The world is continuously evolving and experiencing tremendous levels of change at every level. The way everybody feels and acts in normal day-to-day functioning is also changing rapidly in today’s fast-paced environment of internet and social media wherein the quintessential element of technology has come to occupy the central stage of life’s affairs.

When everything else is changing around us, then, it automatically becomes quite significant to recognize the necessity and urgency of change which must happen in police organizations around the globe. As a police officer, what kind of change are we currently witnessing in our routine working and are we ready to cope up and excel in terms of the rising demands of changing expectations of policing in 21st century or not? This is a serious question which every police officer needs to ask themselves in order to achieve efficiency and dynamism in their working.

So, let us examine as to what are these changes. First of all, the sky-rocketing influence of technology has also catapulted the crime rate in societies across the world. Every crime being committed these days contains an element of cyber or digital angle to it and the majority of police officers find it extremely tough to track and solve the cyber crime cases which have the peculiar notoriety of extending beyond the man-made geographical boundaries. As the police officers in any country are legally bound to operate within the police jurisdictions, it becomes a Herculean task to trace the origin of a cyber crime and arrest the real culprits quickly as the issues of jurisdictions and permissions from the concerned authorities s needs to be sorted out first. Now, most of the cyber-savvy criminals are aware about this practical hindrance which police officers face and they tend to exploit it to their maximum advantage. Therefore, effective and efficient cyber policing is the need of the hour whereby the police organizations in various countries are able to properly coordinate their efforts in tackling the cyber crime by jointly sharing intelligence and actionable inputs across the jurisdictions without wasting any amount of time. It is, in fact, a good idea to actually recruit trained persons from the computer backgrounds as analysts for managing and assisting the police officers in dealing with digital and technology empowered crimes. The reason behind this is very simple- the police officers have always been conventionally trained in the domains of law, rules, processes and procedures.

The second big problem is that technology changes very fast. So, the computer soft-wares and equipments which we buy today in police become redundant within a span of few months. As a result, it constantly demands huge input of money and finances as well regular digital training of police officers to keep the cyber crime police cells functioning in an up-to-date manner. Now, this is actually a common story of most of the police organizations across the globe. With less government funds being allocated to policing and increasing resource cuts, the final tragedy is the real-time operational efficiency of police officers who are, then, eventually criticized by the society as lethargic and incompetent. Therefore, if today’s police personnel have to be made capable of successfully handling the crime in the age of technology, it is simply very important to provide more funds, training and resources for policing.

Thirdly, it is not only the finances but almost every police organization in the world today faces a critical shortage of police officers and the strength is dwindling.  Consequently, it gets practically impossible to have an overflowing or adequate strength of police personnel to attend to every situation of crime in a town or city. Therefore, if police has to become an effective crime-stopper and crime deterrent organization, it is essential to widen the engagement of police officers at the ground level with the local communities who can become the ears and eyes of the police. We need to create diversity in police organizations and recruit persons of all genders with better communication skills.

In this way, if the communities feel motivated to help police officers, we can easily augment our operational capabilities as the real time information will flow to us in leaps and bounds. It can be achieved through creating bonds of trust, mutual respect and confidence between the local police officers and the members of society. The recent case of people from society intervening and tackling a knife-wielding attacker in London, speaks volumes of the society’s participation as a force multiplier in policing.  In order to achieve and bolster the objective of police-public partnerships, the first requirement is to create fair, unbiased and transparent levels of communication channels between the police and the public. Here, the mass power of social media through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube etc., can be best harnessed by asking people to come forward and report the incidents of crime as well as persuading them to become witnesses of crimes and share effective leads or points of information with the police in resolving various crimes. This kind of strategy has now come to being used by most of the police organizations in USA, UK, Canada and Australia who have made digital policing a priority.

Fourthly, we cannot escape from the truth that people’s expectations have arisen astronomically from the police officers. In order to realistically meet those expectations, it is imperative to undertake pro-active policing for preventing the commission of crimes rather than waiting for the crimes to happen and relying upon conventional reactive policing. In this respect, the recent marathon exercise of ‘Bike Marking’ being undertaken by the Avon and Somerset police, United Kingdom can be applauded as a step in the right direction, exemplifying the true spirit of pro-active policing.  Similarly, the use of CCTV cameras, speed traffic cameras and other modes of digital monitoring have proved to act as a deterrent in the minds of the potential criminals.

Lastly, a significant majority of the police officers, across the entire spectrum of the globe, have been sadly discovered to be suffering from high levels of stress, work-related anxiety and even depression sometimes. If police organizations will not take care of their human resources, it will not be possible to sustain their levels of motivation in the long run. The police officers also need to be treated like human beings who have a heart of flesh and blood behind the strict uniform. The future police officers will be required to showcase exemplary levels of mental strength, physical agility and technological capability to handle stressful situations.  As such, it should become a matter of top priority for all the police organizations to successfully nurture and adequately take good care of its personnel by regularly conducting mental health awareness and well-being workshops for them as well as undertaking periodical mental health assessments for taking corrective or preventive steps.

The future of global policing will depend upon how we handle the present challenges. This is because the future is always linked to the present which, in turn, gets derived from the past. If we want to see the future police officers as the role models of effective and efficient policing, we need to sit right now and take visionary steps in the present times. Needless to say, the road ahead has many challenges and impediments. But it is the change in our approach and attitude in police working which will actually help us navigate the distance from the present to the future in a safe and steady manner.