Urbanization and crime goes hand in hand; and Lahore is no exception. The cities around the world are dealing with the issue by having metropolitan policing and Lahore calls for a similar step. The point has so far remained in drawing room talks as anecdotes suggest the crime rate is higher in Urban Punjab whilst deterrence is low. There is now a study to support the argument.

A paper, presented by an eminent economist Dr Ali Cheema from IDEAS and LUMS, and ex-police officer and criminal justice expert Zulfiqar Hammed, proved that not only per capita crime rate is higher in Lahore relative to other cities and rural dwellings in Punjab; but is also growing at higher rate.

The sprawling urbanization in Lahore is validated from the fact that the population density of Lahore almost doubled from 3500 persons per sq Km to over 6000 persons per sq km during 1998-2017. Today, the density in Lahore is over 4 times of that in Faisalabad and 20 times of areas classified as rural.

Mean crime per 100,000 people is over 200 in Lahore versus around 150 in Faisalabad and roughly 80 in rural areas. Thus, not only Lahore is highly dense; but also the crime rate for given population is much higher. And it is also growing at much faster than less dense districts. Highest growth is observed in crimes related to property.

Mind you, the numbers for reported crimes in Lahore could have been less than reality, as the tendency to report isn’t high in large cities compared to rural areas and towns.

International literature suggests that unemployment, lower opportunity cost of engaging in crime, and more importantly weak deterrence explain higher crime in dense cities. People migrate to big cities to increase density and when they do not get employment, incentive to commit crime enhances. And due to high density, the ties become weak in neighbourhood which creates urban anonymity and hence weak deterrence of unknown perpetrator.

The higher youth employment in big cities, especially Lahore, is lowering the opportunity cost of crime and anonymity is encouraging criminal activities further. An intriguing finding of the paper is that incarceration has virtually no effect on crime in Lahore. In rural and small urban areas, incarceration is a deterrent for property crime; but that is not the case for Lahore and Faisalabad.

The urban anonymity is perhaps the chief reason for rapidly increasing crime in Lahore. This is validated by the fact that only 19 percent of victims had information on perpetrators in Lahore. Yes, urbanization results in more untraced cases, as the percentage of property cases is over 40 percent in Lahore versus around 12 percent in rural Punjab.

What is the message for government from the findings of this study? What sorts of actions are required? The good news is that the Punjab Government is responding to the reality by applying sophisticated tools for catching crime and conducting investigation.

The Punjab Safe City Authority is building PPIC3 centers in major cities of Punjab. The first project is in implementation in Lahore followed by similar centers in six other cities of Punjab. Additionally, Punjab Forensic Science Agency has a state-ofthe-art laboratory to conduct investigation on crime.

Now with these modern policing and investigation methods, what is missing in Lahore? Unfortunately, the policing laws in Punjab are of 19th century which is eluding the effectiveness of 21st century methods. The law is to have geographic organized police stations where investigation initiates after the registration of First Information Report (FIR).

In practice it takes days to register FIR after the crime takes place while the effectiveness of CCTV cameras and forensic techniques can be of best use if the investigation starts immediately after the crime is reported.

The first three hours from reporting are of utmost importance for tracing the criminal; but that is not happening. The need is to have an integrated system of reporting and investigating of crimes, especially in urban areas like Lahore where victims lack information on perpetrators. A central functional policing is the order of the day.

The bottom line is to transform the obsolete 19th century institution by leverage upon 21st century technology. Without reforming police station with registrars and FIRs to have strong coordination with modern forensic and IC3 systems, the gain from all the technology deployed will be merely political mileage.