When something goes wrong, it is usually a police officer who arrives first. Whether it’s a collision on a busy highway, a night-time robbery, a crowd that has turned ugly: the uniform is what frightened people look for. We expect courage and competence from these men and women at any hour and in any weather. What we seldom ask is what the job costs them.
Inspector General of Police, Priyantha Weerasooriya, offered a sobering answer at an event in Biyagama. Sri Lanka Police, he said, has the highest number of officers who die on duty of any service in the country. Nearly 200 have lost their lives while serving. He added that, given the size of the force, a significant number of personnel fall ill or are injured in road accidents every day, and that two officers had been involved in accidents on the very day he spoke.
These remarks deserve more than a passing line in the news cycle. Behind every figure is a family that waited for someone who did not come home, a police station that lost a colleague, and a community that lost someone who knew its streets and its people.
It is to the IGP’s credit that he said this plainly. Institutions often prefer to speak of strength and discipline while staying mum about vulnerability. Acknowledging the problem is the first step towards fixing it, and the public should welcome the candour.
The measures announced so far are sensible. Basic medical kits have been supplied to every police station, and arrangements are under way to provide physical fitness equipment at station level: both point to an understanding that the risks officers face are not only those of confronting criminals. Many are more ordinary and human: long hours, irregular meals, little sleep, exhaustion at the wheel, and illnesses that go untreated because there is always another shift to cover.
That last point matters. Anyone who has watched a tired officer direct traffic in the afternoon heat, or stand guard through the night, will know that endurance is treated as part of the job. But endurance has limits. A fatigued officer driving home after a double shift is as much at risk as one facing an armed suspect. If road accidents are claiming police lives and limbs every day, then rest, rostering and vehicle safety are matters of life and death, not administrative details.
The IGP spoke of wanting a disciplined, efficient and strong force. That aim is right, but strength cannot be demanded. It has to be built through regular health checks, access to proper medical care, reasonable working hours, safe vehicles and training that prepares officers for the hazards they actually meet. Fitness equipment in a station is welcome. It will mean little if officers have no time to use it or no encouragement to look after themselves.
Mental wellbeing should be part of the conversation as well. Police officers see the worst of what happens to people, and they see it repeatedly. Grief, violence and trauma accumulate. A force that takes health seriously must be ready to support the mind as well as the body, and to make asking for help a sign of good sense rather than weakness.
The public has a part to play. Respect for officers is easy to praise and harder to practise, particularly on a congested road or at a checkpoint when tempers are short. Criticism of misconduct is fair and necessary, and a healthy democracy insists upon it. But we should hold two ideas together: that the police must be accountable, and that those who serve in it are human beings with families, limits and a right to go home safely.
Policymakers, too, should resist the temptation to see this as a matter for the police alone. Funding, equipment, staffing levels and welfare provision are decisions made well above the station counter. If the IGP is right that several programmes are under way to build a more efficient service, they must be properly resourced and followed through, not announced and forgotten.
The first responders of this country run towards trouble so that the rest of us do not have to. The least we can do is make sure that, in the course of protecting us, they are protected too.