Bangla Press Desk: Bangladesh Police has intensified community outreach programmes across the country to prevent cybercrime, narcotics abuse and other social offences while promoting road safety and strengthening cooperation between law enforcement agencies and citizens.
"Crime prevention begins with strong partnerships between police and the communities they serve," Additional Inspector General of Police (Crime and Operations) Khondoker Rafiqul Islam told BSS.
"Police cannot fight crime alone; community participation is essential to lasting public safety," he added.
According to a recent progress report of the Home Ministry, community policing initiatives have expanded across the country, with thousands of awareness and motivational programmes organised to address emerging social challenges.
As part of the initiative, a total of 3,711 monthly courtyard meetings (uthan baithak) were held across 664 police stations, focusing on public awareness about cybercrime, drug abuse and other prevalent social offences.
Talking to BSS, Additional Inspector General of Police Gazi Jashim Uddin said community policing is aimed at bringing law enforcement closer to the people.
"Community policing is about listening to people, understanding their concerns and working together to solve problems," he said.
He said the initiative makes policing more responsive and accountable by creating opportunities for direct interaction between police and local communities.
Alongside crime prevention, the community policing wing has placed particular emphasis on road safety and traffic discipline.
The report said 1,544 awareness and motivational campaigns on traffic laws were conducted across the country to educate people about road safety and help reduce road accidents.
The progress report also showed that 100 percent of the targeted goals for forming community policing committees in 65 districts and eight metropolitan areas have been achieved.
The committees are now operational and are working to create safer communities through direct dialogue, public participation and coordinated problem-solving.
Officials said the involvement of local people in the courtyard meetings and traffic-awareness campaigns is helping community policing evolve into an important component of the country's internal security strategy.
The concept of community policing has deep roots both globally and in Bangladesh. The philosophy is often traced to Sir Robert Peel, who established the London Metropolitan Police in 1829. His policing principles emphasised cooperation between police and the public, with the underlying idea that "the police are the public and the public are the police."
The community policing model gained wider momentum internationally in the late 20th century, as law enforcement agencies increasingly sought to move from purely reactive, incident-based policing towards proactive crime prevention and problem-solving.
In Bangladesh, pilot community policing projects began in the early 1990s, while the approach was formally adopted as a nationwide police agenda in 2008 with support from initiatives including the UNDP Police Reform Programme.
One of the earliest and most successful pilot projects was launched in Mymensingh in 1992, which later served as a model for similar initiatives elsewhere in the country.
Over the years, Bangladesh Police, with support from various international development partners, formalised community policing committees to help bridge the trust gap between citizens and law enforcement officers, contributing to the nationwide structure reflected in the latest progress report.
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