, Martin Robertson, Oxford, 1983, p. 2, also seen. 3, p. 47.

10 Barry Buzan, op. cit., p. 21; David Held and Joel Krieger, Theories of the State: Some Competing Claims, in S. Bornstein, et al (eds.), The State in Capitalist Europe, Allen & Unwin, London, 1983, p. 2; Theda Skocpol, Bringing The State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research, in P. Evans, et al (eds.), Bringing the State Back In, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985, p. 7.

11 Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979, p. 29.

a mechanism or mode of social control is founded on the thesis that 'authority has its basis in traits

deeply rooted in the human mind as it answers the practical needs of society.' 12

Explaining state and governmental activities, Skocpol argues that any state first and

fundamentally extracts resources from society and invests the same to create and sustain

administrative and coercive organisations which are the basis of state power. 13 State activity is .a

process of intervention in a society, effected by institutions that are a condensation of material power

and nodal points of the relations of power within society. The state apparatus operationalises this

state power in the execution of the supreme rule-making, rule-applying, rule-adjudicating, rule­

enforcing and rule-defending tasks of society. 14

The state performs its acts either directly or by express delegation of its monopolistic nature

of power through an arrangement of agencies totalising the notion of the dominant protective

association (sovereign over a given territory). The concentration of all physical force in the hands of

the central authority is the primary function of the state and its decisive characteristic. Under the

state form of rule, the state in delegating its power makes its delegate an agent (organ) of the state. 15

The basic need of states is to maintain their mechanistic role of social control that constitute

their domestic order-keeping functions governed by certain norms, values and beliefs - the means

used to construct social order also forms the foundational principle embodied in the constitutional

document. The paradigms of state intervention through its agencies, the scope and effectiveness of

such institution and the strategies employed guided by policies and programmes conditioned by the

existing structure of social relations, and the nature and direction of the development process

determines the pivotal role of the state as a mechanism of social control within a specific social

matrix. These interventions in turn determine 'justice' which is the first virtue of the state. 16

As an immense and bewildering subject opens up before one who contemplates the diversity

of arrangements and institutions through which justice is variously administered in modern states,

the contours of the justice-talk be delimited to the related parameters of society and security, the role

of state's order-keeping agency with its authoritative means (force or coercion) of acting as a mode of

social control, a 'specific social technique' as the jurist Hans Kelsen put it, 17 within a specific

historical social matrix.

Justice defined as the principle of fairness, the ideal of moral equity, in the truest sense of the

word, is the ultimate goal of criminal justice. Criminal justice and civil justice are both aspects of a

wider form of equity termed social justice. Social justice is a concept that embraces all aspects of

civilised life. It is linked to notions of fairness and to cultural beliefs about right and wrong.

Questions of social justice are social problems arising from social relations in an interactional process

of living in the social world, that is, relationship and linkages of all sorts. In the abstract, the concept

of social justice embodies the highest personal and cultural ideals. 18

Civil justice concerns itself with fairness in relationship between citizens, government

agencies and businesses in private matters involving contractual obligations, business dealings,

12 Leslie Green, The Authority of the State, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1988, pp. 1-4. 13 Theda Skocpol, op. cit. 14 Goran Therborn, What Does the Ruling Class Do When It Rules?, New Left Books, London, 1978, p. 133. 15 Robert Nozick, The State, in Andrew Levine (ed.), The State and Its Critics, Vol. I, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.,

Aldershot, 1992, pp. 206-07. 16 Theda Skocpol, 1985, op. cit., pp. 9-11; Leslie Green, op. cit., p. 5 ; Zoya Hasan, Introduction: State and Identity in

Modem India, in Zoya Hasan et a! (eds.), The State, Political Processes and Identity: Reflections on Modern India, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 1989, pp. 10-12.

17 Leslie Green, ibid, pp. 5, 69-71. 18 Frank Schmalleger, Criminal Justice: A Brief Introduction, Second Edition, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1997, pp. 11-

13. 4

hiring, equality of treatment, and so on. Criminal justice, in its broadest sense, refers to those aspects

of social justice that concerns violations of the criminal law. The process of criminal justice

contributes to the achieving and maintaining of social order as a social control mechanism. 19

The criminal justice arrangements of the state as a social control mechanism supposes:

• The idea of law, an instrument of control, which is both institutionalised and systematic in nature that set limits on behaviour and define particular forms of social interaction as either acceptable or unacceptable. Laws are a primary device for the purpose of order creation in any mature society.

• The existence of specialised organs of the state for the interpretation, enforcement, and application of the rules for social ordering.

This systematic arrangement of authority is, thus, a triadic social relation among a supenor, a

subject, and a range of action that is interdependent.20

The criminal justice system involves a process characterised by an array of procedures and

activities having to do with the enforcement of the criminal law. The aggregate of all operating and

administrative or technical support agencies that perform criminal justice functions constitute the

criminal justice system. The agencies that contribute to the criminal justice ideals as a system

comprise of three major components: police, courts, and corrections. Traditionally, they function as

'justice practitioners' explicitly and specifically in this area of activity.21

The most dominant agency of the state's impersonal (legally circumscribed) structure is the

institution of police, the most visible manifestation of the state as it establishes an intrinsic and

symbiotic relationship with its operational context by virtue of its social ordering function.

lnternalising 'the essence of the state i.e. its coercive power'22 - 'a means specific to the

state'23 and the defining characteristic of the state24 - the police claims monopoly over the legitimate

use of non-negotiable force derived from the state, according to Weber, the sole authorizer of

violence and the sole effective judge over the permissibility of violence.25 Coercion guarantees the

reproduction of domination and order and suppresses challenges to state authority. In the course of

time, it helps to create conditions that allow for voluntary obedience to laws and their legitimation. 26

Assuming the state's protective role in ensuring order by enforcement of laws backed by the

legitimacy to use force when it thinks necessary, the police as an integral and foremost organ of the

state's paraphernalia of the criminal justice system sets into motion the process of criminal justice

which makes it stand out as an indispensable and distinct justice-dispensing organ of the state.

The state means all the institutions and relations associated with the government. 27 State's

monopoly of coercive power is in order to provide a secure basis for a smooth functioning of the

society. It is problematic in the sense that 'by granting the state a regulatory and coercive capability

it's understood that it could deprive citizens of political and social freedom'. 28 lnspite of the key

institutional innovation in 'representative democracy', the democratic constitutional state's problems

19 Ibid. 20 Ibid, p. 13; Mirjan R. Dama5ka, The Faces of justice and State Authority: A Comparative Approach to the Legal

Process, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1986, pp. 1, 9, 16, 87; Leslie Green, op. cit., pp. 42, 48. 21 Frank Schmalleger, ibid, pp. 14-27. 22 C.P. Bhambhri, The Indian State: Conflicts and Contradictions, in Zoya Hasan et al (eds.), op. cit., p. 74. 23 David Held, Political Theory and the Modern State, Worldview, Maya Polity, New Delhi, 1998, p. 40. 24 Kuldeep Mathur, The State and the Use of Coercive Power in India, Asian Survey, Vol. XXXII, No.4, April 1992, p.

337. 25 Robert Nozick, op. cit., p. 207. 26 Kuldeep Mathur, op. cit. 27 David Held, op. cit., p. 48. 28 See Roy R. Roberg and Jack Kuykendall, Police and Society, Wadsworth Publishing Co., Belmont, California, 1993,

PP· 4-13. 5

of ensuring both 'authority' and 'liberty' remams. How ts it so, requues conceptualising the

problem.

For most people, the police are the government and government identified with the state. 29

In reality, the 'government in ruling' assumes the state power and is the repository of state's

obligations to the society. Masse rightly observes that 'the police and its functions are determined by

the nature of the state which they serve and the theory upon which such a state is based'. 30 Or as

Bayley puts it aptly, "the police are to the government as the edge is to the knife."31 The state -

apparatus of' government' - appears to be all-pervasive, regulating the conditions of our lives. 32 It is

generally accepted that the nature of police activities provides an important insight into the nature of

the state as police are immediately identified with law. In many respects, they are more important

than law, for they are meant to implement its strictures and decide when it is to be applied.33 Besides

the discretionary power that the law attaches, it sanctions the police legitimate use of force for its

enforcement. Therefore, 'law has two moments one of order and that of coercion'.34

Bayley contends that it is generally held that the nature of police activities provides an

important clue to the character of a political regime, as the nature of police activities and that of the

government are coincidental. As the government can affect its own environment, the police can also

do so. Police are the leading edge of government regulation. Assuming state's regulatory and coercive

capabilities, police personifY government. The nature of the government is determined by the nature

of the police. If one constructs an index of the character of political life and an index of the character

of police operations, one would find a close correlation between the two as institutions which make

up 'the State' and whose relationship shapes the form of the state system. 35

Police bear the primary responsibility of the state of any formation, maintaining stable

conditions of social life. They are society's regulators, imbued with power denied to everyone else,

imbued with an emotional significance that does not attach to other agents of government. They

have the responsibility for safeguarding the most basic element of human life. Theirs is the power to

protect or not to protect, to save or not to save. Policemen are identified with greatest of life's

crisis. 36

The police can also play a formative role in the political and economic development of the

society through the things they do, the nature of the actions they perform. These actions impinge

upon the society at different points of contact.37 Both the nature of their activity that permeate all

corners of social life and its point of contact affect the 'conditions' in the society - 'order and

security', that epitomises the character of the state. 38 Hence on the basis of the nature of the state

and the dynamics of the function of its institutions, it can be maintained that whatever the

29 David H. Bayley, The Police and Political Development in India, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1969, p.11.

