Terry Barentsen is an NYC-based bike rider-creative who makes incredible mobile videos about urban biking and the associated lifestyle – and much more his YouTube channel is very popular and rightfully so. Terry’s content is crisp, inspiring, professional and highly engaging.
My favorite videos are the Hotline series, where Terry rides behind a local rider (who is miked up) and then follows them as they ride around their local area – which is usually a densely populated city.
These clips are incredible to watch. It is exciting watching highly skilled (mostly fixie) riders zooming dangerously around New York, Mexico City, Moscow, San Francisco, Rome, Tokyo or where ever.
Below is a 100-word worlding I wrote about the Hotline videos:
Worlding: Lessons from Hotlining
Research lessons from Terry Barentsen’s hyper-urban street bike riding Hotline videos. Fear and excitement comingle. Bodies, bikes, cities, noises, skills, congestions, objects, demands and decisions. Moving intuitively. Operating on feel and precognition. Bravery shoves perilousness into oncoming traffic. Constant(ly) urgent flow(s). Giving red lights, erratic vehicles and law-abiding pedestrians the finger. Always pushing and scanning just ahead(s). Whistles, shouts and drag-hitches on cab doors. Scaring yourself and others. (con)Sensual (re)Activity. Instances of recovery and realisation. Extreme moments of confluence. Getting to where you need to be, faster. One long, unedited, continuous journey of think-ride-living in the middle.
Getting into Hotlining
Although mostly located in the US, Terry travels widely and I really appreciate the broad range of diverse people, places and bike styles he showcases – he genuinely includes everyone – and they are all equally exciting to watch for different reasons.
The sometimes included daggy 1970s Hotline intro is hilarious.
You don’t need to be a bike rider to appreciate a Hotline.
Zipping down streets, over embankments, skidding between cars, dodging walkers, jumping barriers, crossing lines and managing fasts speeds, traffic, built environs and themselves the whole time. Unreal!
Watching fixie riders is exhilarating: their skill, grace and bravery is incredible – and definitely not always legal. I find myself mesmerized as I watch how they hold speed, what lines they chose to take, the snap decisions they need to make and how the city lives, breathes and orientates around everything that moves – it is literally poetry in motion.
I’m a Hotline fan for many reasons, least of all because it is highly original content, beautifully produced videography, celebrates ALL kids of bikers and bike riding, takes in all the sensory surrounds, is inclusive, positive, exciting and creative, and is exclusively focused on the embodied, moving POV of the riders in situ.
I also really appreciate that most of these videos are one-shot non-edited footage – raw as!
And I love that the whole series is about celebrating all different types of riders (and not just focused on Terry himself) – how refreshing!
Some of the Hotlines, have cool Jazz or World Music tunes overlayed, other times there is no music, sometimes both. I dig being able to hear the rider breathing and talking as they whip and whizz and ride. The quality ASMR immersion of the ride helps better appreciate the dynamicism and noise of the riding activity and surrounding vibrancy: honking, braking, music blaring, road crossing beeps, pedestrians talking, snippets of conversations, natural sounds of wheels on surfaces, bus engines ….and all the while being able to ride-with a rider-bike-environs assemblage.
As well as the Hotline videos, Terry’s channel also has HEAPS of other associated bikey-interest content, like video diaries, tech info and explanations, bike checks, special bike styles/models (fixies, road, track, singlespeeds, MTB), ‘How to’s, night rides, ride-alongs, meet the rider/interviews, event, rides and site visitations, a series called ‘chasing strangers’. There’s also a few tech-specific video playlists like the 4K series, stills, 360s and a few unspecified off-cuts, rough-cuts and ‘shorts’ that always have something a little left of center.
So if you haven’t already seen the Hotlines, series, I highly recommend on your next tea break to go and check out a few different Hotline rides – I guarantee… you will not be disappointed!
This time last year I was in Lunsar (Sierra Leone) undertaking my bikes-for-education fieldwork.
I often think of what I saw, felt, learnt, and experienced there.
The trip was exciting, profound and challenging.
I sift through my research journal and field notes, diving into them, drinking in the details of memories brought back to life in full technicolour.
So many significant moments that won’t make it into my thesis.
Moments like Mariama and the Addax Aunties singing me in.
