REPEAL AND REPLACE THE INDECOM ACT: In The Interim Officers Should Stand Down.

♦ The com­mis­sion­er of INDECOM is empow­ered to direct both secu­ri­ty agency heads, to car­ry out and effect change to their respec­tive agen­cies , even though they are ulti­mate­ly respon­si­ble for the effec­tive­ness of their agen­cies. If this was not so poten­tial­ly dam­ag­ing it would be laugh­able. Whose idea was this? This autho­riza­tion by leg­is­la­tors is a clear abdi­ca­tion of leg­isla­tive respon­si­bil­i­ty. If changes are to be made by these impor­tant Agencies those changes should only be made by the peo­ple’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the cab­i­net after much con­sul­ta­tions and debate. This pow­er is now shoved into the purview of an ego­tis­ti­cal nar­cis­sist, Terrence Williams who seem to have a seri­ous Napoleonic com­plex. ♦ Sections of the Act lit­er­al­ly forces police offi­cers to self incrim­i­nate, it forces them to give state­ments prompt­ly when they are forced to use force even as they are trau­ma­tized and should have the ben­e­fit of coun­sel. This clear­ly is not a con­sti­tu­tion­al insert, and leg­is­la­tors should know that. It is anti­thet­i­cal to a per­sons right against self-incrim­i­na­tion. The Police and it’s Union should have guar­an­tees under the laws against self-incrim­i­na­tion. This is not a giv­en under Jamaica’s Banana-Republic Kangaroo-left­ist lib­er­al courts. ♦ The Act gives (inde­com) the pow­er to inves­ti­gate all cas­es of shoot­ing, fatal or oth­er­wise . This gives the impres­sion that every instance where the police uses force regard­less of pro­pri­ety, the police are left look­ing like sus­pects.   This par­tic­u­lar area of the law is not just counter pro­duc­tive to good law enforce­ment it is a colos­sal waste of time and mon­ey. It does a seri­ous dis-ser­vice to police offi­cers who, even when they risk their lives are left look­ing like crim­i­nals sus­pects and open to con­coct­ed crim­i­nal charges.This is borne out by the very find­ings of the very agency which is tasked with these inves­ti­ga­tions. In a sub­mis­sion to Parliament (inde­com) head Terrence Williams report­ed that in the major­i­ty of cas­es inves­ti­gat­ed by his office, police offi­cers act­ed prop­er­ly in the actions they took. What then is the need for all cas­es of police shoot­ings to be inves­ti­gat­ed in light of those com­ments, if not to intim­i­date and Hog-tie police hands? ♦The police fed­er­a­tion chair­man stat­ed that (inde­com )approach­es all cas­es from a pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al per­spec­tive. That hap­pens when you allow a nar­cis­sist to under­take an impar­tial task. There are no instances in the Industrialized world and I dare­say any place else, where police offi­cers are sec­ond-guessed in the law­ful exe­cu­tion of their duties, or sub­ject to inves­ti­ga­tions for doing their jobs. Investigations are ini­ti­at­ed when there are cred­i­ble rea­sons to con­duct inves­ti­ga­tions. Jamaican cops are sub­ject­ed to mak­ing life and death deci­sions against some of the world’s most deranged killers, if they sur­vive they like­ly risk lengthy impris­on­ment because the demon killed is con­nect­ed to the very peo­ple who write the leg­is­la­tion. this can­not be allowed to stand. In fact the police fed­er­a­tion chair­man has detailed the effect this is hav­ing on offi­cers he represents.

Wilson said mem­bers report­ed great men­tal stress brought on just by think­ing about their per­son­al wel­fare and inabil­i­ty to finance legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion. According to the Police Federation head, INDECOM has been using coer­cion to com­pel mem­bers to give state­ments with­out the ben­e­fit of per­sons hav­ing legal con­sul­ta­tion. According to Wilson, the fre­quent demands by INDECOM for mem­bers, espe­cial­ly oper­a­tion sup­port units that play a crit­i­cal role in high crime areas, to vis­it their offices in pur­suance of their inves­ti­ga­tions have sig­nif­i­cant­ly deplet­ed the oper­a­tional strength of these units.“The man­ner and method­ol­o­gy employed by INDECOM could seri­ous­ly com­pro­mise nation­al secu­ri­ty espe­cial­ly if con­fi­den­tial sources are revealed,” Wilson added. He said there were clear instances which sug­gest­ed that INDECOM in their quest to pros­e­cute police offi­cers would go to any length to obtain infor­ma­tion, even if it means com­pro­mis­ing con­fi­den­tial sources. Read more: http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​C​o​p​s​-​g​e​t​t​i​n​g​-​u​n​f​a​i​r​-​t​r​e​a​t​m​e​n​t​-​f​r​o​m​-​I​N​D​E​COM – says-Wilson_15358222#ixzz2jnLUfVSG.

This law is a bad piece of leg­is­la­tion. There needs to be vig­i­lant police over­sight, this law is not the answer. The INDECOM Act needs to be repealed, there needs to be seri­ous dis­cus­sions involv­ing all stake-hold­ers. Serious police sci­ence research data must be applied con­fig­ur­ing such facts to Jamaica’s unique sit­u­a­tion. Jamaican researchers should be exclud­ed from this process because of their lack of under­stand­ing of law enforce­ment com­plex­i­ties and it’s impor­tance to a sta­ble soci­ety. As the inept Government empow­ers an over­sight agency to harass law-enforce­ment crime con­tin­ues to head north. Fewer and few­er peo­ple are return­ing to the coun­try to live. Less and less invest­ment dol­lars are head­ing to the coun­try. In fact reports show that over the last decade the num­ber of return­ing res­i­dents have been cut by 50% . This is not hap­pen­ing in a vac­u­um, the lead­er­ship of the coun­try is show­ing seri­ous inabil­i­ties to gov­ern the coun­try. Continued ero­sion of the rule of law is unacceptable.
This law places offi­cers lives at risk , caus­es the unin­tend­ed con­se­quences of mas­sive loss of civil­ian lives and embold­ens crim­i­nals. It should be repealed and replaced.