30 George L. Mosse (ed.), Police Forces in History, Beverly Hills, 1975, p. 4. 31 David H. Bayley, op. cit. 32 David Held, op. cit., p. 11. 33 David H. Bayley, op. cit., p. 15, 21-23. 34 Franz L. Neumann, The Rule of Law: Political Theory and the Legal System in Modern Society, Berg Publishers

Ltd., Leamington Spa, 1986, p. 11. 35 David H. Bayley, op. cit., pp. 11-12, 15; David Held, op. cit., p. 49. 36 David H. Bayley, ibid, p. 14. 37 Ibid, pp. 14, 16; See Kalyani Saha, Police Administration in the Context of Development: A Case Study of West

Bengal, 1951-71, Ph.D. Thesis (Centre for Political Studies/School of Social Sciences), Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 1985.

38 See R.N. Berki, op. cit., pp, 98-102. 6

government is, by men or by law, depends to a marked extent on the nature of the police.39 It

reflects the correlation between State-Law-Society.

The police, uniformed and concerned with 'social peacekeeping',40 are the most ubiquitous,

visible and important of all government agencies for the average citizen. What they do generally in

society and the relations they establish with the public by virtue of their role performance are

correlated.41 This state institution constitutes the subject matter of this study for what is discussed

above explains the most fundamental twin questions: Firstly, why should all modern societies find it

necessary to create and sustain such a mechanism, that is, the Police? And secondly, what does such a

mechanism make available to modern societies that no other institution can provide?

The conceptual understanding central to the relevance of embarking upon a study that

attempts to explore and examine, in an analytical and descriptive framework, the most crucial

component of the state's justice system is informed and shaped by the following constructed

theoretical overview:

The State forms a set of highly complicated relations and processes embedded in the society, with distinctive structure and sets of institutions, together with its nature as a site of political negotiation and conflict form a network functioning as a system. In order for the system to function, there must be a general compliance with the laws, rules, etc. This is ensured to maintain order by one of the component agencies of the criminal justice arrangement, in particular, and of the politico-administrative sub-system, in general, which constitute the core structure of the state - the police which enjoys the legitimate use of force in its operations. So crucial is this most visible 'hand of the state' that its said that 'even as crisis of legitimacy may occur among some of the political structures of the state, it should be stressed that it will still leave a social system quite stable so long as the system's coercive organisations with the civil police at its core remain effective.42

Therefore, though compliance for social ordering can be secured to a limited extent by coercion,

societies claiming to operate according to the principles of liberal, representative democracy depend

more on the existence of a widespread belief that the system adheres to the principles of justice,

equality and freedom. In today's highly complex societies populated by groups with a wide diversity

of interests, it is within this challenging context that while the daily practice of policing takes place it

interacts with the life, liberty and property of the individual and the community. This point to the

problem of police operations of how to maintain a balance between the activities of a 'restraining for

compliance-seeking' authority and liberty and freedom of the individuals, in particular, and the

community, in general, within a democratic constitutional framework.43

CRIMINOLOGY AND SOCIAL SCIENCES: DEVELOPMENTS IN POLICE STUDIES

In popular culture 'cop' and 'robbers' is a conceptual couple, the former perennially chasing the

latter. In criminology until recently this was not the case. For most of its past, criminology focused

on 'robbers' and other 'miscreants', but the activities of cops and the agencies of the criminal justice

process generally remained outside its conscious purview.

There flourished a variety of competing discourses about crime, criminals and control prior

to the emergence of a positivist interpretation of criminology which coincided with the naming of

the new discipline in the late nineteenth century. In these proto-criminologies', the criminal justice

system was at the centre of analytic and policy concern. The eighteenth century 'classical' school

associated pre-eminently with Beccaria is often said not to be a 'criminology', as in that it did not

39 David H. Bayley, op. cit., p. 15. 40 See John Kleing, The Ethics of Policing, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996. 41 David H. Bayley, op. cit., pp. 15, 19. 42 See David Held, op. cit.; R.N. Berki, op. cit. 43 See Roy R. Roberg and Jack Kuykendall, op. cit., pp. 6-7.

7

treat the particularity of the criminal as its problematic, instead was concerned primarily with

constructing a rational and efficient system of criminal law and justice.44

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, there flourished a vigorous branch of

political economy known as the 'science of police'. This saw as its problematic the understanding of

crime and disorder and the development of appropriate policies for its prevention and control. Its

leading British exponent was Patrick Colquhoun, a Middlesex Magistrate and architect of the first

professional police force in Great Britain, best known today as one of the precursors of Peel's

Metropolitan Police. He signified the birth of an institution by saying that,

Police is an improved state of society. Next to the blessings which a nation derives from an excellent constitution and a system of general laws are those advantages which result from a well-regulated and energetic plan of police, conducted and enforced with purity, activity, vigilance and discretion. 45

The term 'police' was used then in a much broader perspective enveloping the whole craft of the

regulation of a social order. The criminal justice system per se- and a fortiori the police force- was

only a residual aspect of this project as policing then was seen as merely a small part of the whole

business of domestic government and regulation, its relevance strictly restricted to the understanding

and control of crime and disorder. Correctional criminology preoccupied with cause-effect relations

between various 'factors' and criminal behaviour treated human beings as objects. The birth of a

positivist 'science of criminology' in the late nineteenth century eclipsed the initial assumption while

problematising the explanation of 'criminality', earlier seen as a non-social defect of specific

individuals. 46

Even the subsequent development of sociological theories of crime, in the early twentieth

century, still excluded the functioning of policing and the criminal justice process from the

intellectual province of criminology. While the conceptual ambit of the discipline was debated it was

not suggested that the functioning of the police and other criminal justice institutions should be part

of the research or theoretical concerns of criminologists.

During the late fifties and early sixties of the twentieth century, an epistemological break

occurred in the criminological enterprise, which sailed under the banners of 'labelling theory' and

'naturalism' drawn from sociological approach of symbolic interactionism that has been something

of a passing phase from positivism paving the way for new forms of radical and critical criminology

within the structural conflict perspective and moving to other approaches like ethnomethodology.

The essential departure of the new approaches, besides considering social action as intersubjectively

meaningful, and crime as a social construction premised on the examination of the processes (and

contexts) of social interaction, was to make problematic, intellectually and politically as well, the

structure and functioning of criminal justice agencies. The police began to figure on the research

agendas of criminologists and other social scientists as a particular aspect of this intellectual

conjuncture.47

REVIEW OF POLICE LITERATURE

Review of available relevant literature is the most fundamental preliminary task that mark~ the

initiation of any research endeavour. After such an exercise in pursuit of this study, an observation

44 See Stephen Hester and Peter Eglin, op. cit. 45 K.S. Dhillon, Defenders of the Establishment: Ruler-Supportive Police Forces of South Asia, liAS, Shimla, 1998, p.

31. 46 Stephen Hester and Peter Eglin, op. cit., 8-12. 47 Robert Reiner, Policing and the Police, in Mike Maguire et a! (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Criminology, Clarendon

Press, Oxford, 1994, pp. 705-707; Stephen Hester and Peter Eglin, op. cit., pp. 7-26; Frank Schmalleger, op. cit., pp. 25-27; Stephen D. Mastrofski and Craig D. Uchida, Transforming the Police, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Vol. 30, Issue 3, August 1993, pp. 330-58 (Source: EBSCO Database: Academic Search Elite).

R

can be made, albeit may be debatable depending on one's expectation relevant to the respective

interest(s), that it is scarcely surprising to those cognizant of the available police literature to find a

marked generic difference between the Indian and international works. Secondly, a social science

student striving to initiate a research on any specific topic in police studies would find the literature

on the subject in a paradoxical state.

