In a first of its kind of initiative in the country, the Jharkhand police has decided to convert all police stations in the State to 'Child Friendly Police Station' and sensitize police officials about "social policing", considered necessary to bridge the gap between society and police. The programme has been launched with support from the UNICEF and will cover 502 police stations across the State.
The initiative has been taken in the wake of the Supreme Court judgement in a writ petition file by Bachpan Bachao Andolan, and the provisions of Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 enacted to provide relief to children in distress. Pursuant to judgement the State police apart from making police stations child friendly asked all station in-charge to ensure that the police station fulfills as many as 21 criteria within a span of one year.
"Some work has been done in the direction of social policing however we need to sensitize our police about missing children. We need to make efforts in the direction of recovering missing children," said DGP Rajeev Kumar adding "police stations which will fulfill these criteria will be given a certificate at the end of the first year."
Police stations who will sustain their performance for beyond one year will be given award by the DGP. The DGP also stressed on the need for sensitizing the police force on sensitive issues like these which affect the lives of children and their parents alike. Notably, Special Juvenile Police Unit (SJPU) has been set up in district police stations across the State in consonance with a letter from the department of Home issued in 2012.
Significantly, a set of 21 indicators, based on the JJ Act and SC orders, have been developed as self-assessment tool where the Officer-in-Charge of concerned police stations will assess progress against these indicators and report to the Superintendent of Police who heads the SJPU in the district. The police department will review the performance after a gap of one year to ascertain achievements made in the direction of a Child Friendly Police Station.
"This (self-assessment) will be a continuous process with a provision for monthly and yearly feedback, assessment and review," said IG-Organised Crime, Sampat Meena. The step brings hope for thousands of children vulnerable to trafficking and child abuse of varied nature. The landmark step is likely to address bottlenecks in registering a complaint related to a missing child by sensitizing police about the various provisions in the JJ Act and the SC judgement on missing children.
The new initiative is likely to help police improve their image by inculcating a sense of responsibility about the society. "Since the State was created we have been focusing on traditional policing and naxal issues. We failed to give attention to social policing. This is an opportune moment to pay attention to this finer aspect of policing," maintained Meena.
Job Zachariah, Chief, UNICEF Jharkhand said, "How the society protects the rights of children and how the police treats children are indicators of a developed country. Jharkhand has already met some of the child friendly indicators like appointment of child welfare officers in all police stations. Other indicators are easy to achieve and all police stations in the state could become child friendly thanas in the next two years."