There is a reason that people from overseas police departments have been offering their services to the Jamaican Government to recreate and refocus the Jamaican Constabulary Force (JCF).
There are good reasons that many fine officers continue to leave the Jamaica Constabulary Force prematurely. For many people looking at the JCF who are not familiar with the discipline of policing or what it should look like, the papered-over broken system that is supposed to be representative of a better police force seems just great.
The police job is not always pleasant; it isn’t always good to look at when executed. Consequently, many are offended when officers act against offenders who refuse to comply with their lawful instructions. And so, the loud noises you hear from bystanders are understandable to officers as long as they do not physically intervene.
Ultimately, the true test of an effective police department is the fulfillment of its mission statement. In the case of the JCF, whose mission statement is the Protection of Life and Property, the Preservation of Peace and Good Order, and the Prevention and Detection of Crime, there is no rational case to be made that this is a worthwhile police department…
https://mikebeckles.com/its-time-to-send-a-clear-message-to-the-bleached-out-faced-killers-that-we-will-not-play-by-their-rules/
Let me be clear: the failures of the JCF cannot and must not be laid at the feet of the Rank and file of the force. The police high command was and still isn’t representative of a competent body that could provide the country with a state-of-the-art police service.
That is not to say quality men and women of competence haven’t served in the high command. It means that the colonial policy directions of the JCF do not allow the force to be a quality twenty-first-century police agency.
It also means that the JCF is still an agency stuck on form, regurgitating and wallowing in the archaic functions of the colonial era while ignoring the substance of its core mission. This effectively makes the JCF decrepit the equivalent of an old building with rotting walls and a new coat of paint.
It does not require foreigners to fix the problems inherent in the JCF execution of its functions; in the same way, it does not require this writer, who left the force long ago. For God’s sake, looking at what works in other places and learning from them is not so hard.
https://mikebeckles.com/move-forward-with-stiffer-penalties-to-hell-with-the-detractors-we-tried-it-their-way-part‑2/
A hindrance to true and lasting competence in the JCF, and I dare say in other government agencies, is the misinformed idea many have that they can do different people’s jobs in other disciplines. This fallacy is born out of the idea that once a person earns a liberal arts degree, that person is considered educated and, therefore, competent to do anyone’s job.
What is laughable is that, though this idiocy is pervasive in our country, they would not have the very same degreed person perform heart surgery on them or fly an airplane on which they are passengers. But they steadfastly believe they know how to do the police job.
Today, the Police high command is populated with officers who have undergraduate and graduate degrees. There may even be one or two with Doctoral degrees. I recall past commissioner Carl William had a Doctoral degree.
In reality, none of that matters in the discipline of policing. Being credentialed is a net positive, but if it is just for being credentialed, it’s a waste of time.
The officers of the high command now speak the King’s English because we were told by the elitists at and out of the intellectual ghetto that the force was bad because officers were dunce.
https://mikebeckles.com/a‑force-for-good-is-an-empty-slogan-without-results/
The irony today is that the same elitists from the intellectual ghetto are trying to persuade Jamaica that the Patios dialect should become a written language and we should all speak it.
Because they said so, what frauds!!!
My friend told me of a recent experience with some young officers who stopped him on his way to work. He explained that the officers were courteous and respectful, and he was soon on his way. It was heartwarming to hear this bit of positivity about their police officers from a Jamaican citizen.
His comments came against the background of some harsh comments I made about the incompetence of the JCF. He insisted that the JCF today is better than the agency of the past.
I respectfully disagreed with my friend. By every metric, the JCF of the 80s was the most effective the agency has ever been and continues to be. Today, we have criminals gravitating toward Jamaica because of the lax laws and the incompetence of the police department. During the 80s, they ran away to foreign lands to find refuge. As I said before, policing is not always pretty, and though officers can be effective and courteous simultaneously, the job of the police is to live up to its mission statement.
https://mikebeckles.com/jolyan-silveras-arrested-but-many-more-well-connected-murderers-walking-free/
The needless death of Constable Rushane Lee along the north-south highway in Saint Anne is a grave reminder of the incompetence of the police high command.
According to the high command, at about 11:40 pm on January 31, officers were conducting vehicular checkpoint duties along the highway in Unity Valley in St Ann when the driver of a Toyota Probox motor car, reportedly traveling at high speed, was signaled to stop. The driver reportedly slowed down and then sped off, hitting the policeman. The injured cop was rushed to the St Ann’s Bay Regional Hospital, where he was admitted. He subsequently died.
There is so much wrong here that goes to incompetence and a glaring lack of appreciation for reality that eludes many people who care about this subject, even some officers.
In one or more of the articles I linked above, I consistently point to the lack of visibility of the police on the streets of our nation, and as such, the streets have become extremely lawless. I have even argued that the police have surrendered the streets to lawless motorists. In rare instances, the police are visible, out of their vehicles, standing around talking and laughing or occupied with their cellular devices. Let me repeat this: Officers have no logical reason to be out of their vehicles. If they need to move quickly, valuable time is lost getting back in and starting. Driving along the North-South and Edward Seaga Highways, I see the occasional cop car, usually with two officers outside the vehicle, supposedly monitoring speeding motorists. What a joke. They are usually not paying attention to the speeders, much less intentional about doing anything about them.
So, why would any commander allow officers to leave their vehicles at night? Before anyone begins to object and come up with some cockamamie reason, let me stop you. Jamaica is inundated with illegal, high-powered guns. Does the police sense that no one will pull up with weapons? However, what do they think those persons will do if someone pulls up with weapons? What would be the officers on the ground response given the likelihood of such a plausible and probable scenario?
The report following the killing of Constable Rushave Lee does [not] include the apprehension of the hit-and-run driver. Some reports indicate that the driver of the vehicle is also a member of the JCF. We have not independently verified that report.
This is the clearest indication that the officers on the ground had no contingency plan to effectuate a meaningful vehicular checkpoint because the force’s leadership had no idea how to do it.
These directives must be written policies inculcated into the ongoing training of officers that are followed with military-style precision.
The vehicular checkpoint in which the constable was killed was not set up to corral criminals; it was set up with the mindset that every driver is a law-abiding citizen. Any argument to the contrary will be meritless and argumentative.
If the mindset was that all motorists are law-abiding, why was one needed in the first place?
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Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.