Addax school distribution. Girl-student-new bike. Photo: Nina Ginsberg.
It is late afternoon and everyone is hot. We are in Addax and have just finished a long day delivering a school bike distribution program at the only high school for miles around. We are far from anywhere. It took a long, rutty, dusty trip squished between Kao (precariously pillion-perched behind me) and Ben upfront. I marveled as Ben cheerfully bounced the struggling moped over the dirt road to get us here, two at a time, earlier this morning. He made numerous trips shuttling all the staff members to the school collection point. I admire his skill and grace as he navigates the precarious transfer in such harsh conditions – hard work(er) indeed. It is so remote. There is no way to walk the distance or drive on this surface. Access is so limited. As I wait for the others, I think of the isolation and the implications of this walking-world for the women and girls who live here. Inconceivable. Humbling. Unsettling. I wonder what it’s like for school girls riding bikes here.
After a day at the school, Ben ferries us individually to a family a few kilometers away to gather, rest and await our return transport back to Lunsar. We will be here for a while. As the ‘guest’, I was the first of Ben’s deliveries, but on arrival I see Jak magically got here before me. I wave to him from the other side of the yard. I watched him do great work today, explaining in Kriol basic bike maintenance to the students. He was a superstar. He smiles and nods to me and accepts a drink of water as he collapses into a nearby plastic chair. Ben grins and tells me to wait here and rest: he is going back for the others. No problem I say. He takes off in a cloud of red dust. I look around me.
I see a young girl approaching me. It takes me a moment to realise she is one of the students from the school. She was in the workshop we ran. Attentive and confident, she had shuffled students around to position herself to sit next to me all morning. I liked her bold style. She had smiled shyly at me the whole time. Walking towards me now, she has changed out of her school uniform which is why I didn’t recognise her. Her clothes are oversized, stained and threadbare. A dirty white singlet hangs limply over a patched-together skirt. The material seems awkward on her lithe frame. Barefoot. She looks so vastly different from her clean, coordinated, green school uniform replete with white socks and lace-up black brogues. It’s hard to believe she is the same girl from an hour ago. Her name is Mariama. It means ‘gift from God’. She gives me a glorious smile and takes my hand.
Family hub: the cooking shelter. Photo: Nina Ginsberg.
Mariama leads me to a shelter to meet her family. There are many of these ‘family clusters’ around here – hidden, unknown, near-inaccessible. ‘Here’ is a grouplet of three ‘dirty brick’ huts. I’m surrounded by extreme poverty. The huts are dotted around a cleared centre which is the hub of all family life. In the middle is the cooking place. Under a corrugated iron roof held up by poles, I take my lead from the older women and join them around the open fire pit.
Mariama is animated as she tells the women about me. They smile while looking me up and down. Small groups of young children appear and mill around, watching, listening, whispering, giggling. Some of the kids sit on their mothers and watch the braver ones sit near me. An overheated dog snoozes as a wretched little chick walks over it. A rubbish pile smoulders nearby. An assembly line of freshly made mud bricks is drying off to the right, and a collection of single-use alcohol sachets are littered on the left. Flies buzz. Everywhere I look, skin sparkles as sunlight catches diamonds of sweat. The fragrant, sweet smell of red palm oil simmering in a cauldron wafts through the compound. I hear birds calling in the surrounding bush. Clumps of overgrown tallgrass tower at the edge of the clearing and rustle noisily in the wind. The women are clicking their tongues, quipping in Temne, and raising their eyebrows in my direction. They find me amusing. I sit down quietly on the closest stone.
Snoozing dog and wretched chick. Photo: Nina Ginsberg.
Mariama’s English is good and she translates our introductions, adding explanations and embellishments freely. We chat, suspended in time. Refreshments materialise. We talk about family, life and women’s business. After a while, I feel a shift in the mood. The conversation peeters out. Silence. I wait. Mariama’s mother nods to her daughter, who turns to me with a massive smile. Something has transpired, but I’m not sure what. I hold the moment, and the other women do the same.
