A rise in the lethality of domestic threats to civil social life has made the present police forces vulnerable. Various instances have occurred wherein the casualties included a number of dead police officers.
This can subdue the morals of our police forces unless something is done about them. Well, there seems to have emerged a glimmer of hope with the development in robotics.
Robotics is a field of engineering that deals with automated machines. These machines can be of varied sizes and can be programmed to perform different tasks. Because they are nothing but mechanical parts which, once they get damaged, only need to be replaced, they have found use in all those areas where a threat to human life has been perceived. However, they have yet to be tested for policing purposes.
So far there has not been any deployment of robots for policing purposes; the reason for this is that there does not yet exist a robotic police force anywhere in the world. That hasn't stopped Hollywood to make films on the subject- RoboCop series, Inspector Gadget, Street Hawk, and other such ventures were a few results. However, these characters have not been robots but 'androids'- half-human and half-machine.
Policing the Future- Robots in Real-time Action
It is envisioned that despite better surveillance tactics, crime in future societies would increase in intensity and lethality. It would need a well-guarded rather than well-equipped force to fight crime. Life of law-enforcers would have to guarded through various means in order to ensure their crime-fighting capabilities.
There are a few steps being taken in that direction. Research teams across the world have developed different variations of scout robots which can help with not just reconnaissance but also with bomb diffusion, and search and rescue missions. These autobods are controlled by humans through remote controls.
Due to technical limitations, their responsibilities are limited right now. Not too much data can be processed by these machines. Further, there are crucial moments where-in human intelligence is required to step in and take a decision. The programs running these machines lack that kind of decision making capabilities. Hence, for the time being, robots would need to work under the authority of human masters. They would have to wait for a higher level of programming to take on active policing duties.
For the time being, the Hollywood idea of android policemen seems to be the way to go. A police force unit which is seamlessly integrated with different types of mechanical devices would be perfect to fight crime. Hi-tech surveillance and communication devices, autobods armed with bomb defusing devices, reconnaissance equipment and even weapons can be seamlessly integrated with a single human operator. This can infinitely increase the capabilities of a single officer, something which can take a lot of stress of others, leaving them to concentrate on other aspects of the crime.
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