Wesley G (2008) Why reforms fail, policing and society

According to this publication the author/s shows that reforms are necessary for any organization and this particular case police. The author also shows that police and the public are inseparable entities and therefore co existence in this case is a must. The author examines the sources of resistance to reforms in police and the factors are both external and internal, among these factors leadership problems within the organization, politicians and other potential opponents on the other side.

To the author policing reform is risky and hard. In this publication the writer refers to Chicago Police and it seems the research was mostly made there. The police arrangement known here is top managers, sergeants, street officers, elite units like detectives and union leaders which is not much different with our arrangement here. It seems the author has vast experience and his facts are based on wide opinions and information from police, community members throughout the world but on community-oriented and problem solving projects plus narcotic studies.

Most innovations in policing come from outside the organization, thus academic consultants who summarize some public outrage over police affairs. This always comes with support from politicians and in the long run some change comes through this trend. According to the author for us in the system we are just bickering internally and every one protecting his job.

At the top of the police organization, executives are on keeping their jobs and try to ensure that the lower ranks perform. Even the top managers may not know what happens at the lower level say at a guard point which means no feedback from our customers hence explaining why reforms fail. we fail to thoroughly understand what can work for us; say the concept of community involvement in policing as some way of modern policing.

According to the author, internal coordination within the organization is important but with a public leaning, civilians can be of paramount importance to our work. We can learn something from each other given the fact that we are both human beings, we co-exist and can learn from one another and the challenges faced today can be well understood by coordination and hence accept reforms aimed at improving the system.

The authors desire is a modern force flexible to any positive changes aimed at improving the system. Police managers are typically command driven and their measure of success is success in operations like the number of gangs arrested, guns recovered and everything is book and papers. Hierarchy remains a key factor and modern tactics of employee empowerment remain major obstacle.

A modern system depends on the managerial outlook and its top managers who must accept reforms and move them down to their subordinates with ease for implementation. The author sites an example where a new chief was brought in one of the large city to initiate community policing he found that he was unable to get uniformed patrol division of the department to do anything about it from the top down. Actually continuity in terms of standard operating procedures is unable, we tend to use different parameters and every manager has his own managerial style and way of doing things. Units must be supported by managers and you find that you must take a leading role, volunteers like crime preventers must be supported and it can act as a change strategy in our operations. This one does not in any way affect the existing units actually even here in Uganda we tend to be comfortable in our units and any other sister agency or support staff are seen as obstacles in our comfort zones. Officers in these units we call them civilians because they work well and along the community; liaison officers are seen as salary earners only and nothing to learn from them, for crime preventers those are just typical civilians and yet these vigilantes have done a tremendous job in some parts of the country.

Different styles of policing are a major challenge to reforms and in a long run this affects policies and strategies of the organization and this ends up being costly. However the quality of our officers and performance still heavily depends on the managers though at times its individual discretion and judgment, the best way would be to explain new policies and strategies to our men and encourage uniformity.

To crown it all the writer views community policing as a major reform aimed at making policing a simple job and enjoyable, in his article he summarizes what happens at all levels for example the rank and file officers they prefer to adequately to follow command and what they are assigned to i.e. crime fighting and emergency work. Community policing means extra tasks and tiresome assignments, for the detectives the writer says that they have an avoidance strategy of promising to get involved in community policing soon and making arrests and seizing guns remains core. The author also looks at external blocks like failure of intergency cooperation and public unresponsiveness as some of the major impediments.

QN.2

Chicago police, Texas and the rest of the world are not different from Uganda police force, we may have some disparities in technological advancement, development and set up of systems but the bottom line remains crime and how to manage and prevent it. The ranking system may also differ maybe due to naming but the fact remains hierarchy and schedule of duties which apply to all forces in the world. Personally I joined Uganda police force in 2007 and all along I have been working under the directorate of operations as a middle level manager and to the best of my knowledge our core value is to keep law and order. Article 212 of the constitution of the republic of Uganda stipulates our core function as Uganda Police Force and we work along that line. The departments in Uganda Police Force are many but we work in the same line scoring in the same goal and our functions are similar, its just a matter of specialization and professionalizing the force that create different departments and units.

