PUBLIC PERCEPTION ABOUT POLICING IN PUNJAB AFTER THE INCORPORATION OF ICT

Abstract

Policing is one of the basic governance services to keep society under law and order. Policing in Pakistan has underwent many reforms in order to provide the public with sense of security, safety and other related services. In modern times, where the crime is shaping itself technologically into complex nature, policing is also one of the biggest challenge for developing countries like ours. The challenge is not only in the dimension of fighting crime and criminals but also in satisfying the general public about its functions. Much has been done in knowing the governance issues in policing but it is also imperative to know as to how public grade the police in its behavior and performance. The current study has been focused on in depth knowledge of public perception about Punjab police with regards to its behavior and performance after it had gone through the technological innovations like ICT and special initiative police stations. The research found that the public perception about policing in Punjab is very bad amongst majority of the people due to a huge distrust in the institution. The department can improve the public perception by setting up a central and more proactive public relations cell to make two way communication with public. Likewise making departmental disciplinary actions against police officials public especially in cases of crimes related to THANA culture. At the same time ICT needs to be more user friendly particularly “language” as it is still a big barrier for general public to communicate technologically.