Policing Ourselves
Jesse Walker | March 27, 2007, 3:10pm
An intriguing arbitration system built around neighborhood councils -- called
panchayats, after the country's
village governments -- is emerging in India's squatter districts, with the authorities' support. The
Chicago Tribune reports:
At the Kaylan Wadi Police Beat 3 in Dharavi, sari-draped local women with yellow police identification cards hanging from their necks operate what is effectively a police station in a one-room community organizing hall that also houses a micro-credit bank. Beneath a huge aerial photo of the slum, the women - backed by a few male colleagues and a single police officer - take complaints, haul in offenders and negotiate resolutions to domestic violence and harassment cases, minor thefts, property disputes and other petty crimes, usually within days.
In a little over two years, their corner of the massive slum has seen crime drop by an estimated 30 percent to 50 percent, [former police commisioner A.N.] Roy said. Violence against women, in particular, has been slashed and police, once stymied in efforts to investigate slum murders and rapes, now have plenty of knowledgeable deputies tracking down clues....
The panchayats, each made up of seven local women and three men, have no formal power to call in, sentence or discipline offenders. What they offer instead, said Arputham Jockin, president of the National Slum Dwellers Federation, is "instant justice" - an alternative to the uncertainties of pushing a case through the country's notoriously slow and overburdened court system.
The
Tribune says that there are now "230 panchayats scattered through the slums of Mumbai and nearby Pune, serving a population of between 3.5 million and 4 million slum dwellers." Meanwhile, "Panchayats based on the Mumbai model also have popped up in Sri Lanka and the Philippines, and officials from countries ranging from Thailand to South Africa have visited to take a look at the program, said Roy, who this month was appointed a director general of police."
I can't guarantee that the system really is as decentralized and responsive as it's described here. But it sounds terrific. And for what it's worth, the other reports I've found so far -- from
The Hindu, the
BBC, and
the police themselves -- are glowing.
Kwix | March 27, 2007, 6:09pm | #
miche | March 27, 2007, 4:11pm | #
Hindus don't stone women for adultery.
You are correct. I was taking the idea of community "courts" out of its existing locale and seeing how it would work elsewhere, say a fundamentalist Jewish community, or Muslim Pakistan where the punishment of stoning for a certain offense may not technically be legal but widely practiced and tolerated.
As for traditional Indian(Hindu) gender roles, in many rural areas, women are still considered "lesser" and are afforded fewer rights than men. Perhaps not as great a disparity as a fundamentalist Islamic community, but the disparity is there and hence the chance that the community court will mete it's justice unequally.
JimmyDaGeek | March 27, 2007, 4:17pm | #
Let's see, cops commit blatant crimes (and several other examples), but can walk a way. A woman with serious medical problems is prosecuted for growing a little "medicinal" pot.
Is this equal application of the law?
How is our judicial system any better than theirs?
Of the former, it is obviously not equal application of the law. It is one group taking advantage of the special exemption given it by the government. This is obviously wrong, but it is not impromptu rule-making either.
In the latter, it is either the federal/state government upholding it's laws (no conflict, upholding laws regardless of how egregious the law may be) or the state agents breaking the state's laws (great conflict but no imbalance as they are busting all pot growers equally).
Now, a better example would have been a powerful and influential person having his case swept under the rug while a powerless individual goes to jail for committing the same offense.
Who said ours was better? Not I. I really like the idea of having (a largish group of) citizens handle the day to day BS (noise levels, petty theft, attractive nuisances, etc.) acting as arbitrators and leaving the police to real crime. My only real concern is the lack of oversight a "community court" may have in applying the laws equally. The fewer the laws and more clearly defined the laws and the power invested in the community court are the more likely for this process and it's application to remain transparent and equitable.