The issue is the difference between Indian and Anglo-American literature or pieces of work

exploring various aspects of policing. Police scholarship in India is conspicuous by its absence as the

discipline has been elusive to social science research. On the contrary, works of international social

scientists whose theoretically informed and empirically grounded studies have developed the 'science

of police' that has shaped the fundamental understanding of modern policing characterised by its

more complex role and expansive functions. American and British literature on police and policing

are among the most unique of the politico-sociological or socio-legal scholarship due to their

theoretically-driven empirical police research in the last three decades.

Barren of theoretically-oriented police research, Indian literature are generally narration of

policework experiences or commonplace perceptions of the police informed by secondary sources.

Insightful as it is found to be are international literature because of their innovative scholarship and

application of relevant methodologies in police research that helps generate credible information

base for developing policy proposals of policing technologies. Indian literature lack in these respects

and it is surprising that social science scholars, especially of law and society, show either indifference

or no interest in pursuing questions or problems of policing. After all, the police remain central not

only to the operations of law, coercion, authority, and legitimacy in any modern society, in general,

but affects the lives of individuals and collectivities. It is all the more surprising when it is found that

the most sensitive subject in the public discourse is about policing issues which is prompted by daily

police activities creating news in the media.

The available literature on Indian police is predominantly general pieces of commentaries on

variety of police issues without any topical focus. The glaring missing elements are empiricism and

in-depth analysis, and conceptualisation of issues on 'police and policing' that could provide a

grounding to build relevant theories based on various perspectives. The police as an institution in

the Indian context or setting imbue a lot of relevance for it reflects in the independent era a 'post­

colonial' structure, a continuity of an imperial largesse to independent India's criminal justice

administration. The study of the operational context or the setting and within it the dynamics of

policework processes are not substantially presented in the works of Indian authors in comparison to

that of Anglo-American scholars. The significant variables relevant to policing remain largely

unidentified and therefore not discussed in form of particularities which can all be gathered from

discussions and studies on the police in reference to the Anglo-American alliance of police system,

that is, mainly North America and Britain. This is not an easy task due to the complexities of the

police phenomena; an engagement in such an affair can be well-comprehended from the statement

of Bayley that, "police are a diffuse topic, not a researchable explicandum."48 And more so, the issues

handled in as wide a variety of societies, care be taken when co-relations are drawn onto and applied

into a local context. 49

Reflecting on specific issues of police science, historical accounts of the Indian police are

well-documented by some noted scholars like J.C. Curry (1932), Indian Police; Sir Percival Griffiths

48 David H. Bayley (ed.), Police and Society, Sage Publication, London, 1977. 49 R.I. Mawby (ed.), Policing Across the World: Issues for the Twenty-first Century, UCL Press, London, 1999, pp.

127-130. 9

(1971), To Guard My People: The History of the Indian Police; S.M. Edwardes (1983, rpt ed. of

1924), Crime in British India; Anandswarup Gupta (1974), Crime and Police in India (Upto 1861),

The Police in British India 1861-1947; K.S. Dhillon (1998), Defenders of the Establishment: Ruler­

Supportive Police Forces of South Asia; among others. They document the evolution and growth of

this institution in the Indian sub-continent from the ancient, through the Moghul period to the

British colonial police system surviving into modern India as a product of the Indian Police Act

1861. They reflect on the organisational structure, roles and functions, policies and practices, values,

attitudes and functional styles of this institution as it developed under different political regimes in

successive periods of history. It helps understand and study the present police system as a part of the

state's administrative structure and to the extent in relation to its exact/actual operational sphere in

the district that has also historically evolved as the basic unit of administration in India.

This study will succinctly look into the historicity of the present police system based on the

assumption that study of colonial policing provides an important insight into the development of

policing in post-colonial countries which accounts for more than half of the total world population.

The colonial dimension provides a very interesting clue to examine its impact on post-colonial police

systems as existing literature maintains that the basis of the post-colonial state, in fact, is its colonial

past as it is found that many post-colonial countries have preserved in their new political structures

several features of the colonial regime, some practically in their original forms. This is particularly

true of policing as the present police system reflects the colonial baggage in its structural and

functional form. 50

R.K. Raghavan in the Epilogue to his latest book speaks about the Indian literature as thus:

"There is actually a case for serious and credible literature on the Indian police."51 As he points out

the lack of reviews about the existing police system, that is, the methods of policing and policework

processes, his book, he proclaims is in the direction of, at least partially, meeting international

standards.

The extensive body of writing on the Indian police, a dynamic institution within a liberal,

democratic and constitutional framework in a highly complex society, is usually by police

practitioners (serving and retired members of the Indian Police). Since the inspiration for such

efforts may be genuine admiration for the profession they serve(d), their works reflect a celebratory

and uncritical perspective, and merely constitute a 'cop-sided' version, narration of their experiences.

The other authors on Indian police are S.C. Misra, P.O. Sharma, K.M. Mathur, Jayatilak Guha

Roy, Rama Kant, James Vadackumchery, Mehartaj Begum, Syed M. Afzal Qadri, et al.

As regards the objectives of this study and the issues of policing it deals on, there is

absolutely scanty literature available on the practices and procedures of policework which include the

laid down procedural laws and in fact that in actual practice, the normative attitudinal and

behavioural aspects of policing, along with the socio-cultural traits unique to the organisation and its

personnel and its influence on their policing approach. P.O. Sharma laments unequivocally, "scanty

literature is available about the methods and procedures adopted and followed by the Indian

police ... "52 The only substantial book on statutory policework is by Syed M. Afzal Qadri. He deals

50 D.M. Anderson and D. Killingray (eds.), Policing the Empire: Government, Authority and Control 1830-1940, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1991; M. Cain, Trends in the Sociology of Police Work, International Journal of the Sociology of Law, No. 7, 1979; R.I. Mawby, Comparative Policing Issues, Unwin Hyman, London, 1990; Bankole A Cole, Post-Colonial Systems, in R.I. Mawby (ed.), 1999, op. cit.

51 R.K. Raghavan, Policing a Democracy: A Comparative Study of India and the US, Manohar Publishers, New Delhi, 1999, p. 277.

52 P.D. Sharma, Indian Police: A Developmental Approach, Research Publications, Delhi, 1977, pp. 186-188. 10

with the most critical element of policework, the power of discretion and its likely use at every stage

of their functioning. 53

'Discretion' and 'occupational culture' or 'cop culture' are significant aspects in any matter

of police studies. Problematising and conceptualising such features of policing issues are crucial

inputs to understand existing methods and practices of policework, perspectives and approaches of

policing, and its implications, especially on the policed. Such information is hardly found in the

reviewed Indian literature, rather drawn for the purpose of this study from Anglo-American

sources.54

Another area of policing issue is the relation between the police and its operational context

that has a direct bearing on police activity and their role performance. Policework (e.g. crime

prevention) are only part of the related dimensions of state and society. The concept, 'good police­

community relations quintessential to effective policing', necessitates a symbiosis between the two

bodies. It has both behavioural and system significance. The Police Commission 1902-03 realises

this,55 reiterated by the National Police Commission.56 The Central Committee Report on Police

Training, 1973 also accepts the need for training measures to improve police-public relations. 57

Almost all Indian literature deals on this increasingly significant policing issue. A lot of

writing on this aspect attracted the attention of several state governments as also the Centre. Several

State Commissions in their respective reports endorses this point and suggests police administrators

to take steps toward building and strengthening of police-community relations. Bayley's work

(1969) is still considered to be the most seminal study on the Indian police as it deals, besides on the

organisation and procedures, on the position and role of the police as a unit within its served setting,

and the attitudinal aspects of both the police and the public. It explores such issues through a field

survey. A major shortcoming of his empirical study is the lack of focus on the operations of the

cutting-edge level. Nevertheless, his study appreciably informs us about the responsibilities of an

agency administrating justice under law in a plural and democratic setup, their drawbacks and

limitations. 58

While talking of reforms for improving police effectiveness or efficiency, a host of literature

is produced on this area of police-community relations by police practitioners and scholars, engaged

in designing different strategies over successive period of time aimed at bettering police-community

relations. The latest innovation in policing style or strategy that has caught the eyes and ears of

police scholars, administrators and policy-makers the world over since the past three decades is the

concept of community-oriented policing or community policing. Its popularity as the panacea of all

policing ills has attributed phenomenal significance to the concept which has revolutionised policing

strategies so much that its said to have led to the emergence of the sociology of 'modern policing' in

53 Syed M. Afzal Qadri, Police and Law: A Socio-Legal Analysis, Gulshan Publishers, Srinagar, 1989. 54 For a rheoretical and analytical discussion of the inter-related factors that influence policework, see Chapter land 3. 55 David H. Bayley, 1969, op. cit., p. 197. 56 National Police Commission devotes an entire chapter in its Fifth Report, November 1980. It can also be seen rhat rhe

service aspect of the police has remained the primary concern and rhe only basic premise of rhe Commission's effort in its suggestions for recommendations to reform the Indian police system.

