Former JDF Sergeant And Driver To Antony Anderson A District Constable, Promoted To Ass/​Supt, In JCF.……

THE CONSTABLES (DISTRICT) ACT [Date of Commencement: 16^th May, 1899]

Appointment of dis­trict con­sta­bles

 (1) The Commissioner of Police may, with the sanc­tion of the Governor-General, appoint in any parish, such num­ber of per­sons as he may think nec­es­sary, being house­hold­ers res­i­dent in such parish, to be dis­trict con­sta­bles, whose pow­er and author­i­ty under this Act shall extend to all parts of the Island. 

Day in day out we talk in this medi­um about things which are unhealthy to our nation being tak­en for grant­ed and every­one sim­ply falls in line.
This sense of apa­thy, or igno­rance of best prac­tices allows those hold­ing the reins of polit­i­cal pow­er to con­tin­ue to push the bounds of nor­mal­cy and decen­cy.
In the above para­graph high­light­ed in blue, I cit­ed part of the District Constable Act as doc­u­ment­ed in [jamaicala​won​line​.com].
The pur­pose of this is to look at the author­i­ty under which the per­son act­ing as Commissioner of Police may appoint District Constables with the sanc­tion of the Governor-General.

Which brings me to the point of this Article.
A sim­mer­ing caul­dron of anger and resent­ment is brew­ing at the actions of the Commissioner of Police Antony Anderson.
Anderson who hails from the JDF, was brought in to be Commissioner of Police after a stint as the first National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister.
Anderson brought with him his dri­ver, a Jamaica Defense Sergeant, we have been reli­ably informed that Anderson appoint­ed that dri­ver a District Constable.

Now so far there is noth­ing unto­ward that a for­mer mem­ber of the JDF would want to join the JCF, albeit in an aux­il­iary role.
It has cer­tain­ly hap­pened before. In oth­er cas­es, for­mer mem­bers of the JDF has applied and entered the JCF, under­went the train­ing and became full-fledged mem­bers of the JCF and has served with dis­tinc­tion.
Now, remem­ber that the rea­sons giv­en to the Jamaican pub­lic for the con­tin­ued appoint­ment of for­mer heads of the JDF to head the JCF are that the Senior Corps of the JCF has been taint­ed and a new approach is need­ed.
Of course, if you join the JDF as an offi­cer and spend your career not inter­act­ing with crim­i­nals it is expect­ed that you will be seen as pris­tine and above board.
Before the knack on the JCF was that they were dumb and une­d­u­cat­ed, that can­not be used any­more, so they go to the default cor­rup­tion option to appoint their friends to these posi­tions of power.

Force orders March 7^th, 2019
Tucked away on page [13]
The Governor-General, act­ing on the advice of the Police Service Commission, has approved the appoint­ment of Mr. Joel Hamilton to the rank of Assistant Superintendent with effect from 2019-01-19. 

Tucked away on page 13 of the 45-page cir­cu­lar was the afore­men­tioned. You may be won­der­ing what is strange about it?
Okay, I need you to con­cen­trate here. This Mr. Joel Hamilton who is so neat­ly tucked away on page 13 with­out much fan­fare, where it could eas­i­ly slip by with­out any notice or com­mo­tion is the very same JDF dri­ver Antony Anderson brought over to the JCF and made him a District Constable.
That same Joel Hamilton is now an Assistant Superintendent of Police.
I know that you thought this sup­posed mod­ern­iza­tion of the JCF would once and for all eschew the Owen Ellington era of bla­tant and crass nepo­tism.
No, it has not stopped, it is sim­ply being done in a man­ner which ben­e­fits a dif­fer­ent set of peo­ple.
Those of us who served in the JCF know that the aver­age joe on the street is more enam­ored with mem­bers of the JDF and with good rea­son.
It is not unique to Jamaica it is a world-wide thing, sol­diers do not gen­er­al­ly haul crim­i­nals off to jail, what’s not to love?
And so Antony Anderson, like Hardley Lewin and Trevor McMillan before him came to the JCF as out­siders because the pow­ers who run the coun­try and their friends in high soci­ety con­vinced the larg­er pop­u­lace that there is no one suit­able or qual­i­fied enough to head the JCF.
Never mind that these are peo­ple who large­ly have come up through the ranks and have earned grad­u­ate degrees.
The fact of the mat­ter is that Anderson is no dif­fer­ent than Owen Ellington, or any oth­er Commissioner of Police has ever been.
Someone once said, ” the true test of a man is to give pow­er to him and watch how he con­ducts him­self”. If ever this was an appro­pri­ate quote, this inci­dent per­son­i­fies it.
The real­ly dis­heart­en­ing thing here is that I see jus­ti­fi­ca­tions used from time to time to shut down dis­qui­et over brazen instances of nepo­tism like this one.“Oh he brings spe­cial skills.“
Law enforce­ment Agencies hire peo­ple as con­sul­tants all the time. In fact, while I was at the Academy Mister Branford taught English but Mister Baranford was nev­er giv­en a police Rank.
There is absoloute­ly no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for giv­ing Rank to a civil­lian employ­ee in a police depart­ment which is struc­tured as a pyra­mid.
It kills morale, demo­ti­vates and cre­ate ran­cor.
This is wrong no mat­ter how it is spun. 

From what we learned this man brings noth­ing to the JCF which is not already there.
Unless of course being a dri­ver now requires some spe­cial skill. Of course, they will lie to you that he brings all kinds of dif­fer­ent tal­ents to the JCF.
The truth is it will be a lie.
The peo­ple above 35 ‑years old who have been serv­ing in the JCF are not like­ly to ever be pro­mot­ed above where they are at the moment. The sup­posed mod­ern­iza­tion of the JCF will even­tu­al­ly see those who have worked but are above the age of 35-years old dis­card­ed as col­lat­er­al dam­age.
Unfortunately, the qual­i­ty of ser­vice offered to the pub­lic by the JCF will not improve regard­less of the mon­e­tary expen­di­ture, because the fun­da­men­tal tenets of fair­ness, decen­cy and best prac­tices are miss­ing.
Like the now-defunct Air Jamaica, the JCF is being used as a means to place friends and fam­i­ly in posi­tions of pow­er.
It looks dif­fer­ent but it’s the same old eat-a-food for those in power.