Neighbourhood Police Post

A Neighbourhood Police Post (Abbreviation: NPP; Malay: Pondok Kejiranan Polis) is a small police station in Singapore modelled after the Japanese Koban (police box) system, whereby police presence is enhanced in the neighbourhoods with the aid of a high number of smaller police establishments.

History

The NPP system was introduced in 1983 as the Singapore Police Force shifted focus to introduce community policing in a big way, as opposed to a system more reliant on reactive policing. An NPP was setup for each constituency in several phases, thus numbering over 80 by the time all of them were opened.

Impact

Review

Although widely considered a successful system, the continued reliance on resources in the divisional headquarters, manpower constraints, and the recruitment of an increasingly well educated workforce led to a major review of the system towards one in which simple investigation work are delegated to ground officers. This move, besides helping to better maximise existing manpower, also aims to give police officers a greater sense of satisfaction and pride in their work. Manpower and resources were reconfigured and pooled into a new category of police establishments, known as the Neighbourhood Police Centres (NPCs) straddling between the size of the divisional headquarters and the NPPs.

With the implementation of the NPC system in 1997, several NPPs were closed, while existing ones played largely supportive roles as front-line counters for the community seeking police assistance. Today, most NPPs no longer operate for 24 hours, with most opening from noon to 10 p.m. daily.