Mama looks directly at me. I meet her gaze and hold, watching her intently. She has my full attention. She nods at me then closes her eyes. I watch her breathe. Time flattens. Tenderly and gently, Mama starts to clap. Refrain. Then she starts to sing in Temne. Lowly evanescence. Her lilt is stirring and ephemeral. The Aunties are nodding. The wind stops to listen. Mama’s voice is clear as it reaches out, rising and falling, pouring in and spilling over, flowing between and rippling through. I feel her voice seep into my bones. The Aunties join in. Snoozing dog opens an eye, sighs contentedly, and returns to slumber. The singing is rich and resonating, full of emotion and vitality. My heart pines. The timbre is achingly melodious. I listen, transfixed. After a few rounds, the lyrics change. I hear my name, ‘Nina’, included. My scalp tingles. All the women watch me as they increase in volume and enthusiasm. I am barely breathing. Mariama is singing too. She turns to me with bright eyes – what an angelic gift. The singing is still building. I feel what she is going to say before she says it. I don’t need words to know what is happening. ‘It’s for you’ she says, ‘they are singing you in.’
Recently, I attended a very unique opportunity: a 4-part virtual Geography, Art and MemoryWorkshop co-convened by Griffith’s Centre for Social and Cultural Research Dr Laura Rodriguez Castro, Dr Diti Bhattacharya, Dr Kaya Barry and Prof. Barabra Pini.
As a New Materialisms community bike researcher working in Sierra Leone, my work is embedded with post(de)coloniality, cultural dynamics, current-past experiences, gender, geography, mobility and space-time-matterings.
So I was excited about this workshop! Right up my (v)alley! (Get it? Geo joke!)
This workshop invited us to examine and experiment with the cultural and political potentials of ‘memory through art’ in geography inquiry. We looked at creative practices, collaborated and had discussions on some key and pressing issues related to our specific research. There was also the added bonus of an invitation to contribute to a Special Issue of Australian Geographer(2022).
In this session we asked:
What does art do to geographies of memories?
Image: Memories Through Art
A workshop in 4 parts
The workshop was structured in four parts:
Part 1 – 1st February 2021 by 5:00pm: In the week leading up to the event, workshop participants submitted a 1 page (A4 portrait or landscape) response to the question: ‘What does art do to geographies of memory?’ The response could be written, creative, drawn, mapped, photos, collage, text, prose, or more. We will share these on our website, and will form a key discussion point for the interactive workshop event.
Part 2 – 4th February 2021, 3:00pm-5:00pm: We attended the keynote presentations by Libby Harward (Australia) and Virgelina Chara (Columbia). These two artists (see below) work with the current pressing issues of geographical research, treating them as a threshold point for their own creative responses and provocations that they may choose to share during parts 3 and 4. We focused on artistic interventions from Southern epistemologies as these continue to be underrepresented in Australian geography.
Part 3 – 5th February 2021, 9.30am – 12:30pm: Each participant gave an informal 5-minute talk about their creative response which they submitted prior to the workshop. (See my submission is at the end of this post).
Part 4 (optional) – 5th February 2021, 12:30pm – 1:30pm: In the final hour, we collectively discussed how to take these ideas and discussions forward as a Special Issue ofAustralian Geographer integrating some of the workshop themes.
Keynote speakers
Virgelina Chara
Virgelina Chará is a human rights defender, educator, embroidery artist and protest music composer from Colombia. She coordinates the ‘Association for the Integral Development of Women, Youth and Children’ (ASOMUJER y Trabajo) which works with forcibly displaced families and victims of the armed violence in Colombia. She is also the leader of the Embroidery Union at the Memory Centre for Peace and Reconciliation in Bogotá, Colombia. She is a world-renowned educator on the pedagogy and power of memory for the construction of peace.
She was born in Suárez, Cauca, which is a region where armed conflict, extractivism and neoliberal development have meant many people, including Virgelina and her family, have had to confront violence and displacement. Since 2003 Virgelina has resided in Bogotá. In 2005 she was proposed as a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize.
You can read more on Virgelina’s work here (left click to Google Translate to English).
Libby Harward
Artist Libby Harward is a descendant of the the Ngugi people of Mulgumpin (Morton Island) in the Quandamooka (Morton Bay Area).
