Good Luck Commissioner Williams

The Police Service Commission select­ed Dr Carl Williams the Nations’s new Police Commissioner. We wish the new Commissioner much suc­cess. Having exit­ed the JCF after only a few years ser­vice I have nev­er met the new chief. I under­stand Williams joined the Department in 1984 , I joined two years pri­or, though we served togeth­er I nev­er met him. The 50 year old Williams hav­ing spent 30 years in the Department was appro­pri­ate­ly reward­ed with the top spot.

Amid the noise sur­round­ing the selec­tion process, many argued that the Commission should look over­seas for a new com­mis­sion­er. I voiced my dis­ap­proval then. I believe the Commission act­ed in good faith in select­ing Carl Williams the tiny nation’s 28 police com­mis­sion­er. It would have been a trav­es­ty to pick some­one from over­seas while the depart­ment have these supreme­ly edu­cat­ed and com­pe­tent lead­ers to move the depart­ment forward.

Williams holds a PhD in crim­i­nal jus­tice. He is the found­ing direc­tor of the (Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency) and is the brain respon­si­ble for devel­op­ing the Anti-Lottery Scam Task Force. He led Jamaica’s anti-nar­cotics cam­paign from 2000 to 2004 which saw major play­ers con­vict­ed and some even extra­dit­ed for their crimes.

The new Commissioner comes to the top spot at a time when the Police con­tin­ue to be a con­tentious issue. Despite the cre­ation and imple­men­ta­tion of the new Agency (INDECOM the image of the agency con­tin­ue to evoke neg­a­tive reviews.

The chal­lenge for Williams is how to man­age those con­cerns in an ever chang­ing envi­ron­ment with­out alien­at­ing the men and women under his com­mand. He must find a way to man­age crime as a busi­ness, giv­ing cit­i­zens what they pay for, while keep­ing the peo­ple under his com­mand moti­vat­ed. No easy task in a coun­try which does not hon­or the rule of law.

For years the Elitist men­tal­i­ty in the Island Nation was that the police were inef­fec­tive because top down they were unin­tel­li­gent morons. Owen Ellington was edu­cat­ed , Carl Williams is superbly edu­cat­ed. The depart­ment has more mem­bers with under­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate degrees per capi­ta, than most depart­ments around the world. Lets now get to the task of seri­ous­ly erad­i­cat­ing crime.