or eight long years, this rather small publication stood like a flickering light in a sea of darkness and bravely offered a glimmer of light to the decent hard working members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force.
In the interest of full disclosure I am a former member and so my worldview is always going to be influenced by my 10-years experience serving in the department, good and bad.
I am the first to confess that my impression of the (JCF) leadership or lack thereof, significantly impacted my decision to make an early exit from the agency.
However, it was never my opinion that the department did not play a significant part in nation building, and must continue to do so.
I was also uniquely mindful that the negatives attributed to the (JCF) were not unique to the agency, but to the extent that those attributions were correct, those attributions should be laid at the feet of the leadership.
The (JCF) top management structure operated not from an enlightened position of motivation and guidance principles but from an overlord position of bullying befitting despotic strongmen in banana republics.
That is not to say that there haven’t been really fine leaders in the recent history of the JCF, there has been. It isn’t totally a question of men its a question of the culture.
The forgone was an acknowledgment that the Police department’s leadership can in no way deny it’s part in the failures of the JCF to the extent that failures exist, and they do.
It is important that while the(JCF) take responsibility for its failings that there is full recognition that the department’s failures, to the extent they exist, are not failings in a vacuum.
Neither can those failings be credibly viewed outside the larger systemic failings all across the public sector since the Independence declarations of 1962.
Importantly as well, the (JCF) is one of the most visible, most consequential agency of government, as such, whatever ails the department is going to be highly visible, highly amplified.
It is the only agency of the government which has several levels and layers of oversight and accountability. The only agency which continues to purge itself all toward a better self. So much oversight that the Agency is now an ineffectual top-heavy behemoth ripe and ready for a final coup de grâce by the very same people who ensured its failure through active measures and neglect.
That coup de grâce is evidenced by the continued installments of outside forces to head the department. By the Bill, they have to codify into law their attempt to tear away the Major Organized Crime Anti Corruption Agency, a part of the department which has been working well, and make it a separate agency.
God forbid that they would give the requisite support needed to the (JCF) to make it a modern police agency with the power and competence to deliver the quality service required of a 21st-century police department.
Instead, they have embarked on a process of demonizing the (JCF) removing parts of which are working and installing their upper St. Andrew cronies over those parts. This has been a systematic approach of the two political parties which for all intents and purposes are codifying the department’s officers into a set of second-class citizens who must die for their country in a (JCF) that they are no longer good enough to lead.
It began when they removed the Passport processing from the purview of the police in order to reward their cronies. The next arm of the Police to go was the Firearm Licencing Authority(FLA). That department needed much fixing under the police but it has since become a colossal cesspool of graft, political malfeasance and a true example of what political corruption can do to a country.
The bill before the Parliament will effectively sever (MOCA) from the (JCF), of course, they had already placed their chosen one, you guessed it from the paper military to head it even as the people doing the real grunge work there are .….….….….….….….….….….members of the hated (JCF).
All of the people now heading the agencies which make up the national security landscape are political placeholders. Many are imminently qualified to be soldiers, lawyers, none have law enforcement bona fides. Terrence Williams, (INDECOM)Anthony Harriot,(PCA) Anthony Anderson,(JCF) Desmond T Edwards(MOCA) Shane Dalling(FLA).
The circumstantial evidence inherent in the placement of people who have zero law enforcement experience into critical positions usually reserved for law enforcement expertise is proof enough of a systemic campaign to reduce members of the (JCF) to blue-collar roles in the national security apparatus despite their academic accomplishments.
Clearly what they have done is to move around their choice picks from role to role to role as they have done With Anthony Anderson the now commissioner of police) from the (FLA) to creating a new role, National security adviser which never existed before, just for him, and finally to place him in charge of the (JCF).
Anderson’s case is only one of the many examples but you would have grasped my gist at this point, all of this has been happening while you weren’t even paying attention.
It is absolutely critical that members of the (JCF) are clear-eyed about what is happening to them and the agency they love. (1) Never be ashamed of your service to the country, (assuming you are true to your oath of office. The failings of the department where they exist, are not your burden to bear.
Those of us who served understand well that within the force of over 12,000 there are some bad actors but by and large the vast majority of officers who step out each day to do the job are honest hard working patriots.
Can the 63 who occupy the lower chambers on Duke street say the same? That’ss the real question.
Don’t be dazzled by a few used cars and some motorbikes, they do not belong to you. Surely you must see these things as essential to the trade and should not be dazzled by these shiny objects they place in front your eyes while they are empowering the rogue INDECOM to imprison you for doing exactly what you were sworn to do.