Novel approach to tackling youth crime
29 August 2008
The sight of blue uniforms in schools, or anywhere for that matter, is not always welcome. It augurs bad news. Not so this time when the police chief decided to tackle youth issues head-on. “There is this bully in school who took stuff like my pens and watch but after the (police) chief’s visit, he has stopped taunting me,” said Tashi Kinley, a class VII student in Thimphu.
This was after the police chief had spoken to Tashi and his schoolmates on common habits of youth in conflict with law and associated legal provisions. Tashi says he now loves the chief and views the Royal Bhutan Police (RBP) in a new light.Today, RBP Chief Colonel Kipchu Namgyel and his troops are on their eighth school visit in Thimphu as part of a ‘Youth and Police in Partnership’ program that seeks to erase the negative perceptions that youth and police have had of each other in recent years. As of August 22, they had met with 6,019 students.
“This idea cropped up because of the increase in the rate of youth crime,” said Col. Kipchu Namgyel. “I decided to go ahead with proactive measures rather than going head first with detection because prevention is better than cure.”
The Colonel said the program, which was funded by the National Commission for Women and Children, would not be confined to Thimphu alone. If time and budget permitted, it would extend to the nearby districts by the end of this month and to all the 20 dzongkhags by December, this year.
According to him, the feedback so far has been overwhelming.
Parents, teachers and students had called him on his cell phone to thank him. He said that having such favourable response from the youth has made the RBP look forward to such activities.
Chogyal Jamtsho, a class VIII student from Lungtenzampa MSS, was one of the students who thanked the police chief by phone for his advice and for making an effort to create awareness. “The briefing and interaction were very positive and helpful,” said Chogyal. “Now I can say I am aware of the offences and other necessary information.”
This RBP’s new youth program allows better focus on issues such as preventing youth violence, community safety and providing information about legal provisions.
The Chief has also looked at the program’s components from hitherto unexplored angles such as psychological aspects, the level of intelligence, inhibitions and habits amongst other common factors when it came to common gang behaviour.
He cited examples of known ‘gangs’ such as Snake, Virus, Bacteria, M-boyz, Web, and Chinese and spoke about how gangs were formed, how an individual involved could be influenced and how they misbehaved. The Colonel said that the new initiative was not a one-time shot in the dark. He said he would, as a reminder, go to all the schools during their annual exams and spend about 10 minutes during morning prayers reminding the students of what was advised.
The RBP is also planning to involve the students during the winter break in outreach programmes. According to Col. Kipchu, bridging the gap between young people and police would create a niche for community policing.
While concerns are growing on the number of youth-related criminal cases – of the 201 cases recorded last month 163 involved youth – the RBP does not want to victimise the youth.
Not mincing words, Col. Kipchu said, “Enough has been said about youth crime. We should now focus on proactive measures.”
By Tashi Wangmo
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The two initiatives taken by 2 eminent citizens are very timely and highly appreciated. First is the Agriculture Lyonpo coming up with HEHE initiative and now the Police Chief with this new strategic and very pragmatic approach towards dealing with youth related crimes. The action initiated is very simple (as you can see) but the immediate and long term impact would be very effective and something we desired for quite a long time. It needs just a bit of creative thinking based on very strong commitment to serve the people and nation.
In all these years, I have seen our bureaucratic leaders taking some rash decisions and inititives but now I am tremendously impressed with these 2 initiatives taken by, I would say, some realists (instead of like most leaders who are idealists with much talk and very little action).
I would really say, that times are changing and good and effective people are coming to occupy some important government positions. Kudos to these 2 true sons of Palden Drukpa.