DCP Fitz Bailey Makes Light Of 336 On Average Fleeing The JCF…

An inter­est­ing phe­nom­e­non has always occurred in Jamaica; around every four years, vio­lent crimes tend to dip in num­bers. The police high com­mand is usu­al­ly quick to take cred­it for the decreased mur­ders, rapes, and wound­ings dur­ing these lulls but is eeri­ly silent when the killings go up again.
There are more lulls these days as the entire world is engrossed in the Olympics, World Cup Soccer, World Cup Female Soccer, and a range of National and International Athletic meet in which Jamaica par­tic­i­pates and usu­al­ly does very well.
This year is no excep­tion, and true to form, a senior mem­ber of the so-call high com­mand of the police depart­ment sought to cap­i­tal­ize on the lull or slight decrease in vio­lence by throw­ing out the same tired old talk­ing points that blow up in their faces as soon as the gang­sters decide to get back to doing what they do.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Fitz Bailey told local media, crime rates have decreased, with mur­ders drop­ping from 891 to 786 over sim­i­lar peri­ods in con­sec­u­tive years. The Police should be guard­ed about speak­ing about crime sta­t­ics in the mid­dle of the year with four months to go. Bailey also made some curi­ous com­ments about the seri­ous prob­lem of attri­tion the force is expe­ri­enc­ing, claim­ing that while the JCF seeks to recruit over 1,000 mem­bers annu­al­ly, offi­cers’ depar­tures due to issues like remu­ner­a­tion, supe­ri­ors’ treat­ment, and unsat­is­fac­to­ry work con­di­tions have prompt­ed con­cerns about attri­tion. Still, he is not very con­cerned about the num­bers as he says the cur­rent force is yield­ing results. How could a senior man­ag­er make such a ludi­crous state­ment and still retain his position?
Lets us exam­ine the num­bers. The strength of the Jamaica Constabulary Force con­tin­ued to increase; as of December 31, it had increased by 4.0 per­cent to 12,498, still 11.3 per­cent below the estab­lish­ment size.”As the size of the force increased mar­gin­al­ly, so has the size of the broad­er pop­u­la­tion, which makes the mar­gin­al increase in force size a wash.

Last year, 564 per­sons (452 males and 112 females) joined the force. This was 28 per­sons few­er than in 2021. At the same time, 336 offi­cers left the force. So the force reg­is­tered a net gain of 228 peo­ple. It is impor­tant to extrap­o­late from the data how the Jamaican peo­ple are ben­e­fit­ting from this or not.
Of the 564 who signed up and were trained in 2021, 112 were women. I have seen dead­wood male cops, and I have seen dead­wood female cops. We can be polit­i­cal­ly cor­rect, or we can take a real­ly hard look at the data and come to con­crete deci­sions on who we are sign­ing up and call­ing police officers.
Former Prime Minister Bruce Golding took flak for point­ing to the fact that he is less inclined to see a lot of females sign­ing up to be police offi­cers because he did not believe they were ful­ly capa­ble of doing the job.
The howls of sanc­ti­mo­nious out­rage against Golding were deaf­en­ing, as I am sure it will come at me, but who cares. The [real­i­ty] is that only a small per­cent­age of women can actu­al­ly per­form at the lev­el required to police Jamaica.
Period!!!

“Whilst I do appre­ci­ate that terms and con­di­tions of ser­vice, phys­i­cal infra­struc­ture, and work envi­ron­ment is also crit­i­cal. People don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly leave the job because of that alone. People will come into the orga­ni­za­tion and leave in a few years.” DCP Fitz Bailey said.“ I don’t think our rate of attri­tion is high­er than any­where else. Young peo­ple gen­er­al­ly don’t stay too long on one job, and I think we need to train and recruit peo­ple con­stant­ly. I would like to see the data that DCP Bailey is look­ing at to make the asser­tion that the attri­tion rate of the JCF is sim­i­lar to oth­er departments.
Nurses, Firemen, Doctors, Teachers, Police Officers, and pro­fes­sion­als of every oth­er dis­ci­pline must be trained to strength­en exist­ing num­bers as well as to replen­ish what already exists. It is easy for DCP Bailey to argue that he is not con­cerned because he is not pay­ing to train those offi­cers who are leav­ing in droves, as some more sane mem­bers of the force see it.
The now Interdicted head of the Police Federation, Corporal Rohan James, told the media, “Persons are sub­mit­ting res­ig­na­tions left, right, and center.
It is right across the JCF. Even the spe­cial­ized oper­a­tions are being jolt­ed,” he said. “There are a num­ber of rea­sons why they are quit­ting. Some are leav­ing for green­er pas­tures. Some are just tired of the crime, salary, lack of resources, the dis­re­spect, you name it.”
Another cop told a jour­nal­ist, “If you see your col­leagues go off on a long vaca­tion, you real­ly don’t expect to see them come back.”

The cost of train­ing a sin­gle police offi­cer is not as low as one might imag­ine. The tax­pay­ers have to foot the bill for their train­ing. I under­stand that there will be attri­tion, as DCP Bailey allud­ed. Nevertheless, mak­ing light of the astro­nom­i­cal­ly high flight from the force is a strat­e­gy that is bound to fail. It is like try­ing to col­lect water in a leak­ing bucket.
In a force of just over 12 000, to have 336 offi­cers leave in a sin­gle year is no small thing. It is a mas­sive prob­lem that the sup­posed high com­mand could attempt to reme­di­ate rather than try to paper over a rot­ting wall.
(1) On the issue of supe­ri­ors’ treat­ment, this can be reme­di­at­ed with pol­i­cy that instant­ly makes it clear that being in a com­mand posi­tion does not make you God, be dis­re­spect­ful to a sub­or­di­nate, and you are demot­ed. (2) unsat­is­fac­to­ry work con­di­tions, the so-called high com­mand can make it clear to the gov­ern­ment that mem­bers of the rank and file will no longer work in the deplorable con­di­tions that have obtained for decades. The High com­mand must be able to be more than polit­i­cal lack­eys and lap­dogs for the coun­try’s politi­cians. Grow a cou­ple and stop being apol­o­gists for the fail­ure of the two polit­i­cal par­ties. Having a halfway decent office and halfway decent salary for your­selves should not lull you into accept­ing the shit that the rank and file has been forced to accept. It is clas­sic divide and con­quer. But the high com­mand has nev­er been much more than peo­ple pro­mot­ed above their capabilities.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.