Known for her early work as an urban graffiti artist under the pseudonym of ‘Mz Murricod’, and her performance-based community activism, Harward’s recent series, ALREADY OCCUPIED, engages a continual process of re-calling – re-hearing – re-mapping – re-contextualising – de-colonising and re-instating on country that which colonisation has denied Australia’s First Peoples.
This political practice engages Traditional Custodians in the evolution of ephemeral installations on mainland country which has become highly urbanised and calls for an artistic response that seeks to uncover and reinstate the cultural significance of place, which always was, and remains to be there. Her current place-based sound and video work engages directly with politically charged ideas of national and international significance.
You can find on Libby’s work here and read more on her project DABILBUNG here.
Workshop foucs
During this workshop we discussed themes of memory, art, and geographical knowledge in order to motivate a creative dialogue among geographers, artists, and activists.
We talked about the key question and looked at how to move beyond methodological debates and how to use art mediums as approaches to bring to light the affective and political forces of place speaking to timely and important issues such as colonialism, climate change, migration and peace and conflict.
There was a strong focus on Indigenous and Southern epistemologies and discussions on how to decolonize feminist research involved with geography, power, labour, art, and memory.
Image: Still taken from Virgelina Chará’s keynote.
Workshop convergences, notes, artifacts and ideas
I was heavily invested in the discussions, which were provocative, rich and challenging. Out of respect for the content and participants present, I have chosen to deliberately deviate from the traditional blog ‘reportage’ style of summarising the workshop. Instead, I am using a non-linear, fragmented, messy, (in)process(un)complete, more New Materialist approach to ‘throw up’ a few random snippets, thoughts and connections I noted during these sessions. The below content is a deliberate post-human shift from presenting content as if it is ‘right’, ‘accurate’ or ‘makes sense’ to humans-participants-knowers. While some content may make sense – some may not. There are no mistakes or errors in these notes. So for the below notes, you dear reader, are implicated in the reiteration and (re)co-creation of the workshop ‘matters’ ….. here we go!
This story is ‘sew’ important …memory, history and life for so many, but new information for others (like me) elsewhere..truthtelling, invasion, pollution, academic violence and extractivism…The ‘Justice ‘ dept, The Memory Centre, the Power of Memory, parent-teacher-adult time with student-children-learner, ‘education is so square now’, pedagogy of memory, to the teachers: ‘do you realise you are the useless ones here?’… we don’t do it through writing, we do it through sewing and food, they have had massacres in every country, ‘ (Duque) he’ is just the model..creative outputs that help us think about these issues…
Some participants linked Virgelina‘s keynote to other textile protests, work and exhibitions, such as:
Libby shares with us her visionary bloodletting, deadstream and saltwater reflections. Flow. Sand Crunch. Lying in grass. Forms and textures. Listen (more) carefully. Birds-eye views. Film as experiential documentation. Art that moves and breathes. Unexpected. Tasmanian salvaged timber. Art(work)s. lying – lying. Post-colonisation – Decolonisation.
Mike is a chairmaker and researcher. Listening to Mike makes me think about how the ideological state apparatus presents a ‘version of collective memory-truth’ (ie statues & iconoclasts) – that is literally set in concrete (or other material) and associated forms of patriarchal, colonistic (tee-hee..get it?! not now, stay focus(ed), be serious!), political issues that go along with that kind of art …and that the artist is rarely? clearly? identified or acknowledged….after all it is their output/work/….
BI re(views) the memory artifacts produced: Proserpine Ambulance Depot (1990), Proserpine Hospital Outpatients Department (1939-1999), Proserpine RSL Club (1950-1990), and the Eldorado Picture Theatre (1927-1985).
Janis literary maps and remaps the Queensland Wollen Manufacturing Company floorplan(s) with mill(field)work, mill(i)visits, millscapes and milieus. Overlaying Coral’s draft interpretations of Mud Maps. Ron’s List across the ages – staff payroll (50?) years on.
Embodiment -moving through time-space-places
Public art
Art, bike, memory and geography
Institualization of memory – academic violences – uni mapping vs uni tracing
Then, Johann Rebert‘s 2017 article, noted that after a few years running, bicycle patrols increased the visibility and accessibility of police for community members.
To round off this series, I had to look a little deeper to see what became of this program.
