In October 1991 I dropped everything and walked away from the job I loved for two reasons.
(1) The pay was shitty, the sum of money I was getting paid once per month was nowhere near close to what was required to live a median basic existence. (1a) I did not want my life to be a median basic existence.
(2) I looked at policing strategically and realized that the people who occupied the positions I would be striving to achieve were hardly any better off than I was.
Twenty-seven years later my decision is validated day after day and it seems to me that despite the fact that nearly three decades have passed since my own exit not only has police officers working conditions and remunerations hardly changed, the quality of the people they serve has deteriorated dramatically.
What we are left with today is a society which has denigrated exponentially, creating an ever-increasing dirty pool from which the nation is forced to draw it’s public sector workers.
It is hard to imagine a situation in which water
The spotlight in Jamaica is usually focused on two sets of public sector workers, Politicians, and Police.
The Jamaican politician is supposed to be the deliverer of goods to everyone and the police
In that blinkered myopic environment, it is hard to near impossible, to focus attention on the fact that the entire public sector is literally corrupt.…. they all came from the same dirty pool.
Despite the foregone, I have always maintained that the Jamaican Police can easily do a better job despite the challenges if it chooses to.
It doesn’t require any effort outside just avoiding stupid mistakes for Christ’s sake.
The JCF is never going to be the darling of Jamaica in my lifetime lets face that reality but it can become an agency that fixes itself, critics be damned.
It can make itself the envy of its hateful detractors, it can make itself feared by its enemies, not feared out of a violent tendency, feared because of its investigative and
The shine and luster the JDF receives were always (a)because soldiers weren’t out arresting criminals, and (b) more soldiers were in fact products of the violent inner-city communities.
Police officers largely come from the Island’s rural communities.
The luster and shine will soon wear away as soldiers are more and more thrust into the role of pseudo police officers.
One way for the JCF to become a better agency is to develop better investigative capabilities.
Of course, we know that the public sector is corrupt, we know that contrary to the misguided perceptions that Judges are above it all many are in fact just as corrupt as the worst criminals, so too are the criminal lawyers. They all come from the same dirty pool.
But the JCF must on its own move into the 21st century and drag the country along if it is to survive.
Improving itself will absolutely [not] be accomplished by looking to the University of the West Indies, that incubator of anti-police -
The police cannot continue to keep exposing its vulnerable underbelly by arresting people simply because they are known criminals without having hard evidence against them.
The arrest without charge of lifelong gangster Tesha Miller by detectives from the Counter Terrorism and Organized Crime branch of the Constabulary, and the resultant order by a judge to release him if he is not charged by Friday, November 2nd is shameful.
Why arrest him if the evidence is not ready? Why arrest his girlfriend if there is no evidence against her?
If she was arrested for some breach of conduct as a result of the arrest of her boyfriend why not charge her and place her before the court?
In as much as I loathe many of the criminal loving hacks who substitute as judges, I cannot fault them for responding in like manner to writs of habeas corpus by defense counsel.
The much vaunted [CTOC] has striven to differentiate itself from other parts of the [JCF].
[CTOC’s] has done good work before it must continue to do good work going forward.
If the JCF and its different arms want to be taken seriously, not necessarily by the criminal loving Jamaican public but at least in the CARICOM region, it has to do a better job at the following.
CASE MANAGEMENT
Brainstorming sessions not only help participants to start talking about why evidence collection is important but also provides the facilitator with an opportunity to assess officers level of knowledge and competence.
According to @[reinventingtherules] these are some pointers which may help police agencies, particularly in developing countries deal with the rising tide of criminality.
a) investigate crime scenes;
b) collect and preserve evidence;
c) interview and examine victims and witnesses;
d) use technology and forensic science;
e) coördinate investigations across police precincts and divisions;
f) coördinate among the various actors in the criminal justice system (police, investigators, prison officials, prosecutors, and judges).
The inability of the police to investigate crime has very real consequences, the most obvious of which is the challenge of prosecuting and convicting criminals.
Where serious crimes are often prevalent, the inability to address it can be immensely destabilizing for the country.
Jamaica is a case study in this regard.
A lack of police training in
Inadequate laws, that are either outdated or do not provide sufficient operational guidance and more importantly enough punitive teeth to deter criminal conduct.
this further hinders efforts to ensure the effective investigation of crimes consistent with international human rights standards and best practices.
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