The Effectiveness of Police Investigations of Reported Crimes in Bangladesh

The Effectiveness of Police Investigations of Reported Crimes in Bangladesh

  In Bangladesh, the Central Investigation Department (CID) is the specialized investigative agency for conducting the investigations of reported schedule offences for the police department. However, the vast majority of the investigations are conduct by the Sub-Inspectors working at the police stations. The investigating officers at the Thana (Police Station) level are seriously overburdened with other policing tasks. As a result, it is not possible for them to thoroughly investigate the assigned cases. Also, the lack of specially trained evidence technicians for crime scene processing affects the quality of investigation. The purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness of the police investigations of reported crimes in Bangladesh. Data for this study were primarily collected from two sources: ⅰ) semi-structured interview, and ⅱ) content analysis of police records. A semi-structured interview of 50 police officers working in the CID and police stations were conducted. The effectiveness of the investigations was measured by the conviction rates on the CID controlled cases. The findings suggest that the prosecutions of criminal cases in Bangladesh are heavily dependent on oral evidence instead of physical evidence. And the present investigative practices by the police departments do not significantly affect the overall conviction rates. We have identified that the biggest problem for the police at this moment is to secure and isolate crime scene and to record the scene in its original state. The most serious impediments to high quality investigative works appear to be the traditional method of case assignment, excessive caseload, lack of trained personnel and shortage of forensic scientists in the country. Respondents believe that the introduction of Computer Assisted Fingerprint Identification Systems (CAFIS) and DNA profiling, computerized information processing would enable speedy and accurate identification of criminal suspects, which in turn will substantially increase the present criminal apprehension rates. Since the collection of evidence from the crime scenes require expert abilities therefore, trained technicians should be assigned to each police station, and would keep their caseload to a manageable size. Only a thorough and competent investigation conducted by professional police officers will enhance the chances for the successful outcome of a criminal investigation.