Deterrent is an important part of any policing strategy; visible uniformed officers in specific areas are important to shore up the confidence of those that police seek to reassure and send a clear message to those they want to …deter.
However, the deterrent aspect should only be the frontal part of any policing strategy and planning.
The main strategy for planners cannot and should not be just about uniformed cops out in numbers at certain times like during the Christmas season.
The most important part of the plan should work like a computer motherboard, not just what you see on the computer screen, but what happens behind the screen that you cannot see.
Simply put, there better be a comprehensive plan that includes swat, detectives, the utilization of plainclothes assets, confidential informants, assets planted within the groups you are working to dismantle, eyes and ears on those groups, etc.
Trotting out some student constables you had at the academy marching up-down, up-down to the outdated and useless training manual for a few weeks or months, wearing that ridiculously impractical uniform should reassure no one, but rather should give pause and concern that even at this late stage this is the best that the nation’s security planners can muster.
Gabbing has always been a problem of the police *high command*-*whatever that is.
They never really mattered in any useful way in crime reduction in our country, and as I pointed out in a recent article, they only took credit for the work that the people at the bottom did.
For those reasons, as a young man who passed through the JCF, I had zero regard for what existed as the *high-command* then; I don’t today.
If you are no good at the thing you are best at, what good are you?
Assuming that what I saw in one of the local dailies this morning is the plan the police department has for the Western Parishes, and more specifically Area One, residents and business owners should be very concerned for the Christmas season.
Laying out your strategy in detail to the media is actually telling the criminals what assets you have and how you intend to utilize those assets.
It is reasonable to say that the transnational crime planners in Jamaica are heads and shoulders above the police planners.
Political leaders and others have said so based on the sophistication of the crimes being carried out.
This writer warned many years ago that this would happen largely due to the large number of criminal deportees coming in from industrialized nations.
It is fair; I believe to assume that when the police detail comprehensively how they intend to counter the criminals, the criminals have the capability to develop countermeasures to go around police plans.
I mean, for the love of God, why would a senior police planner detail to the media the measures he intends to execute to keep citizens safe, except that he likes to chat and be seen?
Throughout the years, the JCF and Jamaica have benefited from the name of some brave officers. Some have used varying methods, including unorthodox, to get results for the Jamaican people.
Their methods have, without a doubt, resulted in the preservation of countless lives. Those officers, some well-known others not so much, have given incredible unsung service to our people and nation, some making the ultimate sacrifice in service to their beloved country.
Whether we agree with them or not is not the issue. When we look at the cost-benefit ratio was their efforts worth it? And as Ronald Reagan asked voters in his campaign against President Jimmy Carter in 79, are you better off now than you were four years ago?
I ask Jamaicans now,” are you better off now than when those officers had your back”?
I salute you all: Joe Williams, Trinity, Bigga Ford, Parro Campbell, Noël Asphall, OC Hare, Isiah Laing, Spungy, Dadrick Henry, Tony Hewitt, and everyone in between, men and women.
We were all imperfect men and women doing a difficult job with little or no help, but our hearts were in the right place.
In some instances, yes, we used unorthodoxy, but we kept the people safe.
We were not into talking to the media, we were about the people’s business.
You can talk about modernization all you want but if the video doesn’t match the audio then it is all gibberish.
The criminals are winning this war and you have no clue what you are doing. You cannot plan for what you never trained for, lived, or experienced. Reading something in a book does not a police officer make.
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Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.