About Us SAANJH Programme

COMMUNITY POLICING A Philosophy

Community Policing in Punjab has been adopted as a philosophy and not as a programme and draws inspiration from the insight of the visionary Robert Peel that the Police are the public and the public is the police. In this philosophy, police and community collaborate to firstly, identify needs and problems of the community and then, jointly work towards finding solutions to the community problems while meeting aspirations of the community. It is a philosophy which expands the scope of policing from unidimensional crime fighting to a more elaborate, multidimensional role of consultative, deliberative, decentralized decision making and problem solving, involving the community. Prof. David Bayley, renowned policing expert makes a valid point about Community Policing when he says that the problem with policing in most countries is that it is centralized at Headquarters and foils to accommodate diversity of conditions in different localities requiring different approaches. In his view, which is echoed in the Saanjh approach, Community Policing, when genuinely implemented, transfers powers over strategies from people in Headquarters to people in operational positions such as SHO's who are able to determine the character of policing in a particular area with the involvement of the local community.

In order to respond to the expectations of an enlightened public in the 2lst century, a need was felt in the State of Punjab, for an attitudinal transformation to bring about a service orientation in the police force. Community Policing experiments by individual officers were attempted in Punjab in the past, but the concept of Community Policing in the state, was reinvented and provided an institutional framework in the year 2011. 'SAANJH' a collaborative effort of Police and Community takes the philosophy down to the grassroots through sub divisional SAANJH KENDRAS and POLICE STATION SAANJH KENDRAS.