OVER the last few months, I’ve observed this scene many times around Lahore. At a crossroads, the traffic lights are out, have been switched off or are blinking on yellow; the traffic is a mess, and though there are three to four traffic police officers standing on one side, they are not even trying to manage the traffic flow. Instead, they are only interested in stopping and fining motorcyclists and drivers of commercial vehicles.

Is ensuring a smooth traffic flow not part of traffic policemen’s responsibility? Is making money for the state (or themselves) their primary function, or is ensuring safety for all through implementing a rules-based traffic flow their primary duty?

One of the first principles we teach in economics is that ‘people respond to incentives’. If the traffic wardens are more concerned about making money and meeting their quotas for traffic challans, clearly, these are incentives that have been set by the state and officers are simply responding to them. The traffic department’s message seems to be that meeting quotas and raising a certain amount from challans is more important than making sure that the traffic moves safely and freely. Is this the way to ensure better compliance? Will this lead to better traffic flows in the future? Challans and fines were meant to help ensure safety and smooth traffic on the roads, but they seem to have become an end unto themselves! I doubt the current traffic department managers are really thinking about the medium- or long-term impact of the policy they seem to be following.

But the turn to severe punitive measures as a means of ensuring compliance seems to be a more general turn that officials of almost all state departments have resorted to in Pakistan. We are caught in a vicious cycle where compliance in the short term has become an important variable and departments have learnt that the way to achieving better compliance is by upping the ante and making the punishment more severe. A lot of departments seem to be following the same pattern now.

The use of the stick over the long term will have some unintended consequences.

When increasing fines to deter fast driving on motorways was not seen to be effective, the punishment was enhanced with the registration of FIRs and even arresting those breaking the law. We know our legal system well. An FIR against an individual can mean years of entanglement with the legal system and significant time, money and other costs. But does the punishment fit the crime anymore? Has registering FIRs had the desired impact in terms of deterrence? If not, why was it done? If it did have an impact, is it still fair punishment for driving at 150 kilometres per hour or more on the motorway when the legal limit is 120 km?

This has also happened to young motorcyclists without proper documentation. FIRs were registered against them and some 16-18-year-olds were even arrested. FIRs can ruin any young person’s future and career. Entanglements with the legal system can derail educational and career plans. Eventually, the political leadership had to step in and show magnanimity and let off some of the young people. But the trend is clear.

Steep fines and/or arrests can happen if your utility provider feels that you have been stealing gas or electricity or have tampered with the meter. Tax authorities have been given significant powers as well. A tweet, perceived to be against important national institutions, personnel, or the national interest can mean not only notices from law-enforcement agencies, but also years of prosecution and imprisonment. News reporting has become a lot more dangerous now. Punitive action can be taken through new laws that have been enacted to curb speech; in fact, closing down programmes or channels and/or getting individual journalists fired can also be achieved through informal means.

HRCP has expressed serious concerns about the way in which Punjab’s crime control and terrorism control departments have been handling suspects: there have been far too many deaths in alleged encounters and almost no judicial inquiries have followed. The concerned departments have, of course, denied any wrongdoing but the number of incidents, compared to past records and to what has been happening in other jurisdictions, raises serious questions about extrajudicial actions.

It seems the game is about the short term. In the short term, compliance will definitely respond to harsher punishment (the stick), especially if the latter is isolating and does not give the recipients the time and space to mount an institutional response or elicit a reaction from institutions that should be providing a means of balance and/or appeal. The pendulum is swinging in one direction right now. But the problem with the use of the stick is that it is harder to make it sustainable and it will, for sure, have some unintended consequences.

The harsher punishment will become the norm and the new baseline. To keep deterrence effective, the departments will have to keep making punishment harsher. If the punishment is harsh now, it will be even more out of sync with the nature of the crime when it is enhanced. What happens to citizens’ trust in the state, their expectation of fair and just treatment and communitarian development and their sentiments about their future in the country and the future of the country itself? Countries are not made for harsh laws and punitive implementation. They are run with trust and mutual benefits and joint gains. The punitive trend has weakened the larger purpose and will continue to do so. The short term might look good right now, but it will undermine where we want to go in the medium to long term. Individual departments and officers might be too blinkered to see this, but the political leadership should be able to read the situation and correct course.

The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives and an associate professor of economics at Lums.

Published in Dawn, August 14th, 2026