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CERP Joins hands with Punjab Police

CERP Joins hands with Punjab Police

CERP Joins hands with Punjab Police

On May 14, 2019 CERP signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Punjab Police Office to conduct research on 8787 Police Complaint Centre Helpline and other Punjab Police initiatives.
Owing to CERP’s mission of deepening the culture of evidence in Pakistan the collaboration is yet another successful event towards analysing and bringing evidence into decision making for high-impact policy reforms. Through this collaboration CERP will assist Punjab Police to calibrate, improve and design the services offered by them based on a rigorous evaluation of their current and future services.
First, the collaboration intends to evaluate the 8787 Police Complaint Centre Helpline, which addresses complaints about the most common issues victims face when reporting crimes to law enforcement. 8787 Police Complaint Centre Helpline is one of the initiatives by Punjab Police to receive complaints through SMS and voice call on short coded 8787, and via emails. Second, the collaboration will explore and evaluate other initiatives on Punjab Police including but not limited Police Khidmat Markaz (Service Centers), conference-calling methodologies, and other IT initiatives.
Speaking about the collaboration IGP Captain (retd) Arif Nawaz Khan said “Research initiatives like these help Punjab Police in meeting future challenges”. He explained Punjab Police has been actively inculcating the use of IT in different projects to provide improved services for the public. Dr. Ali Cheema, co-founder and board member at CERP found the IT initiatives by Punjab Police commendable and said that the MOU will prove to be a role model for other departments as well.
Lack of trust in state institutions, often due to poor service provision, is a pervasive problem in many developing countries. CERP’s State Authority Project aims to analyse what drives the decision to access public services through the state and how citizens interact with state institutions and representatives. The intervention with Punjab Police will help in assessing the logic behind citizens’ interaction with dispute resolution forums and what increases citizens’ interaction with state resources.

Dr. Asim Khwaja and Dr. Ali Cheema, co-founders and board members CERP, Dr. James Robinson and Dr. Daron Acemoglu, Research Fellows at CERP are Principal investigators for the State Authority Project whereas Mr. Taimur Farooq is a Senior Research Associate on the project.