PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Inspector General of Police (IGP) Dr Sanaullah Abbasi held a meeting with a delegation from the British High Commission (BHC) to review progress on British government funded Justice System Support Programme (JSSP).

The focus of the programme was to improve the quality of investigations in serious crimes, especially sexual violence against women and children, and to ultimately improve users’ experience of criminal justice system.

The police chief appreciated JSSP’s assistance in problem solving through a cross-institutional and data driven approach. He was of the opinion that this approach has produced results in the pilot districts of Mardan and Charsadda where the acquittal rate has reduced by over 20 percent since 2018. Because of these results, interventions initiated in the pilot districts have now been extended to the entire province.

The JSSP provides technical support to the provincial government, and KP Police in particular, says a press release.

The police chief thanked the BHC for distributing 3,500 sexual offense evidence collection kits (SOECKs) to KP Police to improve the quality of evidence in crimes against women and children. He said the KP Police has developed operational guidelines for investigators on crime scene management and forensic evidence collection and these have since been disseminated across the province focusing on better management of crime scene and greater use of forensics.

Mr Abbasi said the KP Police has given skill-based investigation training focusing on modern investigation techniques to more than 100 police investigators. He said inspection protocols have been developed and implemented across the province to improve performance management of investigations.

Apart from these initiatives, a monthly meeting under the supervision of IGP, based on a newly developed and detailed crime monitoring template, has been introduced in KP Police. This performance management, initially introduced in pilot districts of Mardan and Charsadda, has shown positive results.

From March 2020 to February 2021, the use of SOECKs increased from zero to 87 percent, use of crime scene vans increased from 0 to 79 percent, use of case diary 1A increased from 23 to 86 percent, inspections increased from 0 to 84 percent, early advice by prosecutors increased from 0 to 82 percent and time taken by prosecutors and police to remove evidential weaknesses in cases reduced from an average of 73 days to 33 days.