Bribery and Police Department of Pakistan

Bribery and Police Department of Pakistan

One of the primary problems that most countries face these days is corruption. Roughly defined, corruption is the "use of the power of office or authority for the personal gain at the breach of laws and regulations nominally in force" (qtd. in Theobald 2). The phenomena affect's mainly a countries administration, economy, and politics, it erodes the trust of people, impedes investment, increases favoritism for the privileged and undermines the dignity of the common people. Bribery, payoffs, and extortions are the common forms of corruption in many institutions and are deeply rooted in almost all of the public institutions of any country from lower level employees to upper-level government officials. According to a report by the Transparency International, Pakistan in terms morality and accountability stands at the 117th position with an index of 30 (Index 0 mean highly corrupt and 100 means very clean) (Transparency International).

Moreover, Transparency International reports that in 2011, the Pakistani police was the second most corrupt department of the state (qtd in Dawn) whereas The Nation has quoted it to be the first. Police forces in Pakistan are often criticized for corruption, inefficiency and politicization. Dr. Shahid Qureshi, a highly renowned journalist, and political analyst talks about how the venality shown by the police is a greater threat to Pakistan Army than Taliban (The London Posts). The purpose of the army is to protect the country from external attack and assist the police in curbing crimes. On the other hand, it is the responsibility of the police to maintain law and order in the country, but unfortunately, Pakistan is one of the countries in the world where the armed forces are involved against terrorist, mafias and drug dealers. In the police department, there are two kinds of corruption. One is the "misuse of authority" and the second is "personal attainment." Bribery is defined as giving, receiving or soliciting something for the personal gain to influence the decisions and actions of someone to deviate from his/her duties and falls under the category of ‘misuse of authority'. Bribery is one of the factors which has adversely affected the image of the Pakistani police. According to a survey conducted by the transparency international at least 65% of the Pakistani police officials accept bribes (qtd in Dawn News). Although people think that policemen are morally corrupt but contrary to this belief, giving and taking bribery is more to do with legal opportunities for corruption, inhuman duty hours, and lack of medical and educational facilities.

One of the primary factors that leads the policemen to accept bribe is the structure of the police, political intervention and lack of positive incentives. The police system of Pakistan is inherited from the police reforms promulgated in the subcontinent during the late 19th century by the British. The police force in 1861 was a department chiefly for the collection of taxes. After the partition of the subcontinent, the 1861 police reforms was promulgated in Pakistan with few minor changes. Moreover, the span of control of the Pakistani police is very large. In the developed countries the ratio ranges around 1:3 to 1:4 whereas in Pakistan this ratio amounts to 1:7. Almost 85% of the employees of the police department are constables or head constables (Saddle 34). Due to this large span, the control over the employee becomes weak and the accountability to the upper-rank officer becomes vague. So this gives the police employees a chance to take bribes without any fear.

Additionally, political intervention has great influence over the police department of Pakistan. The politicized posting, promotion, and the recruitment are the major problem of the police department. The recruitment of Assistant Sub Inspector and Sub Inspector is done through public service commission but is also not free of malpractice of bribe. These politically recruited employees do not take anything seriously either training or rule. They do whatever they think whether it is legal or illegal. In addition to that, all the police reforms that were introduced from 1947-2002 became a victim of politics and they were never put into practice. The main aim of the Police Order 2002 was to depoliticize the police department and to improve the accountability structure of its employees. Under article 55 and 56 of the Police Order 2002, any policeman who fails to abide by any law or indulge in any misconduct will commit a crime and will be punishable by imprisonment and fine (Suddle 23). But, unfortunately in 2004, before the Police Order 2002 was put into practice, amendments were made to it. These amendments diluted the autonomy of police and again politicized it again. Those amendments include the change in the procedure of the selection of the provincial police officers and the authority of evaluation of any District police officer was given to Zila Nazim (Suddle 23). So, after almost 68 years after partition, the structure of the police department is not yet established due to political interventions. When a person knows that he will not get job or promotion on merit then he will adopt illegal ways of getting job or promotion. He will either intercede or bribe high officers.