Public Order Manual Poman 1971 May 2026
The late 1960s were a nightmare for law enforcement administrators. The 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago descended into what a later government report called a "police riot." Officers, untrained in mass demonstration tactics, swung batons indiscriminately. There was no unified doctrine, no national standard for how to handle 10,000 angry citizens blocking a federal building.
Enter the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP). Funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, a team of military tacticians, legal scholars, and veteran officers set out to create the first systematic guide to "civil disorder." The result, published in 1971, was POMAN.
Unlike previous manuals that focused on individual arrests, POMAN treated a protest as a tactical battlefield. It wasn't about community relations; it was about mass geometry. public order manual poman 1971
POMAN 1971 provided expanded guidance on the deployment of CS gas (tear gas).
While POMAN 1971 laid the groundwork for modern policing, it has undergone significant scrutiny and revision in light of modern human rights standards. The late 1960s were a nightmare for law
The political landscape shifted dramatically in 1975. Following a judicial setback (the Allahabad High Court invalidating Indira Gandhi’s election), the government invoked Article 352 of the Constitution. The 1971 manual was rapidly revised and reissued with a new annexure focusing on the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA). Under MISA, police could arrest any person “prejudicial to public order” without a warrant, hold them for up to 12 months without trial, and deny them legal representation.
For two decades, POMAN 1971 was a “restricted” police publication. Police authorities refused to release it to defense lawyers or even magistrates. It was treated as operational secret, leading to accusations that police were inventing their own private criminal code. After a sustained Freedom of Information campaign in the 1990s, most (but not all) of POMAN 1971 was declassified, revealing a document that was simultaneously more professional and more alarming than critics had imagined. The manual standardized riot formation drills
The manual standardized riot formation drills.
