Police’s community policing department says it will adopt the Local Council (LC) system to fight crime across different parts of the country.
The head of the department, Anatoli Muleterwa,who is currently on upcountry tour is engaging local leaders on their cardinal roles in a bid to strengthen working relationship, build a strong partnership between the public and the police through the local council system.
Muleterwa met with all local council leaders in the districts of Soroti, Serere, Kumi and Ngora.
He noted that they have realised that the local council leaders have a lot of power which the force would like to tap into.
“For example, they are mandated by the Local Council Act to solve incidents of social disharmony, issues related to misunderstanding between members of the community, communication and coordination among them and ensuring that there’s improved relationships. Coming on the ground is one way of empowering the LCs to recognise that they have the power to cause this social harmony,” Muleterwa said.
According to Muleterwa, LC system should be empowered to handle cases such as misunderstandings,feud, common assault and debts among others.
“Once we let some of these cases to grow, they aggravate into criminal cases leading to assault,murder and malicious damage among others.In so doing, we shall be curtailing the level of complaints that come to police because the community would have realised where the power of LC lies,”he said.
“We need to strengthen our work relationship with the community and ensure that the police concentrates on the key role of crime prevention other than being problem solvers,”Muleterwa said.
During these meetings, the community policing team encouraged total respect for the LC system.
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