Back in the day policing was aided and enhanced by two critical components which worked relatively well .
These two components have outlived their usefulness and should be discarded as the country strive for a more scientific and intelligence based form of policing and dispensation of justice commensurate with the 21st century.
DISTRICT CONSTABLES
District constables are an auxiliary of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) they are appointed by the Commissioner of Police and are assigned to the communities in which they live.
District Constables once offered valuable service to the police department and the nation.
Traditionally, regularly police officers relied on District Constables to act as a kind of walking warrant.
It was generally accepted that as long as a district constable was present police could enter a dwelling without a warrant and search for wanted criminals and or contraband.
Today as the job of law enforcement becomes a lot more challenging it may be time to dispense with the DC as we affectionately refereed to those loyal men and women who have risked much and may not have gotten the recognition they deserve for their service and sacrifice.
Once upon a time District Constables were merely appointed but received no training, they learned on the job.
Today they receive four to six weeks training at the Jamaica Police Academy and are now assigned uniforms.
Their training includes Laws and Police Duties. Community Policing. Use and Care of Firearms. Defense Tactics and Drills.
As the nation move to modernize the force into a twenty first century department it may be time for the DC’s to go and the funding allocated them be used toward modernizing the force. .
JUSTICES OF THE PEACE(JP)
Justices of the peace have given invaluable service to our nation , effectively operating as quasi magistrates in the absence of real magistrates.
In other cases Magistrates have not made themselves available so that the wheels of justice can turn effectively and efficiently.
Despite the quality services lay magistrates (JP’s) have given over the years politicians have effectively corrupted and corroded the lay magistrates process.
Political plants and operatives have made a mockery of the functions they performed in the process of the dispensation of justice.
For decades the two political parties have so corrupted this process that many who are lay magistrates are active criminals.
It is because of this contamination that the push by justice Minister Delroy Chuck to broaden the scope of this program should be of grave concern to all Jamaicans.
For example under the new [Zones Of Special Operations Act] (ZOSO), It is the responsibility of the JP’s to be present when the security forces are conducting searches.
In addition, people detained or arrested must immediately be brought before a JP, who will determine whether there are reasonable grounds for the arrest or detention.
If the JP is satisfied that the arrest or detention is justified, the person shall be remanded in custody for not more than 24 hours, after which he must be brought before the judge of a parish court.
If the JP is not satisfied that the arrest or detention is justified, “he shall order that the person be released forthwith.”
So many factors within this are wrong, fear ‚collusion are just two of the components which could render this process a dud, yet it is what has been foisted on the police and the nation by the Holness administration.
In other words the fundamental authority of the Police is abrogated and abridged ‚supplanted by and with the authority of potential untrained political hacks.
At a time when the nation is under threat from well organized and heavily armed gangs and militias the Government’s push is to walk the country back into the vestiges of our colonial past.
This is what is being codified into law even as the country grapple with existential threats to human life and national security on a broader scale.