Chris Mbulawa lived through a period when society treated a police officer like a pariah – a scion of the lowest caste of untouchables. The code was that you only dealt with cops out of absolute necessity; otherwise they were a tribe to be avoided.
He talks of a deep rift between the public and the police. To wear a police uniform each morning was to be reminded that you were an unwelcome intruder into people’s lives. Perhaps inevitably, within the ranks there developed siege mentality among those who felt the public was an ungrateful lot who were against everything the law enforcers did.
“Nobody wanted to come close to a police officer or to visit a charge office,” Mbulawa recalls. “It was one of the places that you had to have but didn’t want to visit. If you had to visit even for an affidavit people would ask if you were in trouble.”
Unsurprisingly, the police brand value got such a beating it ranked lowly as a career option.
Mbulawa looks at that period and its challenges as the beginnings of the police’s Public Relations Unit, which he heads. The police was possibly the first government department to have a unit dedicated solely to engaging with its publics. The thinking within the police was that the public’s suspicion could only hamper efforts to fight crime. Therefore, the police needed to build a two-way bridge to the community.
“People believed that if you told a police officer something, they would turn against you.
Therefore, we had a challenge of people who were reluctant to give evidence. How then do you deal with crime [if people don’t come forward to give evidence]? Somebody must be arrested, arraigned before the courts and evidence led against them. Justice can only be done when all the components are in place. The police make an arrest, and witnesses give evidence to help the courts reach a decision,” he says.
In the mid-1990s keen observers noticed a change in the language being used by police officers. First, we were told that the organisation was no longer a police force, but a police service (italics mine). One morning, all placards in front of police stations announced that these were now community service centres. This was a symbolic break with the past, for in another world and another time, they were called charge offices! It appears valuable lessons had been learnt on both sides. Mbulawa observes that the name change was imperative because not every visitor to the police station came to be charged.
These little modifications that were in the public eye formed part of a grand Corporate Development Strategy, which brought new paradigms on a number of fronts. Spearheaded by the then commissioner Norman Moleboge, the seven-year strategy set out clear deliverables. Mbulawa remarks that the Police Service was way ahead of many government departments.
“We were,” he says, “one of the first, if not the first, government department to have a mission and vision.”
Mbulawa refers to the development of that strategy as an interesting episode. Though it was management-driven, there was a deliberate effort to consult every police officer.
“We did a SWOT analysis; there was introspection by the entire organisation. The way the strategy was developed ensured that it was owned and appreciated by everybody. It became our pledge and it was launched publicly. The public knew that it could hold us to the pledge of our mission and vision,” he says.
Every officer, from the commissioner to the most junior constable, was issued a pocket size summary document of the organisation’s mission statement and values. Mbulawa looks back at that time as a critical moment when all police officers bonded as a family, and came together as a team with a common purpose.
“There was realisation that though we could be in different departments such as Traffic, PR, or CID at the core we are one. These are just administrative components. The public expects any police officer to render a service,” he says. “Mr. Moleboge used to emphasise that our core business was to fight crime; every one of us had to work towards curbing crime, and that each police officer should be able to enforce any law. Previously, the attitude would be, ‘I am not in Traffic; therefore a traffic offence doesn’t concern me’. With the new thinking, a member of the public could walk into any station to open a case, and we would refer it to the relevant station later.”
To answer the question whether such initiatives have borne any fruit, Mbulawa makes reference to three points: the ease with which these days people interact with the police, the fact that there are functioning crime prevention committees, which are a partnership between the police and the public. The most telling indicator is the incident with a little girl during Police Day commemoration in Molepolole.
“She walked to me and said, ‘I want to work with you’. I posed for a picture with her and she went away happy,” he says.
That encounter was a poignant experience in many respects. First, if ever there was need for confirmation that the police officer was no longer the bogeyman, this was it. But perhaps more evocatively, here was confirmation that the police had been so redeemed it was now a career option of choice.
