Neighbhorhood Watch or Terror? The Need for Reformed Malawi's Community Policing Groups

You are there to protect not harass

Today in Malawi and in line with the decentralisation process that is currently taking place in the country, quite a good number of the projects are community driven. So you get to hear of terms like Community Based Organisations, Community Day Secondary Schools, Community Information Centres, Community Policing and the list goes on. Some of these community institutions are working and impacting the communities positively. Others partially so - they are quite debatable.

One of the community organisations that tends to receive mixed reactions whenever mentioned is the neighbhorhood watch. In many Malawian Communities, just the mention of the term "neighborhood watch" tends to breed feelings of fear, hate, dislike and things like that . Sometimes such groups are even likened to the notorious youth league of those days or young democrats of the recent times. Actually in most cases you are treated more respectfully when you meet the Police at night than when you meet members of the neighborhood watch. Perhaps, the only time members of the neighborhood will treat and respect you is when they are at your doorstep to collect the monthly subscriptions. Why is it that the people we hire or elect to serve us can actually make our life so unbearable to the extent that instead of admiring them you find yourself loathing them? It's funny that when you have your own guard at home you go sleep soundly whilst when some Malawian communities have neighborhood watches they don't. Yet these community policing groups are supposed to be a recipe for a restful night. I know of people who when moving at night in their own neigbhorhoods are more afraid of meeting members of the neigbhorhood watch than they are of the Police and robbers. It should have more pleasant to meet members of the neighborhood watch than to meet the robbers and the police.

Having been involved in one of the most succesful neighbhorhood watches, I would like to share a few tips that could make community policing a success story for Malawi. Here are some of the things that I have found distateful and which have usually led me to bitter confrontations with some neighborhood watches.

• Asking me to sit down whenever I meet them despite they being in large number and may be half of them recognising me
• Approaching you rudely and making rude remarks
• Lack of tactical scrutinisation such as observing from a distance to gauge what somebody is up to.
• Deliberately waiting for people coming from drinking places that don't bribe them.
• Becoming active towards the end of the month and relaxing thereafter.
• Increased burglaries and robberies with neighbhorwood watches around.
• Lack of uniform.
• Whipping residents whenever they do not agree or beating them brutally.
• Not well organised - small group, nomadic and dispersed
• Robberies perpetrated by members of the neighborhood watches.
• Block leaders' benefitting from the monthly subscriptions that residents contribute.
• No real commitment in protecting the members of the local community as opposed to seeking respect and honour from the local communities
• Kugogoda mwa mwano (Knocking on the door/gates rudely and loudly) when collecting monthly subscriptions and collecting them very late at night.

This is what I expect of neighborhood watches ;

• should be respectful of the people they meet at night

• should ask people to sit down only in certain circumstances - no state of emergency all the time. I believe there are better ways of communicating with the people they meet at night. They don't have to talk with every person they meet.

• they should not target drinking places rather they should try to protect the whole neigbhorhood by tactiful deployments of small contingents throughout the whole neighborhood.

• should not look for bribes for us to pass through or be escorted

• should always remember that there are there to serve us and not harass us

• there presence should bring a reduction in robberies and burglaries

• should have uniforms

• should be active throughout the month
  
  If things do not change, thy will still face problems when it comes to getting support from local residents. Much more than that, Many Malawian's especially those that walk on foot will continue to suffer in silence.