According to the paper Uganda Police mainly measures its success on curbing down crimes using provided statistics which is usually annual. And reduction means exerted efforts, increment means our troops have relaxed and therefore criminals taken advantage. We have been in major reforms like creation of units as earlier mentioned all aimed at strengthening the force through professional conduct, and training as one way of equipping our forces which is a major focus these days.

This gives capacity to our troops in terms of discipline, confidence and individual discretion, all this is aimed at improving the institution to greater heights and we are moving day by day. Strategic leadership of Uganda Police is at its peak but the challenge is failure to implement major reform and policies by the managers and even the lower cadres. Last year in the month of October we celebrated 100 years of police existence and the major promise to community we serve was that we are shifting from colonial policing to modern policing embraced by community policing. This concept called community policing must be understood properly by Uganda Police Force because this is the way to go. Separating the community from police is a risky venture, as earlier mentioned we live in the same society and therefore we must co-exist ,supplement one another and hence peace, stability and development in the long run.We live in the modern era of sophisticated crimes like terrorism, robberies etc and community participation in this is a key because crimes at most are committed in our absence and we respond after, therefore we must be able to get useful information from the members of the community cordoning the scenes apprehending the criminals and many others are all fruits of community policing.Experts in terrorism say the best weapons to terrorism are our eyes. This must be well understood and it will yield wonders. Crime prevention tactics like recruitment of crime preventers per village, neighborhood watch all is community policing but however this land mark innovation faces challenges as earlier mentioned, policing is the same worldwide, the mode and magnitude differs.

Community policing must be well understood right from top managers of Uganda police to lower cadres because this is the only way to go. We as police, community participation at all levels must be at the peak and work will be simplified. We must be able to identify societys problems together with the public and look for practical solutions to manage them. Our actions must be transparent and well understood by every one for ease of participation. Accountability is the modern management tool for transparency, top managers are mindful of the discipline of the force and reduction of crime rate; The reports we write and other communications we make its what our top manager use as a measure for testing the ground and at times we tend to alter facts by defending ourselves and our offices, of course strict management to the grass root is an expensive venture and it needs too much resources which may be hard for us being in mind our economy. Like any other policing system having a measure of success in this mighty community policing is a major problem, as unit commanders the only successful measure we have always used is public response through the feedback we get. We can easily know the number of guns recovered, suspects apprehended and taken to courts through our records but community policing stands a challenge, even individual performance of our troops in this field stands a challenge but on a positive note, community policing is now one of the major course units in our training and we shall get through. As human of course that tendency of the fear of unknown also is in our forces but the crucial point of community policing must be understood and the core values of this process should be upheld. Most of our fears are not realities but people in forces always want to have comfort and shield in there waiting to get their monthly pay and thats all, confidence in everyone is must uniformity in the way we do our things following our laws will always remain core.

The perception that community policing is always for liaison officers and some uniformed people is wrong, for specialized units they tend to stay to their schedules and as per the author the same applies to those forces everywhere, this must change, every member of the force should exercise community policing at his level. Policing is a service with conviction and therefore anybody in the organization must understand this, have passion for service, listen to the community needs and expectations and striving towards achieving that. A police officer must not work against the community he serves, yes its the community where wrong elements are found but we must work towards reforming them, we must know why we have correctional services, crime must be committed but we need to fight it, draw lessons from such occurrences and deter re-occurrence. All this is possible through community participation, we exist because we have a public to serve and in it there some crimes committed due to certain factors and as an elite force we should be able to be a step ahead, get information from the public, utilize it to suit their policing demands and we must be committed to achieve this. Unit commanders must be able to know these dynamics in society, balance between our community and the forces and at the core of it all reactive policing must be exercised along with pro active policing.