57 National Police Commission, Fifth Report, November 1980, MHA, Government of India, New Delhi; James Vadackumchery, National Police Commission: Issues for Rerhinking, APH Publishing Corporation, New Delhi, 1998, pp. 117-137; Arvind Verma, National Police Commission in India: An Analysis of the Policy Failures, The Police Journal, Vol. LXXI, No.3, July-September 1998, pp. 226-244.

58 David H. Bayley, op. cit.; Other empirical work on police and public relations are by Alphonse L. Earayil & James Vadackumchery, Rama Kant, U.N. Biswas, D. Sundar Ram, V.K. Mohanan, Sultan Akbar Khan and a few others. It is to be noted rhat the National Police Commission had conducted a nation-wide survey through the Indian Institute of Public Opinion for its own study, which has been till date the only broad-based, national level attempt made to study police-public relations.

II

social science. Highly rich and substantial research material on this field is available internationally,

as they come mostly from North America and Great Britain experiences where it has become the

new policing mantra, invariably adopted and implemented by the police leadership.

Insightful scholarship on such policing technologies is produced in great numbers available

in the form of books, assessment and evaluation reports, and articles. It seems that of all issues,

community policing has emerged as a slogan for a virtuous police administration given their bitter

histories and images that forms the subject matter of the current police academics, police-policy

audience as well as proposers, and journalistic studies. But one could notice when reviewing

literature on this topic that researchers and scholars have not paid equal attention to other countries

where community policing and other proactive policies are adopted by police systems, for e.g. Japan,

Singapore, Mexico, Australia, India and many more.

Rl. Mawby' s edited book shows how global has this police-policy become that scholars now

examine the possibilities of importing or transplanting police practices from one country to

another.59 Its clear that a whole range of current policing issues are just as relevant in an

international context as they are locally. The production of international literature on police by

people of various disciplines has become so frequent that the task of keeping up with the same

relevant to one's interest is daunting. At the same time, it is difficult not only to find similar works

on India but research on the need, form and mechanics of implementation of such innovative

policing strategies in the Indian context is largely missing. After all, it is informed through very little

literature that is available on programmes of proactive policing that has been initiated in select places

in India. Certainly, it can be said that community policing has not enthused the most supposed to

be concerned quarters of the citizenry, that is, the governments, police administrators, and policy­

makers.

RESEARCH DESIGN

Based on the theoretical assumptions and constructs drawn from the review of literature relating to

the work processes of the police and its relation with the community, the study derives some basic

hypotheses to examine the relevance of the same in regard to the dynamics of police operations at

the quotidian level following a structured methodology.

Hypotheses:

• State practices often outlive their original jurisdictions, and state bodies often outlive the regimes

that created them.

• The determination of policework in actual practice is achieved by the interplay of a variety of

processes and pressures, within and outside of the police organisation.

• As a form of social control, the police are not an autonomous institution, free-standing and

independent but reflect the social context in which they operate that affects and influences

police activity.

• In plural societies, policing is inextricable from larger social relations and thus tends to be highly

politicised, arguably biased in its disposition, and lacking in effective structures of

accountability.

• Because coercive social control is a feature of stratified societies with strong inclinations toward

individualism where the police are the most visible embodiment of those societies, conflict

59 R.I. Mawby (ed.), 1999, op. cit. 12

between the police and the public, in general, and between the police and those persons whom

society marginalises is prevalent.

Objectives of the Study:

The interest in routine policing, that is, actual police practice and in the process its relation with the

served community, was primarily evoked not only by the lack of satisfactory explanations of

policework in the existing literature, the specific content of actual police activities in particular, but

most importantly, their collective failure to offer an adequate framework for understanding

organised policework. This work is informed by a particular concern: this state agency impinges on

its operational context unlike any other state institutions by virtue of its functions, the nature of its

activities and its existential reflection symbolic of one who is remembered by all in distress.

It is said that the study of police is a way of seeing the mechanism by which authority and

control were exercised and maintained historically. It points at two realisations. First, the study of

policework gains salience primarily because of two instruments in it possession: the monopoly to use

non-negotiable coercion and the power of discretion that pervades all policework. Second, such an

assumption suggests an approach in the study that provides for a contemporary test of the historical

evidence of police practices.

This study discusses the dynamics of the policework processes at the quotidian level that

forms the cornerstone of policing, from the normative point of view and in actuality incorporated

from the body of knowledge existent in the available literature and necessary empirical findings.

How such police practices impact upon the relationship between the police and the community and

its prevalent conditions is also examined. The study looks into the relations between the police and

the public not from a perspective that considers police task as that of the uniformed authority of the

state absolving any role of the public in the process of everyday policing.

The study deals on the theoretical accounts and explanations of the specificities and

complexities of policework processes, that is, the structural determinants and other fundamental

factors that influence their actual functioning. The perspective employed is both descriptive and

analytical in nature. To explain daily police operations in a characteristic setting like India, an

attempt is made to integrate the important theoretical foundations and critical research findings on

contemporary practices in a comprehensible, yet analytic, manner.

Methodology:

The routine operations of the police have never been a central concern of police studies and research

in India. Nevertheless, difficulties in terms of research access to the police may often have been a

hindrance to such studies. As, Jerome H. Skolnick suggests that one of the virtues of democratic

society is the obligation police themselves may feel for self-analysis and improvement, including the

willingness to have themselves studied on the task of policing by a potentially critical student of

social science. He is emphatic about the entitlements of the police in return for an objective and

tenable interpretation in the description and analysis of their work.60 But ways of policework is an

area of dark secrets that necessitates appropriation of a range of research tools which will enable the

study to realise the research agenda which has been laid out.

An attempt is made to explain the necessary elements for an adequate framework to

understand organised policework. In other words, it will provide the background and underpinnings

to examine how the police currently operate for which the methods adopted had to be such that they

60 Jerome H. Skolnick, Justice Without Trial: Law Enforcement in Democratic Society, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1966, p.22.

13

are capable of illuminating the relationship between structures that influence and determine

policework processes. These processes, for instance, involve considerable creative adaptations in

particular settings, including the anticipation of conflict and the devising of tactics to work around

it, and also the tactic of avoiding conflict through non-decision-making (that includes decisions not

conforming to legal principles).61 These processes cannot be decoded or predicted from textual

resources. Thus, the need of primary empirical research. To adequately explain the dynamics of

police operations and its relation with the demos demands an approach that seeks to supplement and

enrich text-based analyses with the findings of empirical research that also includes for instance

ethnographic exploration of lives and activities of the governing and the governed that rarely filters

through the researcher-friendly medium of texts as "surface social practices are not simply

epiphenomena of textual discourses."62

The emphasis upon the work processes of the police reqwres the selection of such

techniques that makes access possible to the fullest possible significant range of policework. To do

this requires a combination of methods that can bring out the realities of police practices unto the

surface as much as possible. As Donald Fiske points out: "Each method is one basis for knowing,

one discriminable way of knowing," that is, there is a certain degree of "method specificity" in each

form of data collection. Thus, to minimise the degree of specificity of certain methods, it is

theoretically advantageous to triangulate methods as it would also not only help in checking the level

of consistency in the findings yielded by different methods but as a result, the validity of those

findings is also increased. It has the benefit of raising the researcher "above the personal biases that

stem from single methodologies."63 Thus to overcome the deficiencies that flow from employing one

method, triangulation as a research strategy is ideal and mandatory for research on an institution like

the police, that, as stated before, dearly have a lot of dark secrets. The nature of such research

endeavour necessarily require dependence on a source for expert knowledge that help inform the

researcher to develop ideas about police and direct the research work in a constructive and

meaningful manner. The constant source of such orientation to this study has been the critical

professor, besides police and law practitioners.

Police and the community constitute a symbiosis as the policework at the quotidian level is

not an isolated activity with the police situated autonomously above society. It is essentially an

interactive process between the two entities. Therefore, the empirical enquiry will strive to explore

the policework and to measure the dimensions of police impact upon the community. The

dimensions of this empirical study involve appropriation of research tools that would necessitate

making distinctions, marking limits, setting out conditions and reducing processes to their elements.

The empirical investigation focuses on both qualitative and quantitative techniques, that is,

participant-observation and in-depth personal interviews (that would uncover that which texts may

not reveal), besides documentary research (that consists not merely review and analysis but

investigations too into the archival data obtained from police records, the textual representations of

everyday practices, that arguably embody official mentalities of rule in the practices that could

denote a culture and also provide a knowledge of the settings in which they are produced). These

sources are made complementary with the aim to collect data on specific objectives that constitute

the detailed reality of day-to-day policework.

61 Kevin Stenson, Crime Control, Governmentality and Sovereignty, in Russell Smandych (ed.), Governable Places: Readings on Governmentality and Crime Control, Ashgate-Dartmouth, Aldershot, 1999, p. 59.

