The Police Administration has, in recent times, come up with various innovations to not only maintain law and order but also fight crime.
From the tent city project, rush-hour patrols, snap checks and visibility and accessibility patrols, the leadership of the Ghana Police Service has demonstrated that it is up to the task.
The rapidity with which the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) has also responded to some serious criminal cases, especially murder, testifies to the new face of the police.
Without doubt, if there is any one public institution that has received public commendation and rating in recent times, it is the Ghana Police Service.
But we know that applause does not fight crime, nor does it maintain law and order. Public appreciation and commendation only boosts the morale of the personnel.
Fighting crime is a shared responsibility, and so is maintaining law and order.
That is why we share in the admonition by the Vice-President, Mr Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur, for the public to assist the police to maintain peace and order in the country.
As he stated, although the police service is the lead institution charged with maintaining law and order in the country, “the fact remains that this responsibility does not rest with the police alone. Citizens are equally enjoined to assist the police to achieve the goal”.
The miscreants in our society live among us. We cannot complain about criminal activities when we fail to expose the very criminals with whom we live and dine.
The era when policemen exposed informants may not be gone yet, but we believe that the disciplinary action being instituted to deal with miscreants in the police service has gone a long way to restore public confidence in the institution.
The Daily Graphic, therefore, urges the public to continue to partner the police to fight crime and maintain law and order in society. We cannot have a perfect society, but we believe that if we continue to assist not only the police but also the other security agencies, the level of indiscipline in our society will be reduced.
While courting public support for the police, we urge the police administration to review some of its initiatives, so that society can obtain maximum benefit from them.
The visibility concept has gone a long way to instil some confidence in members of the public, as they are aware that a few distance away they will encounter a visibility team.
But we wish to draw the attention of the leadership of the police administration to the creeping incidents of motorbike riders attacking and snatching the bags of pedestrians and speeding off. At times these riders trail vehicles to areas where there is so much traffic for them to stretch their hands into the moving vehicles to snatch either phones or bags from passengers.
It might be difficult for any pedestrian or policeman to immediately react or deal with such a problem. However, we believe that if an operational team is attached to the visibility teams to address some of these emergencies, it will go a long way to deal with the menace of motorbike riders snatching bags from pedestrians.
