Read on Twitter
We want to make a quick response to this. In this opinion piece the author suggests India needs a "a tenfold increase in police forces, judges and prisons" to address the problem of encounter killings. This we believe is not well grounded. (1/n) https://twitter.com/srajagopalan/status/1285440816589213696
She also suggests that extra judicial murders are a result of weak state capacity. On the contrary, we believe the state capacity in India is too strong and violence prone. After all, conviction rate is not the only parameter of strength. (2/n)
What she centres her argument on: investigations into serious crimes is a tiny part of police's functions. Majority of their work falls in the category of 'order' maintenance: going after quarrels, prohibition, other infractions and surveillance: often 'manufactured' work (3/n)
NCRB report will tell you offences involving simple hurt, prohibition, rash driving, small thefts carry the highest rates. The author even recognizes this when she says "the total number of crimes can increase if too many activities are criminalized." (4/n)
We argue the state capacity is immeasurable because of the surveillance powers, lack of transparency in how it carries out everyday policing including detaining persons, making arrests, forcing them to execute bonds, etc. particularly targeting certain communities. (5/n)
In the lockdown period in MP for instance serious offences punishable by more than 7 years contributed to barely 10% of the overall arrests. Most for minor lockdown violations, excise law violations and gambling. (6/n)
Hence more policing means more order maintenance not better investigation. More order maintenance means more violence against communities. If the police was interested in improving conviction rates, it need only reallocate resource. (7/n)
However, as even the author of the piece rightly points out what we have is a "culture of encounter killing", part of the larger culture of police violence which also includes torture, persecution of communities and has existed since the beginning of the police. (8/10)
It carries on with a casteist logic today. More police means more of that culture not less of it. (9/10)
Several studies from the US question the basis of more cops leading to less crime and safer communities arguments. More cops make certain communities (black and other communities of colour, Dalit, Adivasi, DNT and minorities) much less safe. (10/10) https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2019/02/13/marshall-project-more-cops-dont-mean-less-crime-experts-say/2818056002/
There are also enough critiques of both the deterrence theory and an economic model of crime and we've all but dumped these theories...
Even if for arguments sake we were to rely on deterrence as an argument, it is important to look at who/ section of the population is targeted through a strong law enforcement machinery in order to enforce deterrence and reduce crime.