62 Ibid, pp. 58-59. 63 Chava Frankfort-Nachmias and David Nachmias, Research Methods in the Social Sciences, Fifth Edition, St. Martin

Press, New York, 1996, pp. 204-06. 14

Direct knowledge of a community's orientation to policing issues, e.g. to know how police

relate to a member of the public or the public relate to police activities, is best acquired through

systematic first-hand data collection with representatives samples of the community's population.

For many of the issues, which concern the police and the public, surveying both the public and the

police could be the way to obtain the desired information- "if you want to know what the citizens

think and feel, you must ask them." In short, to know what the police and the community thinks

about a subject, one should choose a methodology that asks the concerned in a direct and systematic

way.64

Thus, the sampling approach was defined by the following considerations: talking with key

persons "in-the-know" within the community and the organisation; and taking focus groups as a

technique as they were particularly useful for assessing opinions of relevant sub-groups within a

community, e.g. categories based on socio-economic criteria. The survey technique adopted was a

structured interview schedule, focused and clinical in nature, administered by the researcher

personally. The construction of the interview schedule was designed to elicit objective information

from factual questions, as also questions about subjective experiences involving the respondents'

beliefs, feelings, attitudes, and opinions. Two sets of interview schedules were employed, one to elicit

responses from the police personnel of the identified police-stations and the other from the 'publics',

residing in the jurisdictional area of these respective police-stations. As the interview schedule was

the same for both rural and as well as urban or a mixed geographic region, the schedule had to

necessarily contain contingency questions along with filter questions. In the process of administering

the structured interview schedule personally, the researcher in rare cases had to have the preference

of making the enquiry not a matter of 'off-the-cuff' responsive exercise but a partially exploratory

one providing space to the interviewee to elicit more information, wherever felt necessary. Here, in

fact, 'probing' as an instrument was employed to obtain the most complete responses, on critical

issues of everyday policing, from only those sample units that were understood to have experienced

the phenomenon of interest and could relate to them by reconstructing their experiences.

The interview schedule meant for the police of the four identified police-stations had

questions that were largely open-ended though there were dose-ended questions too. These

questionnaires were constructed, to a certain extent, with the aid of similar empirical studies on the

police, for instance, that of David H. Bayley, Alphonse L. Earayil and James Vadackumchery, and

others.

Survey methodologies have its own peculiar shortcomings, namely, the subpopulation that

constitute the sample selected for the study as representative of the whole stands against the non­

feasibility of interviewing every member of the universe of study leaving unattended the presumptive

potential resourceful members of the community, the limitations of extending survey conclusion of

one sampled area to the other for comparative analysis, and the element of non-reliability of the

responses elicited, howsoever marginal it may be, is significant in research on subjects that involve

the monopoly of legitimate use of force. Therefore, measures were taken to minimise the effect of

these in conducting a sound survey.

For removing any error in the data as well as to supplement the same that is obtained from

the opinion surveys, other methodological techniques were also adopted to enlarge the particular

bodies of knowledge on policework and police-community relations, respectively.

64 David H. Bayley, op. cit., p. 5; Quint C. Thurman and Michael D. Reisig, Community-Oriented Research in an era of Community-Oriented Policing, American Behavioural Scientist, Vol. 39, Issue 5, March-April 1996, pp. 570-86 (Source: EBSCO Database: Academic Search Elite).

15

The innovative method ot measunng results through documentary research, tnat Is, stuoymg

of police records vs. follow-up interviews of the victims/complainants',65 involved the studying of the

First Information Reports (FIRs) registered at all the four thanas, during the year 2002, and the

Station Diaries (SDs) of the same year as well as that of during the period of research (2003-04) of

the said thanas. The Inspection Reports of the supervisory officers on the concerned thanas to which

the researcher could have access to as well as the selected entries of the SDs were analysed using

content analysis. The above government/official documents and reports yield credible (evaluative)

information, as they serve as records of evidence of events as they occurred rather than being

constructed later. The FIRs were categorised in terms of the nature of alleged offences and from it

were selectively chosen some cases, at least one each from every category of offences as well as those

that, on the basis of certain considerations, were felt important by the researcher after examining the

original complaints, on the basis of which the FIRs were registered.

The FIRs were then treated in a way to determine the public's access to the police, the

complainants' experiences during the process of filing the FIRs and the registration of the same, the

police response and the behaviour of the 'publics' (complainants, accused, and witnesses) during the

follow-up processes of the FIRs. Such information were collected by personal interviews with the

complainants, victims, and the accused as mentioned in those FIRs, and from all the entries made in

the SDs regarding police action in the respective cases.

The SD entries related to all kinds of complaints received by the thana, its treatment by the

police, and all other activities at the thana including those that are a part of the routine policing were

studied to know about the kinds of interpersonal problems, public expectations, and what all that

constitutes policework. To that regard, some of those entries regarding complaint filed by the

citizens that were not registered as cognizable cases were also examined in a similar fashion as done

in case of the FIRs. The Station Diary as per the Police Manual is a complete record of all

occurrences as they take place at the thana.66 It will thus serve as the most vital source of information

on the daily operations of the police. The fact that it is obligatory on part of the SD in-charge to

make an entry every two hours to record any occurrences at the thana, it is considered to be the

mirror reflection of the police activities. Thus examination of the findings of the investigations into

the unregistered complaints and registered FIRs and the textual representations in the SD of the

processing of the respective cases by the police would provide bodies of knowledge about the actual

police practices in all its dimensions and its meaning in reference to the concrete conditions that has

produced them that includes the roles of the 'publics'67• The veracity of the police records would

obviously come under scrutiny.

An effort was also made to enlist some incidents in the community related to both situations

that had the potential of turning into a case of disorder and actual problems of disorder to elicit

information on the roles of the police and publics in such situations.

65 The victim and complainant of a case may be two different persons. Expressions in Section 190(l)(a) & (c) of Cr.P.C. clearly means that as a general rule, any person, having knowledge of the commission of an offence may set the law in motion by a complaint, even though the informant is not personally interested or affected by the offence (exceptions to this rule are ss. 195 and 198). Ganesh Narayan Sathe, (1889) 13 Born 600; Keshavlaljekrishna, (1896) 21 Born 536; Vishwa Mitter v. D.P. Poddar, 1984 Cr LJ 1: AIR 1984 SC 5. Ratanlal & Dhirajlal's The Code of Criminal Procedure by Ratanlal Ranchhoddas and Dhirajlal K. Thakore, 15'h Edition (Revised by Justice Y.V. Chandrachud, et a!), Wadhwa and Company Law Publishers, Nagpur, 2002, pp. 293-298.

66 See Appendix A for detail information on the police documentation of its activities called the Station Diary. 67 It includes the injured parry (victim/complainant), witnesses, accused, representatives of the community and also that

of both the parties, if any, the gentry, and members of the civil society institutions with whom the police may have institutional contact.

16

The observation method was also employed to increase the validity of the findings from the

above techniques. Several of the most important social science studies of the police have been based

on a participant-observer methodology. Participant-observer research, sometimes called field

research, is the most common technique used in qualitative research.68 A qualitative approach was

used for this study to help understand the idea of policework from the standpoint of the participants

(the police personnel and the members of the public as key constituents of policing).

The underlying reason for employing this research strategy was that to understand the

processes of policework, one need to be cognizant of the 'process' itself as the larger purpose was to

construct generalisations about the process. The firsthand knowledge obtained through this method

describes the observed phenomena as they occur in their natural settings. Therefore, "to study people

acting in the natural courses of their daily lives," a participant-observer must genuinely be prepared

to see the world through the eyes of his subjects. According to Skolnick, such a position does not

undermine scientific objectivity, unless science is limited to the narrowest sort of positivism. On the

contrary, scientific knowledge is enhanced, provided the participant-observer is neither captured nor

repelled by his subjects. It requires that the observer empathise with the situations of his subjects by

getting involved in the world of the researched. 69

The empirical investigations undertaken by this study ought not to be mistaken for that the

police conduct. It was an exploratory research whose purpose was not merely to reveal the extent of

deviations in police behaviour from the principles of legality as that much was assured. The emphasis

was to observe the impact of the environment on the researched to acquire the meaning of work to

the police itself, especially as derived from and reflects back upon societal ideas regarding worker

autonomy, the need for order and the rule of law. It was aimed at understanding the conditions

under which the police operate: to see rules as a context for the behaviour of legal men besides

organisational and situational requirements that often affect the actor's interpretation of laws. In

other words, a study of law-in-action is a study of men at work, interpreting and thereby

transforming principles and associated rules within the legal institutions.70

'Observations of practice' requires the researcher to be on the scene to observe the

behaviourial and attitudinal patterns of the police during actual assignments. To enable access to

such situations is a matter of achieving rapport with the police, as a kind of participation is required.

