Police officers residing with citizens a challenge to crime fighting – Report

Over the years, police have had challenges fighting crime in WA and its surroundings. Upperwestmedia.net have taken out time to fish out reasons behind the poor approach towards battling the rate at which crime is aggravating in WA and its surroundings.

An interview conducted has gathered so many ideas pertaining possible reasons why police find it difficult to tackle lawlessness.

One policeman interviewed by our team [Name withheld] admitted it was actually difficult because the rot in the policing system has caused the mess. ” when we arrest criminals and forward them for the necessary actions to be taken, they are later freed by top officials either due to political influence or financial and after which we are then labelled hypocrites for doing what is right, this makes the society uncomfortable for stay as you become a target to several criminals who are against you forever forwarding them to meet justice.

This has reduced the service to a lawless unit where who you know talks so we the junior officers have decided not attach seriousness in enforcing the law in order not to put our lives in danger” he said.

Furthermore other police officers have suggested that staying with the citizens makes it difficult to arrest or forward them when they offend, “imagine staying in a compound house where the son of my landlord is a motorbike thief, how do I forward this person, his father will park me out after that and even I will be tagged a wicked police in the area which will stigmatize me, even later my properties may be at risk as these boys may invade my room and send away my belongings when am away, so it would be better to let sleeping dogs lie and live in peace”.

Also based on other finding some policemen have said staying with people makes you establish that cordial relationship with people you live with, you meet some of these people who try to relate with you so they can run to you when in need, in the end, how do you arrest such people? you just have to let them be and also be but if we have police quarters where police officers wouldn’t cheaply be accessible like today in WA, this would boost the morale of officers to work because it would improve their security and safety and increase their value as a security service.

They cited the military in WA as an example, the soldiers don’t stay with the people and this has ensured strictness in law enforcement and discipline.

They also blamed the term police ‘service’ instead of police ‘force’ as another problem limiting their power.