- Prelims: All India Conference of Directors General/Inspectors General of Police, cyber crime, the dark web, crypto, maritime security etc
- Mains GS Paper II and III: Government policies and interventions for development of various sectors and issues arising out of the them etc
- ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
- The annual All India Conference of Directors General/Inspectors General of Police was held recently.
INSIGHTS ON THE ISSUE
Context
DGPs/IGPs conference:
- It is a relatively new construct (1980), superseding the earlier annual conference of Heads of Intelligence and CIDs of different States.
Annual conference of Heads of Intelligence and CIDs deals with;
- Nitty-gritty of police work, , intelligence, crime and criminal investigation
- Technology and the forensic aspects,
Conference now:
- It additionally deals with a host of other issues including Policy and personnel matters.
Issues with proliferation of subjects up for discussion in recent conferences:
- Increasing numbers of delegates to cover the various subjects leave little scope for any in-depth discussion.
- Lack of adequate time to discuss these matters in detail tends to undermine both the quality of the debates and possible outcomes.
- As the 21st century advances, security problems will grow at an exponential rate.
- Their dimensions are yet unclear.
Futuristic themes in policing:
- cyber crime
- the dark web
- crypto
- maritime security
- the threat from drones
- problems stemming from unchecked social media
- left-wing extremism
- counter-terrorism
- drug trafficking and border issues.
What Law and Order demands?
- Combination of newer skills, in both technology and crowd management, which are not readily available among security agencies.
- Managing today’s angry, and often unruly, mobs requires a fresh set of skills and inherent abilities, apart from mere technology.
- Artificial intelligence can provide answers to a host of problems that exist.
- Understanding the psychology of agitating mobs and, in turn making them realize the dangers of their own predilections.
- Police and security agencies, must consequently, be provided with the right attributes, and for which they need to be adequately trained.
- The selection of personnel to security agencies, especially the police, also will require a total makeover.
- The police forces must mirror the kind of society we live in today, and must be capable of dealing with today’s modern antagonists.
- Use of common imagery to keep track of developing situations, including on social media and Twitter.
- ‘Open Source intelligence: The proper utilization of Open Source intelligence could well become the critical factor in managing many law and order situations today.
Way Forward
- Emerging challenges would require greater innovativeness and agility as well as a demonstration of newer cognitive skills to meet the challenges posed by swift technological change and the rise of data war fighting.
- A heavy-handed approach tends to create more problems than they solve.
- Any approach of this kind only leads to a catastrophic divide between law enforcement agencies and the public, at a time when newer practices and skills are the proper answer.
- Call for a top down approach: There would be considerable competition of resources from within the agencies for other items such as advances in weaponry and technology.
- It would be required even more, to secure acceptance of utilitarian aspects of any such move.
- More than the mere acquisition of new skills, police must develop a different mind set, including that force cannot be the answer to every situation.
- Technological advances worldwide have meant that the human skills of security agencies need to be suitably tailored to a world in which the Internet, social media and other breakthroughs, often provide protestors and agitators an upper hand, and often detrimental to law and order.
- There is a real need to take a hard look at improving:
- the nature of the security discourse — in regard to the range and varieties of threats
- how to bring about changes in regard to intelligence techniques, investigative methodologies, improving the ground situation, etc.
- Apex level meeting of DGPs/IGPs would provide the necessary direction and policy imperatives.
- Splitting the annual conference of DGPs/IGPs into two separate conferences:
- A higher level conference of DGPs/IGPs to discuss policy related issues
- Separate conference to be held of intelligence and security specialists (IGs/CID) to discuss the finer points of methodology, techniques and acquisition of new skills for current and future problems.
QUESTION FOR PRACTICE
Q. Naxalism is a social, economic and developmental issue manifesting as a violent internal security threat. In this context, discuss the emerging issues gest a multilayered strategy to tackle the menace of Naxalism.(UPSC 2022) (200 WORDS, 10 MARKS)