Erving Goffman described such process of actively participating in the daily life of the observed and

the gaining of insights by introspection in the following way: " ... a good way to learn about any of

these worlds is to submit oneself in the company of the members to the daily round of petty

contingencies to which they are subject." The researcher was thus required to attain some kind of

membership in or dose attachment to the group it wished to study. It depended on the skills of the

researcher to establish relationships with members of the group. This reminds of the suggestion of

Robert Park of the Chicago School: "so get the seat of your pants dirty in real research." According

to him, there may be initial frustration over attempts of how to gain entry into the group but

learning the ropes to establish relationships involved adopting variety of roles and strategies that are

invented spontaneously and adopted that blend with the demands of the particular research setting.

That important phase of the researcher's attempt at socialising, establishing social relations with the

observed and gaining acceptability among them was the central aspect of fieldwork. In doing so, the

68 Roy R. Roberg and Jack Kuykendall, op. cit., p. 141; Chava Frankfort-Nachmias and David Nachmias, op. cit., p. 206. 69 Jerome H. Skolnick, op. cit., pp. 25-26, 41; Chava Frankfort-Nachmias and David Nachmias, ibid, pp. 206-07, 281;

Roy R. Roberg and Jack Kuykendall, op. cit., pp. 140-41. 70 Jerome H. Skolnick, ibid, pp. 26-27; Chava Frankforr-Nachmias and David Nachmias, ibid, p. 207.

17

researcher as participant-observer, by principle, attempted to adopt the perspective of the people in

the situation being observed (both police and the public). 71

When the researcher adopted this role, he informed the group being studied, that there was

a research agenda. The researcher's explicitly stated goal was to learn the processes of policework at

the thana level and for that purpose the interest was not in the names or personalities nor the thana

that was being observed. The researcher tried to spend more time with the subjects, share views on

the situational encounters and also participate in the daily life of the observed to make them get used

to his presence. For e.g. the researcher on an invitation from the In-charge of a thana sat through the

entire play from late evening to day break along with other officers. An element of artificiality and

caution still remained in the air. Some officers occasionally getting conscious of the fact that the

researcher was in company was noticeable. For instance, during a night patrolling in one of the rural

areas, a truck was stopped by the patrolling party and its carriage was checked. To evade police

search, the truck driver attempted to push something into the palm of the senior officer who

realising the researcher's presence spurned the act and immediately took him away into the dark. But

this artificiality cannot be overcome even when the observed is accustomed to the observer and do

not regard the latter as an intruder. As it is, the subject in encountering a situation cannot have the

opportunity to dissimulate than being customary. The subjects most often initiated discussion on

the work that was at hand or while enroute to encounter a situation that involved exchange of

opinions in an air of informality. The police realises that the researcher can easily learn about the

general pattern of policework that was observed. From many such experiences, one such moment

was when the researcher's willingness was sought to aid the police in nabbing a warrantee who had

been successful in evading arrest. The researcher on many occasions felt being considered by the

observed as an accomplice, if not as a fellow agent of social control. But still there could be a belief

that the researcher would not have been exposed to the "worst". Whatever that may mean, most of

what was observed was necessarily typical of the behaviour of the police, 'the normal policework'. It

is so because of the fact that the vague presence of an observer whom the police had given the

privileges to drop-in when they are at work would be at all a pertinent factor to alter their usual

behaviour than the effects of organisational controls.

The theoretical problem of the observation method was the difficulty to follow a 'time­

sampling schedule'. It was not feasible too given the nature of the policework, that is, the focus of

observation was highly unpredictable in terms of the opportunity for the researcher to observe a

specific police activity that may occur at any moment of the day and night. More so, it also

depended on the consent and invitation of the officer to accompany them on any task.

The participant-observer also looked at the social world of the police that includes its

interface with the public to acquire a comprehensive understanding of organised policework.72

Hence, the observer belonged to either world. It was thus critical for him to strike a well-balanced

relationship with the observed and that required, according to Rosalie Wax, the fieldworker "to

maintain a consciousness and respect for what he is and a consciousness and respect for what his

hosts (observed) are."73

The researcher had to conduct elaborate observational work at strategic sites of policework,

to cover the full range of practices conducted all through the day and night. It meant accompanying

the police in its work, e.g. patrol, raid, enquiry, investigation, search and seizure, execution of

71 Chava Frankfort-Nachmias and David Nachmias, ibid, pp. 280-82, 288-89; Jerome H. Skolnick, ibid, p. 36. 72 Mike Brogden, eta!, op. cit., pp. 30-31. 73 Chava Frankfon-Nachmias and David Nachmias, op. cit., p. 289.

lR

warrants, attend to calls, processing of cases like Unnatural Death cases, etc. It also meant having

access, as much as possible, to the written statements relating to working practices: operational

guidelines and orders. It also meant to be cognizant of the background legal structure that informs

the work of the rank and file. Finally, it meant attention to police-public contacts of all kinds,

especially the nature of the citizens' contacting role as it is they who pose demands on modern

policework and influence policework practices: to contacts with complainants, victims, arrestees,

petitioners, community leaders, and organisational agents since these provided one important

empirical indicator of the presence of the working of democratic elements.74

The study of policework practices included the institutional processes as well as the function

of the informal processes that appeared to prevail variously either in juxtaposition or concomitant to

each other. The researcher, therefore, constantly found itself involved in the business of interpreting

the meaning of the behaviour of the observed, verbal and non-verbal, and that of the events in which

they were engaged in. It depended on the researcher how comprehensively it could reveal the world

of policework. But the fact remains that the success of observation method is dependent on factors,

namely, the willingness of the observed to reveal all - since secrecy is a key component of the

occupational culture, police are unlikely to reveal all so comprehensive revelation seem unlikely -

and the possibility of the researcher's inability to comprehend processes not directly obsenred. Thus,

the degree of specificity of this approach was minimized by using a combination of methods

including personal interviews, made complementary to each other for affecting greater empirical

validity to the study.

The data collected from all the four thanas and their jurisdictional area of a district in Orissa,

employing the same set of research strategies, were meaningfully analysed by linking the data

together in a plausible and relevant manner. The analytical approach consisted of perusing the data

relevant to particular identified practices, proposing a concrete idea structured around the question

over the relationship of the original theoretical concepts based on operating norms, then 'testing' the

idea by studying relevant case(s) collected from the field that includes drawing necessary

comparisons between the different police-stations, and reformulating the notion, if necessary, by

looking for distinctive differences and connections in the evaluation of situational rules and other

considerations that explain the said prevalent practice. In short, the policework practices were

interrogated by identifYing and interpreting the relationship between the determinants that connect

up to explain the actual established processes of the derailed reality of daily police operations.

Ethical Issues:

The question of ethics and ethical issues certainly arise (before and after) from the kind of problem a

researcher investigates and the methods used to obtain crucial, valid and reliable data. The ethical

dilemma is the conflict between the right to conduct research and right of research participants' to

self-determination, privacy and dignity. There are no absolute right or wrong answers to the ethical

issues, pertaining to the right of the researcher and that of the researched as the former's interest may

not only interfere with the rights and welfare of the latter, but that it may be breached by the latter's

unwillingness to cooperate with the research. Most research on police studies, show greater concern

and priority for ethics towards the police, understandably so, but the basic reason for such claims on

rights is self-serving. This study has taken into consideration the ethical issues concerning the

research participants, the police as well as the 'publics', based on three identified dimensions of

74 Roger Grimshaw and Tony Jefferson, Interpreting Policework: Policy and Practice in Forms of Beat Policing, Allen & Unwin, London, 1987, p. 33.

19

privacy, that is, the consequences or implications of the sensitivity of the information being

collected, the setting being observed, and the dissemination of information.

The method employed to collect a particular type of data is undeniably dependent on the

trust and confidence of the source of that information on the researcher. The method may not

necessarily be restricted to field research but includes survey research and documentary research as

well. The face-to-face interaction with the 'publics' during personal interviews was not a smooth,

easy-going affair given the nature of relationship between the police and the public. The most

critical of the tasks was participant observation where the researcher attempted to establish close

relationship with the members of the occupational group that significantly contributed to the

research agenda. So were the 'publics' that suspect anything related to the police and thus reluctant

to share information until convinced of the purpose.

The most serous ethical issue was, therefore, the responsibility of the researcher to uphold

the rights and welfare of the participants of this research project by protecting the anonymity of the

participants and keep the confidentiality of the data. It thus required the researcher to state the

nature and purpose of the study to acquire the informed consent of the participants. Albert Reiss

had used deception to gain access to observation on how police treated citizens. It raised ethical

questions as normatively it is the obligation of the researcher to carefully balance the potential

benefits or contribution of the project against its possible costs to the individual research participants

at every stage of the research process. It is often difficult and Reiss gave priority to the former at the

cost of the latter that invited serious criticism.75 During the course of this research on poLicework in

India, an area which has not been studied systematically, the researcher only on certain occasions to

overcome the impediments at critical stage of the research had to withhold information on the true

purpose of this study from the participants.

