FOP - training modules

The people gives the police the power and through FOP the police can give back the power to the people. The whole concept of Friend of Police must have evolved at my subconscious or what I call the sub-knowledge level from the French word for the policeman, " agent de police." So, instead of agent, at the conscious level, I chose Friend as it comes from the Latin word, " phile" which means love. If you love yourself you would be interested in your self preservation and promotion. The FOP concept is holistic in the sense it is based on the philosophy of true friendship or relationship. If you love your self, you need to observe and adopt certain principles of conduct- you must be first and foremost, a Friend of Principles. In the FOP multimedia training, we first focus on intrapersonal communication. What do you communicate to your deeper, intimate self? What is your self view as opposed to your world view? Unless intrapersonal communication is on sound grounds, interpersonal communication cannot be. Unless our view of our role as police men or officers is holistic and sound, our enactment of our public duties would be flawed. In pursuit of this goal, we stated that FOP training would take place on the paradigm of ASK or Attitude first and foremost, Skills (soft)next and Knowledge or facts or information last. The modules that were employed to address attitudes were Equilibrium Thinking, a pattern of thinking, being and doing that I had evolved and tested over a period of thirty years. In addition, we employed Neurolinguisic programming techniques for the first time to alter the mutual perceptions of police and FOPs. The feedback received about these attitude modules were excellent , both in the pilot project in 2002-2003 as well as in the state wide training of 50,000 police personnel of various ranks and 50,000 FOP volunteers in all districts and cities of the state of TN.

Harnessing idle human resources for policing

Every time, a state announces recruitment of say 3,000 to 10,000 constables, more than ten times that number apply. This enables us to gauge the extent of idle human resources eager and willing to be employed as policemen or policewomen. Large numbers of these candidates have volunteered as FOPs in Tamil Nadu and a good number have been subsequently employed either as constables, or sub-inspectors of police. It needs a fairly longer run-up than just six months or two years of training as the case may be for constables or Sub-inspectors but when they volunteer as FOPs they develop their aptitude and abilities to serve as full time police professionals. A few FOPs have even succeeded in joining as DySPs, as ASPs and one FOP student coordinator belonging to the Muslim community has joined the IFS and is currently serving in the UK. FOP multimedia training as well as the leadership training they get while volunteering service is a huge asset in preparing them for their future career. If some weightage is given at the time of selection for police personnel who had served as FOPs, it will further give a fillip to the movement.