When a family worries about walking home after dark, when a shopkeeper faces repeated theft, when women feel unsafe using public transport, or when residents see drugs or violence spreading through their neighborhood, they do not experience crime as a state-level statistic.
They experience it locally.
Yet policing in India remains largely administered through state-level structures. India has 28 states and 8 union territories, encompassing cities and communities with vastly different populations, economies, geographies, and public safety challenges.
A policing structure appropriate for a small rural district cannot automatically address the needs of a metropolitan region with millions of residents.
As India’s cities grow, we should therefore ask a fundamental question:
Should accountability for public safety remain distant from the citizens experiencing crime, or should communities have a stronger voice in how they are policed?
Crime Is Experienced Street by Street
Crime patterns vary enormously even within the same city.
One neighborhood may struggle with burglary. Another may face crimes against women. A commercial district may experience organized theft and fraud. Areas surrounding transportation hubs may require different policing from residential neighborhoods. Cybercrime creates an entirely different set of challenges.
Effective policing therefore requires more than statewide policies. It requires detailed local knowledge, appropriate deployment of resources, and leadership that can be held accountable for measurable local outcomes.
Citizens should be able to ask straightforward questions:
Are response times improving?
Are reported crimes being investigated?
Are women safer in public spaces?
Are repeat offenders being addressed?
Do citizens trust the police enough to report crimes?
Public safety should ultimately be measured by what happens in communities—not merely by aggregate statistics reported from above.
Give Cities Greater Responsibility
India should consider giving elected city governments and mayors a meaningful role in the governance and accountability of local policing.
This does not mean politicians should direct investigations, decide whom to arrest, or interfere with individual cases. Operational independence is essential to the rule of law and must be protected.
But operational independence and democratic accountability are not opposites.
A city government responsible for transportation, streets, lighting, public spaces and other essential services has a direct stake in public safety. Yet if its elected leadership has little influence over policing priorities or police leadership, citizens face a fragmented system of accountability.
When something goes wrong, everyone can point somewhere else.
Authority and accountability should travel together.
City governments could participate in setting broad public-safety priorities, reviewing performance and selecting or reviewing senior police leadership through transparent institutional processes.
The police would retain professional independence over investigations and enforcement.
Measure What Matters
Local accountability becomes meaningful only when citizens can see the results.
Police departments should publish clear and consistent performance measures at the city—and where practical, neighborhood—level.
That should include measures such as response times, reported and resolved crimes, case-processing times, crimes against women and children, traffic enforcement, citizen complaints, and public satisfaction.
The objective should not be to create numerical targets that encourage police departments to suppress crime reporting. In fact, a system that discourages citizens from reporting crime can appear statistically successful even as it makes communities less safe.
Performance measures must therefore be designed carefully, independently audited where appropriate, and made publicly accessible.
Transparency changes the relationship between citizens and institutions. Instead of debating whether policing is “good” or “bad,” communities can ask what is working, what is failing, and what needs to change.
Local Policing Still Needs National Standards
Greater local accountability should not mean abandoning common standards.
India still needs strong national and state frameworks governing police training, recruitment, professional conduct, use of technology, forensic capabilities, citizens’ rights and the independence of criminal investigations.
Certain crimes also cross city and state boundaries and require coordination among state and national agencies.
The objective should therefore not be decentralization for its own sake.
It should be to determine which decisions are best made nationally, which belong with states, and which should be made closer to citizens.
Professional standards can be common while accountability for everyday policing becomes substantially more local.
Public Safety Is Part of Economic Development
Policing is sometimes treated purely as a law-and-order issue. It is much more than that.
Safe communities attract businesses and investment. Women participate more freely in education and employment. Shops remain open later. Public transportation becomes more useful. Tourism grows. Families use parks and public spaces without fear.
Safety creates economic opportunity.
Conversely, when citizens do not trust the justice system to protect them or their property, the consequences spread far beyond crime itself.
A modern economy requires people to trust that contracts will be enforced, property will be protected, and public spaces will remain safe.
Good policing is therefore part of the infrastructure of prosperity.
Accountability Must Be Close Enough to See
India’s cities will continue to grow. Their policing challenges will become more sophisticated, not less.
Simply adding more police officers will not be enough. We need better training, technology, forensic capabilities, adequate funding, and stronger institutions.
But we also need something more fundamental: clear accountability.
Citizens should know who is responsible for public safety in their community. Elected local leaders should have enough authority to be held accountable for outcomes. Police leadership should operate professionally and independently while reporting transparently on performance.
The principle is simple:
Decisions should be made as close to citizens as practical, while professional independence and the rule of law remain protected.
Because ultimately, a citizen does not experience public safety at the national or state level.
They experience it on the street outside their home.
Crime is local. Accountability should be local, too.
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