Internal factors of why reforms fail take a big portion than the external factors we must accept change. Its unfortunate that some of our forces are rigid and have stuck to old policing tactics against a modern policing aiming at cooperating with the public through community policing and its core values. Over detention of suspects, the bucket system, police bond questions all still remain a big challenge. We had established a system of investigating minor offences before we carry on arrests to avoid overcrowding in our cells, this has failed to work because our juniors benefit out of this through extortion. Police bond is another money minting exercise for our juniors and elite forces like the detectives and they fear to go for community policing because of of public feedback on bond. Despite the measures in place, some of these issues remain challenges to reforms in Uganda police. The spirit of continuity is another challenge for us office bearers, a newly transferred officer in the unit comes with his fresh ideas opposing the old system this causes breakage and puts our juniors in dilemma and our community policing approach seems different and yet this must not be the case.Politicians are an important section of players in the field of good governance, policy action and legislation at times is done according to their needs and preferences that suit these people while in offices. As one of the core functions the constitutions mandates us to cooperate with civilians in maintaining law and order, through community policing we have tried to vise means that suit our policing demands like crime preventers, but its quite unfortunate that politicians term them election vigilantes which is a misconception, as police ours is crime prevention. In any case if these were election vigilantes still we have seen a lot of up rise coming from elections which end up claiming lives, loss of property and as police we must have our independence and do our mandate without fear or favor, any form of violence we all have what to lose and therefore coordination in matters of safety is key and we must cooperate. Well crime preventers sustainability is a challenge which must be understood, control of that big force with expectation is a challenge too and unit commanders must try towards promoting the spirit of voluntarism and people will support our efforts.The public order management act before it was passed it faced too much resistance in the current parliament especially by the members of the opposition, even a pupil in primary two can tell the price of public disorder like in Kampala, the tear gassing, property damage and looting and even loss of lives like in the so called Kabaka riots of 2009. We must regulate some of these processions as a matter of fact, the damage out of these riots in Kampala is just tremendous some people have got permanent injuries and by way of legislation our politicians must make laws aimed at improving policing standards and at the same time laws that are understood and easy to enforce for the good of our people. Policing in Uganda is a key in security matters and we must make the environment conducive for everyone, allow free trade that is free from insecurity and hence development. We shall always work towards achieving development.The three arms of governments must be able to notice the importance of humanity and exercise their powers in the interest of society needs and expectations, the Rotarians call it service above self, this is what we exercise in forces for example by working on a 24 hour basis is an example of service above self. We must guard our people. The laws we make should really be implementable, condemn the greedy individuals who work towards satisfying self ego. We must bear in mind that the current sophisticated public where crime changes trend every day the three arms of government must coordinate. Inter agency cooperation is key in this as we build capacity in areas like proper investigations, responding to emergency calls, surveillance, and we need support from all the stake holders.

QN.3

The paper is so interesting and I have noticed with concern that policing is policing despite the location where you are. we must be able to corporate with the community uphold our policing standards and by the way the public will appreciate our efforts.With great concern, managers must be at the front of any reforms in the organization, the burden of making sure anybody understands the new innovations is on the managers and it must be done well with love and passion so that everybody owns the system.

Community policing is an important element in modern policing by equipping the public with crime prevention tactics in homes your reducing on the 999 calls and hence cost reducing in the long run, priorities like well fare are catered for.

Hierarchy in an organization is a must because policy action must be guided well and at the same time modern administration tactics must be used like employee empowerment. We must coordinate because everyone in an organization is important including the support staff. As earlier mentioned we maybe in different departments but our vision and mission are same and we should all work in achieving that. As a commander I exist because there troops to command and we are inter- linked.

In terms of performance appraisal of individual staff, key reforms like community policing should be given priority. We should be able to know the performance of our troops measure it and reward the performers, despite the schedules everybody will understand how important the reforms will be and it will not fail.

By reading this paper it gives me an insight that we must always read and it is through such reading that we can get vast knowledge of what is around us and what policing is worldwide and also exposes our insight to other challenges in other countries and what steps they have implored to meet them.We have detractors in the force who are always negative and against reforms we must keep encouraging them through training and other recreation services so that they can be able to learn what worked where and how we can imply it here. The force we serve must have some kind of preservation for the next generations and service should be aimed at serving our people and never give detractors chance to fail our system.

Lastly, standard operating procedures should be the emphasis in our training. Am wondering why we should do the same job differently this confuses the public we serve and therefore major reforms like community policing should be carried out the same way using the same syllabus and school of thought