However, for this study the informed consent of the participants was felt essential on the

following considerations: (i) without it the researcher could not have gained access to strategic sites

of policework nor could have been accepted as a participant-observer; (ii) the researcher as

participant-observer was equally exposed to the risks and dangers in the working environment of the

police; and (iii) the most important was that a research of this kind would expose the participants to

unknown risks. But the dilemma of the researcher was how much information needed to be

disclosed or provided to the participants for obtaining permission. Another noticeable problem was

the difficulty on part of the participants to comprehend the research activity and its agenda.

Therefore, it was difficult to ensure informed consent in an absolute sense.

Hence, utmost care was taken to safeguard the welfare of the research participants. To that

effect, complete anonymity and confidentiality has been maintained by using fictitious names and

references, and blurring of those identifying facts that do not influence the general points being

made. This was done to underscore the objective and significance of this study and the underlying

assumption was that it was not interested in the individual behaviour but in their conduct as it

represented characteristic behavioural or attitudinal pattern of the police institution in certain

circumstances. It may be that certain responses of the people or events at places reported in this work

may find enthusiasm in some zealous readers to try identifying the same in actuality. The researcher

could only express his concerns for any possible negative effects on the participants because of this

work.

75 Chava Frankfort-Nachmias and David Nachmias, op. cit., pp. 79-80.

20

Ethical questions did arise over the effect of the researcher's presence on the publics' fate

during their encounter with the police. The researcher was circumspect in its conduct as a

participant-observer as to not allow itself to influence or alter the normal process of policework as it

would have taken place in his absence. The common element in any situation of contact with the

police is that the citizens seek for something that would aid their cause. In certain situations, the

roles of the participant-observer were partially effectual, for instance: (i) An indigent woman victim

of domestic violence appeared at a thana to seek police assistance but the police refused to oblige

unless she furnished a written complaint to that effect. Though it may appear at first as an attempt

to get rid of the women, one could empathise with the police rationale for their unwillingness to

reduce the victim's oral complaint to writing that there lies the possibility of the police being accused

of misrepresentation of facts. The observer without the knowledge of the police facilitated in making

the complaint available to the victim that compelled the police to respond; (ii) A complainant, well­

known to the observer, had sought police intervention in a case of conflict with its tenant. Seeing the

observer, the complainant made it obvious to the dealing officer of its acquaintance with him.

Sooner, the solution proposed by the police appeared favourable to the complainant and both parties

agreed to honour it.

The ethical line in such circumstances is hard to place but the researcher was quite conscious

of observing the rule that its role as a participant-observer be inconsequential to the normal process _

of police operations. Particularly concerned, care was also taken that the observer's presence either ~2~ did not adversely affect the public's lawful rights or have had any legal consequences for the public. 1' ':.'::/-· :-~..,

ff.c:: J ("' i/ Cl \ ~::· Universe of Study: ~:z. \ :C: The data for this work were drawn from an empirical study of four police-stations and their~~:·~:~: j operational areas conducted by the researcher in a district of Orissa, a province in eastern India. The '<""~ name of the district is withheld in effect to the maximum restrain shown to protect the rights' and

welfare of the research participants and the confidentiality of the data that was used for this study.

The police in India are operationally organised on the basis of districts and the quotidian

level operations take place at the police-station, that are variously known as 'thana', 'kotwalt, etc. 76

The rest of the structures above it are supervisory in nature. Orissa is divided into eight ranges with a

total of 34 police districts, 35 sub-divisions, 91 circles and a total of 465 police-stations (291 rural

police-stations, 168 urban police-stations and 6 women police-stations).77

The number of police-stations chosen for this research work was m an attempt to

proportionately represent the number of existing nature of police-stations in the district so as to

obtain a comprehensive view of the police administration in Orissa viz. rural, urban and semi-urban.

76 Hereon, both the terms, 'police-station' and 'thana' will be used interchangeably. 77 It is pertinent to note the ostensible discrepancies in the Orissa figures on the police organisational setup that have been

provided in Crime in India only since the report of 1999. The figures on all given indicators remained constant during the years 1999 and 2000 i.e. 7 ranges, 34 police districts, 35 sub-divisions, 90 circles, 300 rural police-stations, 149 urban police-stations and 4 women police-stations. According to Crime in India-2001, there was a large rearrangement in the organisational setup during 2001. In just one year period, there were 8 newly created sub-divisions, 20 rural police-stations that were either shut down or ceased its rural status, 18 urban police-stations that were either newly created or granted the said recognition, and 3 more women police-stations were formed. According to the latest Crime in India report of 2002, in the same year, there was an addition each in the number of ranges, and circles, the number of sub-divisions was restored to the status as reported during the year 2000, one rural police-station and 11 urban police-stations were added to the respective totals of the previous year, and one less in the number of woman police­stations over the previous year's tally. See Crime in India- 1999, National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Government of India (GO I), New Delhi, 2001, Table 98, p. 422; Crime in India- 2000, NCRB, MHA, GOI, New Delhi, 2002, Table 98, p. 414; Crime in India- 2001, NCRB, MHA, GOI, New Delhi, 2003, Table 98, p. 568; Crime in India- 2002, NCRB, MHA, GOI, New Delhi, 2004, Table 17.11, p. 590.

21

The four thanas selected for study are two rural, one urban and one semi-urban that has within its

jurisdiction a Notified Area Council. The semi-urban police-station is more rural than urban.

Fictitious names are given to the police-stations for obvious reasons as stated before hence it

could only be possible to provide only a restricted general overview, withholding accurate

descriptions of these places. The police-stations are thus named as Lekhpur, Sewaknagar,

Y eshodabad and Birjodi.

Lekhpur and Birjodi are contiguous rural areas that have a small central place where

important government institutions are located in regard to civil administration, provision for health

services, postal and telecommunication services, and above all the police-station, the focus of this

study. Local traders conduct their business in a market place in this area. The jurisdiction of both

these police-stations are approximately the same i.e. 200 sq. kms. While the latter has approx. 200

villages and 35 Gram Panchayats, the former has nearly 130 villages and 25 Gram Panchayats. There

are pockets of Muslim population in both the region with the latter having a relatively substantial

proportion, both have a similar but impressive male-female ratio of nearly equal proportions, and

the average percentage of the population of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are approx. 20

and negligible, respectively. The mainstay of the economy of these regions that most preoccupy the

people is agriculture and agro-based activities.

Yeshodabad is semi-urban in character with nearly 3.5 percent of its total area recognised as

Notified Area Council that has a population of nearly 15,000, a larger concentration of SC

population as against their total percentage in the entire thana area, a developed town-like area that

houses the office of the Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate in addition to other general government

offices, hospital, schools and colleges, a huge market area, central bus-stand, besides the thana and

also the office of the Sub-Divisional Police Officer. The geographical area of this police-station is the

largest of all the four thanas that are studied, nearly 300 sq. kms. It has around 130 revenue villages

with little more than 15 Gram Panchayats. Its total population of more than a lakh, is the least of

the three rural thanas, with equally lesser percentage of SC population but far greater percentage of

ST population than others. It has a marginal Muslim population. The male-female ratio quite

approximates to the other two thana areas. The workforce in all the rural thana areas is

predominantly male, the largest obviously being in Yeshodabad which also has the largest female

workers, a little more than that of Lekhpur. Birjodi though being the most highly populated and

with the highest female population apart from the city of the district, it has one of the lowest female

workforce comprising nearly seven percent of the whole. The economic profile is no distinctly

different from the other two. 78

Sewaknagar police-station falls under the city area of the district. It is the smallest (area-wise)

of all the four thanas and the difference from the rest is phenomenal. Its jurisdictional area is approx.

15 sq. kms., which is only 7 percent of the average jurisdictional area of the rural thanas under study.

However, it has a well-developed urban character with the usual patches of slums in its fringes. The

workforce is huge, in varied trades and services. It has nearly three distinctive minority colonies and

certain caste-specific settlements inhabited by the marginalised

Lekhpur, Birjodi, and Yeshodabad are located towards the northeast, northwest, and west of

the district police headquarters, approximately at an average distance of 50 kms from it, while

Sewaknagar is understandably within the urban expanse of the district.

78 Based on the District Statistical Handbook, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Government of Orissa, Bhubaneswar, 1999.

