‘Broken windows 2.0’ helps reduce crime

THE traditional doctrine of policing has been centred around the police station and its work aimed at preventing crime. This was operationalised through a system of beat and patrolling, maintenance of crime records, investigation of crime and, finally, incarceration upon conviction to keep threats to society off the streets.

During the 1990s, New York had become increasingly unsafe; the city was grappling with extremely high crime rate and traditional crime prevention methods were not working. Enter William Bratton, the visionary Commissioner of the New York Police Department (NYPD). He gave a crime-prevention theory called ‘broken windows’, to address crime at its initial stage when windows get broken by small-time criminals, to preclude serious crimes of the future such as homicides and sexual assaults.

To put this into practice, the NYPD came up with ‘COMPSTAT’, an acronym for computers and statistics, to study data to narrow down on patterns and plug loopholes. It came up with charts of the future, aimed at predicting crimes and working to reach a tipping point, after which the crime would drop.

After taking over as the police chief of the hill state, I outlined three top objectives — to address crime against women and children, address drug abuse and its trafficking and to reduce road accidents and consequential fatalities and injuries.

After a couple of months, I realised that our traditional crime-reporting methods and year-on-year analysis were not working and did not provide resolution to my top objectives. The first thing we did was to turn to corporate-world style, daily and week-on-week analysis of the crime. We compared the crime of the current week with the past one and the weekly average of the past five years. We also went for temporal and spatial mapping of the crime to detect trends and patterns.

Every Monday, we analysed the overall crime during the week, cases decided by the courts and disaggregated crime under various heads and districts. We did not limit our ‘broken windows’ to prevention of crime, but extended it to ‘robust trial management’ to ensure speedy trials and secure convictions. We monitored the deposition by police officials and private witnesses in POCSO cases and crime against women, especially rape. We also kept track of the cases’ pendency and their progress in the courts.

Our new registers in the police stations such as register for sexual offenders started bearing results. In two years since its introduction, we identified over 4,100 sexual offenders in the state and 55 repeat offenders, one of whom had committed 25 offences. Similarly, the register kept for suicide cases gave us critical information that 72 per cent victims under Section 306 of the IPC (abetment to suicide) were women, while for Section 174 of the CrPC (suicide on own volition) this was exactly the opposite.

With inputs that we got from the register of missing women and children, we traced them with huge success; our recovery percentage being 95 for children and 85 for women. These interventions helped us prevent inchoate crimes and ensured control on violence against women and children. We suggested a “whole-of-government approach” for their safety.

To address drug trafficking, the register kept for operators provided us with profiles of over 2,000 traffickers, out of which 396 were repeat offenders, including some foreigners. We have now kept them under surveillance and are moving to freeze and seize their property. Two years ago, 6,500 drug cases were pending trials in the courts and over 7,000 awaiting trials, with the key reason being police officers and private witnesses not deposing, resulting in trials being adjourned and cases not being decided. We started mapping trials, ensured deposition by police officials and private witnesses. As a result, over 8,000 police officials and over 2,000 private witnesses have deposed since then. This has speeded up trials; cases are getting decided, with most of them ending in convictions.

As some drugs are costlier than gold, temptation for larceny and pilferage of seized drugs in police stations remains a challenge, as there is a possibility of their finding a place back into the market. To address this, we ensured weekly destruction of drug case properties. Having mapped the pendency of trials, we have suggested to the government to establish fast-track courts to reduce pendency, especially for sexual assault, POCSO and drug cases.

Being a hill state, road accidents are a challenge. To comprehend the problem, we do spatial and temporal mapping. Important revelations were that 22 per cent fatalities occurred on account of ‘rolling down’ of vehicles in hills due to absence of crash barriers, 19 per cent fatalities were on account of pedestrian hits due to lack of pedestrian infrastructure and 25 per cent accidents happened between 6 pm and 9 pm. With only less than

2 per cent roads in Himachal having crash barriers, we have requested the PWD to install these barriers in 50 most vulnerable locations and make them essential for all future roads.

To address pedestrian fatalities, which were largely in plains of the state, we have suggested the PWD to incorporate it in their road designs, which, as of date, is absent. As regards enforcement action, we are ensuring traffic police deployment for the most vulnerable 6 pm to 9 pm time slot and extending the intelligent traffic management system, which, on date, is limited to 15 towns, to all tourist hubs and temple towns. The World Bank has recognised our work, with Shimla and Nurpur districts being acknowledged as prone to roll-down and pedestrian-hit accidents, respectively. The World Bank is now working to improve road engineering, road safety infrastructure and enforcement capabilities of the police in these two districts. Out of the total project outlay of Rs 120 crore approved by the World Bank, Rs 40 crore has been earmarked for the police to improve road safety through the establishment of state traffic control room, AI-based cameras, speed-violation detection radars, interceptors, patrolling vehicles and ambulances.

In conclusion, the 2.0 version of ‘broken windows’ has helped us stay ahead of the crime curve, reduce overall crime, violent crime, crime against women and children, and road accidents.

While the NYPD model was limited to crime prevention, we have taken it forward to the overall criminal justice system. Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has said, “The government’s first duty and highest obligation is public safety.” Mindful that reducing crime and improving public safety is the primary objective of any government, we are trying to meet these expectations with ‘broken windows 2.0’.