There was a significant drop-off in publications and media after 2015. But I did find two more current mentions of the Sri Lankan community police bicycle patrol programs. One was a very positive extension (below), the other a mention in passing during a policing reform and ‘next steps’ report.
Image: Sri Lanka Police
Inaugural Ceremony of the Surakimu Lanka – Police Vigilant Committee
On the Sri Lankan Police official website, I found the below 2020 announcement:
Having restructured and renewed the Community Policing Programme in order to cater to the contemporary requirement for a secured country, The Inaugural Ceremony of the Pilot project of Surakimu Lanka – Police Vigilant Committee which will be launched Island wide, was held on December 24, 2019 at Viharamahadevi Park.
Mr. C. D. Wickramaratne – Acting Inspector General of Police, was the Chief guest of the occasion.
77 Community Policing Areas in Colombo North, Colombo South and Colombo Central Police Divisions are divided into 201 sub areas and Police officers are assigned to perform duties in relation to community policing. Bicycles were distributed among 77 Police officers of Community policing. Those Police officers will perform full-time duty within the Community Policing area they are assigned.
So it looks like bicycles do have an ongoing role with the Sri Lankan police!
Image: Sri Lanka Police
Supporting Community Policing & Police Reform
The other place I found Sri Lankan community police bicycles mentioned more currently, was in a 2020 Asia Foundation report. It was clear from reading this report, that there was a significant shift in community policing since the initial bicycle project was initiated in 2011.
Since the end of the war in 2009, there continues to be a renewed interest and growing acceptance of the need for a community-oriented style of policing to ensure post-conflict stability and normalisation.
Back in 2011, the main focus was on reducing crime, rebuilding community trust and access to police, and reaching those communities most affected by the conflict.
But now, nine years on, Sri Lankan police are still struggling with building community trust and relationships so have now taken a different approach.
The second mention of police bicycle patrols was in an October 2020 Asia Foundation Supporting Community Policing & Police Reform report. Get the full report by clicking the green button below.
It looks like the integration of community police bike patrols was part of the 2009-2016 piloting community policy phase of reform (hence little online material about it after 2015), but the report does acknowledge:
Community policing pilots were conducted from 2009 to 2011 in two districts, which demonstrated improvements in public perceptions of security, police performance, and community-police relations. Since 2012, the Foundation has engaged with police stations across the country – directly and through community-based organization (CBO) partners – to implement community policing practices such as community police committees, bicycle patrols, mobile police services and community awareness programs. Particularly remarkable are the community police committees (CPCs) which create a platform for monthly community-police dialogues to take joint actions to solve safety and security concerns in their neighborhoods. The CPCs bring together community leaders, police, and government officials to tackle community concerns before they escalate and to address persistent issues within a community.
Image: Asia Foundation
Although bicycles are still a part of the Sri Lankan Police (as the ceremony above shows) the current community support and police reform (supported by the British High Commission) is focused on towards:
Institutionalizing community policing within the National Police Academy
Integrating Tamil language training
Expediting community policing practices
Using evidence-based policy and training
Police reform efforts
Strengthening sensitive responses to gender-based violence
Establishing a Children and Women’s Bureau
Strengthening gender equity within the police force
Tracing the evolution of the Sri Lankan community policing bike patrol program has been a interesting activity. It touches on many social, political, geographic, technical and economic issues.
It is heartening to see bicycles being trialed in the national recovery and policing reform process. As well as seeing bikes continuing to be used, such programs also serve as great examples for what might be achieved in the future.
This second post shares a 2017 EU-CIVAP article by Johann Rebert, Deputy Country Representative (Sri Lanka) Asia Foundation.
I was interested to see what ideas, learnings or suggestions might be offered about this project after it has been running for a few years.
So here it it.
Enjoy!
Image: EU-CIVCAP
Community policing in Sri Lanka: a foundation for wider police reform?
Community-oriented policing is not necessarily new, but its popularity has grown significantly over the recent past. The purpose of community policing is often to improve community-police relations and ensure greater police responsiveness to local safety and security issues. Community policing is often spoken of as a ‘philosophy’, which enables its implementation to remain flexible and adapted to local priorities and political dynamics.