22

lhese pohce-stanons are conventionally nausea m smatt, auap10area suuuurc:s, I<t.I.!Uut; c:v~;;u

the most basic requirements from the operational point of view. Generally, there are just two rooms

in every police-station. While effectively the entire station unit operates from just one cramped

room, the other is exclusively for the in-charge of the thana who enjoys an independent workspace.

At times when a warrantee is arrested, the operational space for the staff recedes. It is because as in

some of the thanas there are no lockups, they are bound to the legs of one of the officer's table.

Again for lack of space, the constables would most often be found wandering around the vicinity of

the police-station, at the nearest paan shop as in Lekhpur.

The study also incorporated within its purview the working of the subordinate posts of the

police-stations, such as outpost, beat house and aid-post, wherever there was any. A notable feature

of these police-stations, save one for being a rented accommodation, is the existence of a small

Hindu religious structure within its premises. Though it may not appear strange to lay persons, but

despite opposition from the locals the overzealous in-charge of one of the thanas under study went

ahead constructing a temple adjacent to the thana, directly opposite the very popular ancient temple

of the local god. Yet in another case, in one of the city police-stations, a huge temple was built

within its premises under the aegis of the Inspector in-charge who along with his wife inaugurated it

with great pomp.79

These thanas were selected to examme the vanance m the organisational character and

functional styles of the rural and urban police and their working environment. Further, the focus on

a single district was to look at policework as practiced at different police-stations under the same

administrative supervision of a Superintendent of Police. The identification of the particular thanas

was based on the consideration that it would be possible to grasp the unity of organised policework

in all its significant diversity and complexity. In this regard, the suggestions of a known experienced

police practitioner in the district were valuable. The critical assistance of known resource persons to

gainfully aid in the research work was also found in these areas.

Thus, the four identified thanas and the public residing under their respective jurisdictions

objectively constituted the universe of this study.

A Profile of the Thanas:

The profiles of the police-stations being studied are based on latest official records (notes/reports)

and observation:

SEWAKNAGAR:

The discrepancy between the sanctioned and present strength was found only in the rank of

the constables. The strength of the police-station including that of its subordinate posts was 39 as

against the sanctioned strength of 47, the shortfall was in the rank of constables.

The police-station is housed in an old dilapidated rented building with no basic

infrastructural facilities, mandatory for an operable unit viz., lock-up, malkhana, etc. Its subordinate

posts are well-equipped as they were recently constructed. There has been a constant change in the

physical character of the area, an urban phenomenon, which makes it incumbent upon the police to

constantly keep itself abreast of such alterations as it is consequential to policing affairs.

79 To a more curious question by the researcher on how the sight of such structures within the precincts of a sensitive state organisation augur well for its image in a plural society, the police officer on probation retorted, "it is a Hindu nation as majority are Hindus". For such activities, resources are generally unscrupulously mobilised. It was learnt that a former in-charge of one of these four thanas had also mobilised resources in a like manner only to erect a permanem structure for the purpose of station work.

23

BIRJODI:

This thana reflects a phenomenon of continuity and commonality in administrative

practices in India. The size of the jurisdiction of this police-station appears to be no different from

what existed in the 1960s in West Bengal or Rajasthan when David H. Bayley, a police scientist,

undertook a study on India. 80 There is lack of motorable roads in this region and many of the

inhabited villages remain inaccessible.

The thana highlights the queered official rationale underpinning the police policy in the

state as far as the strength of the rural police-stations is concerned. The standing strength of this

thana was incredibly low at eleven as against not so significantly sanctioned strength of 15, the

discrepancy once again visible at the constable level. Its outpost had a negligible strength of five. The

effect of 'manpower' of this size with inadequate infrastructural facilities, like communication and

transport, 81 on the organisation's operational efficiency that is responsible for a mammoth

jurisdictional area has been discussed later in this study by linking and connecting up these

determinants while analysing policework.

YESHODABAD:

It no longer sounds unusual but administratively still obfuscatory that Yeshodabad has far

larger jurisdictional area than Birjodi. The standing strength of this thana quite fulfills its sanction,

the same as provided for Birjodi. It has no ancillary posts.

LEKHPUR:

It becomes all the more convincing now that the state has a uniform police policy regarding

manpower resources designated for rural thanas, irrespective of their geographic or demographic

character. Moreover, the sanctioned strength deficient in itself is hardly ever actualised.

Though, the average jurisdiction of this thana approximates to that of Birjodi, its sanctioned

strength of 15 is what Yeshodabad with far larger operational area is supposed to make do with the

same constant. Rather interestingly, the composite strength of the Birjodi thana and its subordinate

post is similar to that of Lekhpur although the subordinate post of the latter has a different status

than one existing under Birjodi. All the three kinds of posts i.e. beat house, outpost, and aid-post

have different configura! characteristics owing to their raison d' etre.

Three of these four police-stations share a common police system in terms of the existence of

an auxiliary group called the village police that are essentially watchmen, variously known as chowkia

or gram rakhi.

Sample:

Functionaries of these four thanas and the public residing under their respective jurisdictions

comprised of two distinct population of the universe from which sampling units for constituting two

sets of sample, one comprising of the police and the other that of the public, were methodically

selected for this study.

The researcher adopted the 'probability sampling technique' to select a sizeable number of

sampling units from all the jurisdictions of the four thanas to form four different samples that could

be sufficiently representative of their respective jurisdictions. Such a construct that determined the

character of the sample is dictated by the assumption that police is the most visible embodiment of

the state and as it affects the daily lives of the people, the social context too impinges on police

80 David H. Bayley, op. cit, pp. 78-79. 81 The latest Inspection Reports on the thana also records these inadequacies.

24

activity. In view of the objective of the survey, for a plural society, the relevant method employed

was 'stratified random sampling'.

The other subset of a sampling frame of too finite a population of thana personnel was also

to be selected on the basis of 'stratified sampling' using ranks as the parameter. Due to the inevitable

problem of limitation of the researcher having neither control nor alternative or choice over the

selection of the sample from a small sampling frame of an average population of twenty who are

subject to the rigours of work by the statutory requirement of being "considered to be always on

duty" and other factors82 that the researcher could manage to personally interview only a few police

personnel that would thus constitute a convenience sample. In addition, the information gathered

from indiscriminate interactions with the personnel during the researcher's role as participant­

observer have to a considerable extent served the same purpose of a personal interview.

'Purposive sampling' was employed to select the relevant FIRs registered at the four thanas

and also the reports of incidents/events that were reflected in the Station Diaries (SDs) of these

thanas during the year 2000. As a result, the 'publics' (complainants, victims, accused, witnesses, and

the concerned others) of the selected FIRs and SD entries constituted a fourth sample besides the

aforesaid ones.

Such a comprehensive sampling strategy was suitably designed to examme the research

questions thoroughly as possible to produce valid empirical generalisations.

CONCLUSION

The stated concern of this study was to determine the set of police functions and the processes of

policework in actual practice. Subsequently, it also looks at the way police activities impinge on its

operational setting and how does its constituents by their nature of the contacting role set off a

process of reciprocal relationship.

In order to pursue this agenda, necessary empirical data was obtained on policework and the

relations of the police with the public over a period of time by employing a triangulation of

methods. The data on the contemporary situation that constitute of the history of the present were

analysed with that of its past for the irrefragable continuities in structural determinants.

The first chapter deals on the issue of the context in which the police is organised in the

state system and an outline of this institution as it has evolved in India. A description of the physical

setting in which the police operates at the quotidian level forms the next chapter. Chapter three

attempts to examine the idea of police in a democracy and deals with a general theoretical

understanding of organised policework that informs the importance of various notions like structural

and cultural elements and contexts, and their mutual effect on police practices. This could offer an

adequate explanatory framework to examine the profane details of daily police operations.

The following chapters explore the processes of specific forms of policework, that is,

reporting, investigation work, and preventive policing and public order policing, respectively. The

task involves analysis of the work processes in terms of the procedural specificities and as it prevails

in actual practice. The penultimate chapter discusses the police activities as they affect the public and

examines the relations between the two primarily by the results of the survey data of the responses of

82 The researcher was conscious of the faet that the traits of secrecy and suspicion of the occupational culture may inhibit the process of eliciting information through organised personal interviews. Hence, it was always only towards the end of the field work that the researcher initiated the process of administering the interview schedules. To a certain extent, quite true to the researcher's fear, some officers either lacked interest or were reluctant to go through the interview. Therefore, the researcher had to make a deliberate attempt to maximise the opportunities from the possible interviews with the most experienced hands. The constables were exemplary as respondents as they had no inhibition towards interviews and, moreover, both forthcoming and forthright in their responses.

25

both the police and the public on policing issues. The last chapter deals on the recent paradigm

shifts in policing strategies, especially the concept of community-policing.

In conclusion, the researcher summarises the entire work, examines the interrelated

hypotheses and offers valid generalisations with its reflections on the subject of enquiry.

26