Use data to boost efficiency, cops told

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Policing has undergone tremendous modernization in recent times and yet the force has not emphasized on creating and managing knowledge in policing, said chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday.

Inaugurating a workshop on knowledge management strategies at police training college, Vijayan said that police have substantial public data at its disposal through FIRs, details of road accidents and video evidence. It is high time to think how all the information can be converted as a useful knowledge base for improving the organization and the society. "Some police information may have to be kept secret. However, it is not the case for most data. We must explore the possibility of public use," he said.

Though police are the biggest custodian of knowledge repository, it operates in a time-critical environment and the agency has shortcomings in using its resources fully for institutional strengthening, said parliamentary affairs and sports and youth affairs secretary B Ashok, who handled one of the session.

Ashok said that overburdening the force with multiple duties is one reasons for the slow uptake of information that can be converted to knowledge resource. "In many police forces across the world, the burden of prosecuting offenders is not a preserve or focus of the police force. It is given professional prosecuting agencies consulting police force. In India, we prefer the police to finalize decisions to prosecute or otherwise," he said.

He added that professional interest of police managers is often limited to logical forensic closure of incident. Ashok said that a survey of immediate future perspectives of knowledge management should cover forensic and judicial systems, offices of prosecutors, important social science research systems, bio-forensic systems, ballistic systems and appropriate research and development investments. This will eventually transform our police into a multi-specialist cadre force, he said.

ADGP (intelligence) TK Vinod Kumar, who spoke on the topic creating institutional strength through knowledge management, said that police should rely on knowledge-based data rather than depending on opinion-based data.

"Data is lying scattered and it should be collated and analysed to know which type of crime requires more manpower," he said. Citing the example of knowledge analysis centre at the Michigan University in USA, he said that the centre (which is a small unit physically), produces huge knowledge base through social data analysis.