The community policing approach often has broad and varied objectives, depending on whether one asks citizens, the police, NGOs or donors. These objectives can range from preventing and reducing crime, and the fear of crime, to building trust and confidence between the community and police, to seeking to ensure a more accountable police service and improving state-society relations (Denney and Jenkins 2013). These multiple and overlapping objectives can often present a challenge when supporting the implementation of community policing, which The Asia Foundation has grappled with over the years.
Since 2009, the Asia Foundation has been working in Sri Lanka with local leaders, community groups, and the Sri Lankan Police Service to implement community policing programs that foster relationships between police and communities, inviting citizens’ input to resolve root causes of security and safety issues. Among the damaging legacies of Sri Lanka’s decades of civil conflict was the erosion of trust between citizens and police officers in communities across the country.
This was particularly true in the Northern Province, which bore the brunt of violent conflict in the last years of the war, and in the Eastern Province, where the population is a more diverse mix of Sinhalese, Tamil, and Muslim communities. While some of this sentiment remains today despite the war ending in 2009, there is also dissatisfaction in Southern part of the country with regard to the ways in which the police interact with members of the public.
With the support of the Sri Lanka Police, community policing programs started in two small pilot locations in central areas of the country in 2009, and had expanded to 10 more locations in the North, East and South by 2012. A basic training manual was developed in 2011, which is now used for training new recruits at the National Police Academy, and a practical training guide contextualised for Sri Lanka is currently being implemented with Officers-in-Charge of stations. The aim remains to institutionalise this approach nationwide by embedding it in the ongoing police reform process.
Several community policing strategies have been helpful in moving from theory to practice in the Sri Lankan context. While there is some debate over the effectiveness of increased patrolling to reduce crime, bicycle patrols increase officers’ visibility and accessibility. The communities are more comfortable in approaching recognisable officers and are more likely to then raise concerns with regard to local safety and security.
Mobile police services have helped to bring vital police services – such as replacing official ID documentation, issuing certifications for licences, and filing complaints – to remote areas where citizens would otherwise have to travel prohibitively long distances to stations. On designated days, police set up temporary, one-stop shops (in collaboration with local government departments) that offer services normally available at stations, and they combine this with public awareness campaign activities on public safety issues such as traffic safety or preventing theft.
Community Policing Committees bring together community members, police, and government officials to tackle community concerns before they escalate, as well as to address persistent issues within a community. At monthly meetings, police hear from the community about key concerns, which are usually related to minor crimes, and offer the resources they have available to resolve them.
While the Sri Lanka Police Service increasingly values and understands community policing, ensuring institutionalisation of the approach across the country is a challenge that will take time to address. One positive outcome has been the acceptance of community-oriented policing as the underlying ethos, no matter which functional division police officers are deployed to. It is also clear that community policing approaches in and of themselves will be one step towards improving community-police relations, but wider police reform will be necessary in Sri Lanka to ensure sustainable results.
It is important to note that the Ministry of Law and Order, with the support of the Sri Lanka Police and the National Police Commission, have recently begun efforts to promote police reform. While community policing has been an entry point for improving trust and confidence in the police, it will become a central pillar of police reform in the coming years.
Over the last decade, there has been an influx in the use of bicycles in mainstream civil services. Some examples of these I have shared previously include:
Another project that has caught my eye is a Sri Lankan community bike policing program. I’m interested because Sri Lanka is such a vastly different context to the West – and it has a volatile history and relationships between community and police are often strained.
So I have dedicated the next few posts tracing the development of this program. I’m using articles written by locals and those who are closer to, and more knowledgeable about Sri Lanka than I am.
For some background, below is an article written in 2012 by Gita Sabharwal*, who was the Asia Foundation’s deputy country representative in Sri Lanka. The Asia Foundation funded this project to start in 2009 and this early article by Gita provides some historical context and personal experience to set the scene.
As an active supporter for greater diversity and to support the work, exposure and voice for more non-European female professionals, I’ve included Gita’s article in full below as she originally wrote it and emphasis is my own.
Enjoy!
Bicycle Patrols Rebuild Trust Between Sri Lanka’s Police and Communities
Still recovering from the effects of a 26-year civil war that ended in 2009, Sri Lanka is now seeing hopeful signs that one of its deepest wounds – the relationship between the police and the community – is improving.
