Law Enforcement: The Role Of The Supervisor

Once again, a group of policemen have been implicated in criminal activity, this time apparently engaging in a blatant street robbery in Pasig City. According to news reports, some of these cops were even on duty when they committed the crime.

Although the official attitude seems to be changing, incidents of crime and violence involving policemen are usually treated as individual acts of misbehavior, and are attributed to the idea that there are a few "bad apples" in every barrel. Terms like "scalawags" and "erring policemen" are used when referring to cops who have committed serious crimes such as kidnapping and extortion. The fact is, these events are commonplace and indicate a much deeper problem, as well as a complete refusal by the senior leadership to accept the situation for what it really is.

Consider the all too common newspaper reports about a group of cops who abduct a person, usually under the pretense of making an arrest. The poor guy is sometimes taken to a police station, and then carted off to a private residence, where he is either robbed or held for ransom. In other cases, he may actually be held right at the police station and forced to pay the officers so they won't file a particular charge against him.

Think about the way this actually works. A policeman, acting entirely on his own, makes an arrest, brings the subject into the station and locks him up, and then conducts business-style negotiations with the subject or his relatives, ending with the payment of "bail" and the release of the subject. All going on right inside the police station.

Procedures already exist to prevent this kind of activity, but they are not being followed. They are not followed, because they are not enforced. This happens because supervisors are not supervising.

Officially, arresting a person involves more than one cop, and requires a bit of paperwork. At the very least, there is always supposed to be a blotter entry and an incident report, and that means that the station commander or shift supervisor must be involved. In addition, no policeman has the legal authority to release an arrestee on his own. If a mistake has been made, or if release is warranted for some other legitimate reason, there is a legal procedure that must be followed, and the situation must always be fully documented. Formality and procedure exists as a form of check-and-balance, designed to prevent activities such as unlawful detention and extortion by lone-wolf policemen. But in the informal world of Philippine police work, individual cops are allowed to operate so independently that supervisors rarely bother to question their activities.

The bottom line here is pretty simple. The only policemen who have the freedom to engage in criminal or abusive activity are those who are not being properly supervised. If station commanders and shift supervisors would monitor their people’s activities, and require proper documentation of those activities, most criminal behavior by policemen would simply not be possible. Supervisors have the power to completely eliminate this problem.

This is not a situation where rogue policemen are out of control. It is a situation where unsupervised policemen are simply not being controlled. Contrary to the common view of policemen as lone wolf guardians of justice, a cop is a simple employee, whose day should be filled with assignments and tasks. Even on routine patrol, a policeman has duties that should keep him busy. A properly supervised patrolman will not have time to sit and read the newspaper, let alone time to engage in kidnapping or extortion. If cops are kept busy doing the job they are paid to do, and if supervisors stay on top of their people, crimes committed by lawmen will drop almost overnight, not to mention crimes committed by the bad guys the policemen are supposed to be guarding against. This requires active supervision by the leadership at all levels.

Supervision involves more than just being present in the office. It means correcting mistakes and violations, and reprimanding improper behavior. As a matter of fact, every time an on-duty policeman is found to have been involved in kidnapping or any other criminal activity, his supervisor must share in some degree of responsibility -- Simply because the crime could not have been committed if the supervisor had been doing his job.

An important note to keep in mind though -- the main reason policemen should be kept busy is not to control cop-crime. That's just a side benefit. The real reason is because there is so much work that needs to be done, and policemen are being paid a salary to do it. A full day of productive work is not too much to ask in exchange.