Some people are taking the phrase “abolish the police” quite literally. Ethiopia, for instance, is currently testing unmanned “smart” police stations, the BBC reports.
The sight you got used to seeing in movies of a police station filled with uniformed officers scurrying around, one cop filling out paperwork over here, another one dragging a street punk to a cell over there, couldn’t be further from what Ethiopia is experimenting with. Instead, there’s a row of glowing tablets… and that’s pretty much it. It’s an unmanned reporting system in which citizens file complaints on touchscreens that connect them to remote officers.
If someone has a crime to report, a visitor enters the room of touchscreens, selects the type of issue, like crime, traffic incident, or general concern, and then types in the details and submits the report. A real police officer at a separate location then appears on the screen to continue the conversation and take the statement.
If needed, patrol officers are dispatched to the location mentioned in the report.
Ethiopia Tests Unmanned “Smart” Police Stations
The program is just getting started, so uniform staff is stationed at the site to guide first-time users, much like a grocery store employee overseeing the self-checkout lanes, handling tech issues and user errors, and answering general questions. In its first week, the station logged only three reports: a lost passport, a financial fraud case, and a routine complaint.
The project is a part of a broader Ethiopian government initiative called Digital Ethiopia 2030, a nationwide effort to modernize public services by moving much of its infrastructure from the physical world to the digital world.
That’s all well and good, but Ethiopia still has some big fundamental obstacles in the way, namely, internet connectivity. According to UNESCO, about 79 percent of Ethiopians lack internet access, with older people, low-income communities, and people in rural areas particularly affected.
The smart police station is just an experiment for now. Traditional police stations are still up and running, and most people continue to report crimes in person. But will people prefer reporting something as personal as a crime that’s been committed against them via a tablet that then connects them to a remote police officer, or will that ultimately feel too impersonal?
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