Residents of Gudele suburb of Juba town say that police are missing information about criminal activities because of lack of cooperation from citizens. Some residents said people feel less rather than more secure when police are deployed to the area and accused them of brutalizing innocent people.
Dominic Deng Garang, who resides in Gudele West, said on Saturday lack of cooperation between the police and the citizens in Juba has led to increased criminal activities, pointing to a recent incident in which a police officer was shot dead by a gang in an area, saying he could have been rescued if police and the residents were collaborative.
“Relations between our citizens and the police are very important. It plays a big role in managing and maintaining law and order,” he said. “If police and other security organs cooperate well with the citizens by demonstrating that they are working for their own good and protect them and their properties, the citizens will not have a reason to not cooperate with them and provide information whenever there is a security and criminal related activities taking place anywhere in the area.”
“But what is happening is completely the opposite. There is no cooperation because there is no trust and when there is no trust, there is no cooperation,” he emphasized.
Sabur Anthony Michael, a resident of Gudele East, said separately he personally witnessed an altercation between police and a group of four local men and three women. He commented that police officers should be wary of worsening relations with the residents, emphasizing that politicians are elected by the people and if people wanted to get to their leaders, police officers should not be too rigid with procedures.
“The police are a service, by the way. It’s not a force though by conduct it has not changed, but it must be so user-friendly instead of just harassing innocent citizens. Should always ensure that citizens and their properties are safe and secured but there is a feeling that people appear to be more insecure with their properties when police are deployed within a certain place. Because they come with disturbances,” he said.
Sabur added, “And we civil servants don’t condone such kind of brutality and I want to make this point very clear that they are a service, they are not a force and by service they should be friendly to the people who should be helpful to them in term of information they require from the citizens so that they do not have difficulties in gathering information.”
According to Nyanut Mayen, the conduct of police forces in the area risks making the government less popular. “The police may think they are protecting the politicians but at the end of the day, they are doing harm to the politicians because there has to be that flow of communication between the politicians and the citizens.”
File photo