During the war, police were often preoccupied with counter-insurgency and national security. As a result, mistrust between communities and the police force grew, particularly in the North and East where police often viewed community members as potential threats to security, as opposed to a constituency they serve.
For years, much of the interaction between the general public and the police has occurred at police stations when citizens reported a crime and at vehicle checkpoints, where most identity checks are performed. But, with the end of the war in 2009, police service is gradually making the shift from a “securitized” form of policing to a community-oriented one. As part of its larger institutional reform initiative, the leadership of the Sri Lanka Police Service (SLPS) is set on making the police a more professional and “people-friendly” service.
As part of this initiative, 43 cities and towns in the North, East, South, and Uva have over the last eight months introduced bicycle patrolling to improve community-police relationships, deter petty crimes, and offer citizens the opportunity to interact with police officers positively in public places. While patrolling has historically been a part of the Sri Lankan policing system, community policing emphasizes the importance of engaging with citizens while on patrol to become better known throughout the community, stay informed about local activities, and be available to receive complaints or give advice.
Recently, the deputy inspector general of Uva Province told me that he has found bicycle patrolling to be a cost-effective and efficient way to increase access and mobility of the police to more remote areas, which often lack roads that can be navigated by patrol cars. With greater interaction with communities, the police are also able to gather information about local crime and conflicts and identify “hot-spots” so that they can increase patrols in those locations. Some community members who we interviewed said that they are now able to not only access the police during routine patrols, but also avoid the daunting task of visiting police stations to report crimes.
In northern Vavuniya town, since November 2011, 12 police officers have been assigned to the more populated parts of town for bicycle patrolling. Local sergeant Gunawardena said that he along with three other police officers bicycle through the densely populated lanes and by-lanes of the market area of Vavuniya town from two in the afternoon to 10 at night.
Since the end of the war, cases of petty theft have been on the increase in Vavuniya, due in part to better reporting and the return to normal policing functions, including investigation of complaints lodged with the police. The Inspector of Police, Ranatunga, who leads the bicycle patrol project in Vavuniya, said he believes that as a result of regular patrolling, fear of crime has reduced among citizens who now feel a greater sense of safety and security.
Local citizens and police interviewed in Vavuniya agreed that conducting bicycle patrols helps develop relationships, deter petty crimes, and offer citizens the opportunity to interact with local police officers.
In these small town and cities, bicycle patrolling also helps deter minor and major crimes due to increased police contact with the public and faster response time and capability. It allows police officers to respond to emergency calls quickly and be present at the crime scene in real time. One community member in Matara, where four constables and sergeants have been patrolling the streets over the past six months, recently told me: “I experienced a sharp reduction in pick-pocketing due to the regular presence of police, and we’ve seen a development of better relations between the police and community … the officers travel on bicycles, we also travel on bicycles.”
Image: Sri Lankan Police
The officer-in-charge of Ambalangoda police station recently described a situation where the police were able to arrive quickly to a crime scene and arrest a suspect that was later found to be involved in over 25 illegal activities. He echoes a common sentiment: “The resources for the police are limited, but still we are trying to cover a large area. Because of this, we started the bicycle project, where we can patrol night and day, in the city and suburbs.”
The deputy inspector general of Uva Province recalled a story from earlier this year of three constables who were cycling down the main street in Buttala town late evening as part of their regular patrolling routine. The bus en-route from the capital, Colombo, stopped at the bus station on the way to Moneragala. A single passenger got off the bus, and seemed shocked upon seeing police constables around. Noticing his uneasiness, one of the constables approached him. Before they could strike a conversation the passenger pepper-sprayed the constables and tried to run away. However, alert onlookers caught him in time. When he was taken to the police station, the officers realized that he was part of a small criminal gang and was planning operations in the area, which the local police were able to intercept, thanks to the bicycle patrols.
With Sri Lanka’s tumultuous war-time period over, and the once highly securitized environment relaxing, this initiative allows the police to rebuild their relationships with the community, instilling trust and confidence among citizens that they can provide them with safety and security in their day-to-day lives.
For more information on the bicycle patrolling initiative, watch a video, produced by The Asia Foundation in partnership with the Sri Lanka Police Service with the support of the British High Commission, on the Sri Lanka Police website.