Mbulawa is among many who settled for police work when the doors of their dream careers were shut in their faces. He wanted to be in the army, but met parental resistance. While twiddling his thumbs wondering what was next, a friend suggested that they enlist in the police. It was the nearest thing to the military; so why not!
He recalls the exact date (5th October 1983) that he attested into the police service – and “I fell in love with the police service”. Thus began a journey that has taken him to various facets of policing such as doing general duties, as well as detective work. He has been here long enough to know what he is talking about when he says for a long time both the community and the organisation once overlooked that beneath the police uniform is a human being with human frailties.
“People think that when you have been trained to be a police officer you can’t be traumatised. But that’s not true. Emotions are emotions, and feelings are feelings. In training, they never kill a person so that you see a dead body. For many young officers, they come face to face with a dead body for the first time in the line of duty and it can be a traumatic experience. For some, the first corpse they see could be a decomposed one. It might even be of someone who committed suicide, or a murder victim,” he says.
He once went with a young colleague to photograph a postmortem. As soon as the pathologist began to cut the body, the younger man asked to go to the bathroom. He never came back. Mbulawa himself, though an experienced hand, went for two weeks without touching meat.
There was another incident when he was part of a team that attended to the victim of a car bomb. The man’s charred remains were strewn all over, and the police had to pick the pieces – literally.
“When I got home, that experience really hit me,” he recalls.
There have been some encouraging changes here as well. At community level, various churches have signed up to the Adopt a Cop programme, which attends to the spiritual needs of police officers. At organisational level, the police service has established a chaplaincy unit to meet the same needs.
“There are still some within our society who think a police officer is not supposed to cry. Through these programmes we are saying that police officers are human beings; they need support and guidance. A majority of those in the frontline are young. They are fresh from school. They need guidance and social support. When a young officer says, ‘I have never seen or touched a dead body’, they are most likely telling the truth. What makes it even heavier for the young officers is that when a police officer arrives at a scene, elders move back. We are not saying society’s expectations are misplaced, but the public needs to know that their children go though these challenges when they choose to join the police service,” he says.
He says public expectations of police can be overwhelming. He jokes that when a snake slithers into the room, the first call is made to the police.
“You are expected to be a firefighter, counselor, judge, to certify Omang, and educational certificates. When there are social activities like football tournaments and music festivals, people expect police officers to be there,” he says.
The ever rising crime stats. Is it an indication of police failure?
“We need to look at everything broadly,” he responds.” Yes crime is, indeed, rising. But sometimes when taken at face value, statistics can mislead. In our case, it could be that incidents that were not previously reported are now being reported because the police have educated the public.”
He mentions defilement, and makes the point that defilement cases in police files used to be so negligible, they were almost non-existent. Yet all round, young girls were dropping out of school. Then came a time when the police decided to treat defilement as a priority offence and began a public education drive.
“Statistics grew, not because people got more interested in the act of defilement, but because offenders were now being exposed,” he says. “Rape statistics are high in Gaborone and Maun. It could be that in Maun there is an active organisation (War Against Rape) that is sensitising people, and therefore more people are coming forward to report rape. If you look at other forms of crime such as stocktheft, which is also rising, it is recorded mostly along border villages such as Sikwane, Charleshill, Ramatlabama, and Ramokgwebana. It could be due to syndicates operating across countries…..When we interpret absolute figures we need to factor in a number of other variables.
The population has increased, and society has developed. What is there to steal has also increased. Previously, if one walked into an office like this one the only valuable item to steal would be the wallet left on the table. Now there is a cellphone, and laptop. As we develop as a society, we encounter new challenges. But I admit that we can do better.”
I ask if it’s a heavy burden to be the voice of the entire police service.
“Fortunately, I have support from the executive. That makes life easier for me. But it’s a great responsibility. It’s a challenge, but an interesting one. Each day brings something new,” says the man who says a prayer in his office each morning before the daily meetings with his staff.
