Prank Calls and Systemic Failures: Rethinking Emergency Policing in Pakistan’s Criminal

Abstract

According to multiple sources PUKAAR - 15, which is an emergency response service in Punjab, Pakistan is facing a major issue of prank calls being made to the service. These calls not only contribute to overburdening of the service but is also a tremendous waste of the public resources. The purpose of the research is to investigate the situations and know the perception of the police officers on the issue of irrelevant calls. As a method to the research the researcher has selected a sample of those 60 police officers who are serving or served at 15, from Sargodha division through convenient sampling. Questionnaires were distributed among the officers to get to know about their perception to the problem. On the basis of data collected from the officers it was observed that these calls were misuse and abuse of the emergency service. These irrelevant calls were also an overburden on the emergency response service. Most of these irrelevant calls included exaggerated calls and pranks call. After analyzing the situations the researchers has also advised some of the responses to the irrelevant calls to best of his knowledge in order to prevent the problem of irrelevant calls.