JCF MUST DO MORE AND BETTER WITH LESS:

The Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) has long lamented the shortage or absence of resources to get the job done effectively.

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Police Station ‚Constant Spring:

Recently the Force announced it was oper­at­ing with 50% of the resources it needs to get the job done. Having served in the JCF I under­stand the seri­ous­ness of not hav­ing even the most basic resource to do the job.

On the oth­er hand I was also wit­ness to the JCF’s lack of man­age­ment, which result­ed in excep­tion­al waste and dupli­ca­tion of efforts, fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing the resource issue.

These waste gen­er­al­ly are clear, first in the qual­i­ty of a por­tion of the Force, there have always been too many offi­cers who should find alter­na­tive employ­ment. This is attrib­ut­able to their lazi­ness, lack of focus, lack of integri­ty, lack of love for the job, lack of com­mit­ment to the cause.There are legit­i­mate argu­ments to be made for a lack of com­mit­ment. I would sim­ply argue that though those argu­ments are legit­i­mate, they are not rea­son enough to be a slack­er . Those opposed to work­ing for the wages , or are offend­ed by oth­er sit­u­a­tions are free to leave.

Then there is the treat­ment of the vehi­cles , which gen­er­al­ly are not suit­ed to Jamaica’s ter­rain, no fault of the Police and sec­ond­ly the round the clock oper­a­tion of the vehi­cles, again this is not some­thing that should rea­son­ably be pinned on the depart­ment, it is attrib­ut­able to the shortage.

The way patrols are done are inef­fec­tive and counter-pro­duc­tive even. This needs a com­plete reassessment .

On the gen­er­al issue of waste, the same argu­ments may be made about many busi­ness­es and agen­cies in Jamaica and oth­er coun­tries. Jamaica sim­ply can­not afford it.

When both sides of the resource issue is con­sid­ered, the truth lies some­where in between the two sides, with a lean­ing toward not near­ly enough of any­thing to do the job. With that said the true test of any man­ag­er or man­age­ment com­pa­ny, is to do the best job pos­si­ble with lim­it­ed resources.

In the American civ­il war between North and South, Union General, Westmoreland com­plained to President Abraham Lincoln about not hav­ing enough Troops to attack the Confederate South, Lincoln replaced Westmoreland with General Ulysses S Grant. We all know that Grant won the war sav­ing and cement­ing the Union and the United States as we know it today.

My point is that Jamaica is a poor devel­op­ing coun­try, many peo­ple will chal­lenge me even on the notion of Jamaica being a devel­op­ing coun­try. There will nev­er be enough resource to go around. Neither polit­i­cal par­ty is par­tic­u­lar­ly fond of the rule of law, in fact some of the peo­ple at the high­est lev­el of Government/​Opposition are crim­i­nals, or at a bare min­i­mum, main­tain crim­i­nal con­tact. They do not want a pro­fes­sion­al com­pe­tent and inde­pen­dent police department.

Late 1987 I was tem­po­ral­ly trans­ferred to Constant Spring along with three oth­er men, Allen Gauntlet, Keith Skully and O Marston oth­er­wise called (Fat-Ball), Marston was some­what port­ly, hence the moniker. None of us was full trans­ferred in Force Orders from The Mobile Reserve where we were offi­cial­ly sta­tioned, we were sim­ply sent to fill the vac­uüm which was left from the trans­fer of then Detective Sargent Cornwall (big­ga) Ford, a leg­end, who had just been trans­ferred to the Flying Squad, based at the Kingston Central Police compound.

For the record, nev­er let any­one tell you that name brand-cops do noth­ing to bend the crime curve south. Determined crim­i­nals have esca­lat­ed crime, deter­mined cops bend the curve south. 

Throughout our coun­try’s his­to­ry there have been noto­ri­ous­ly dan­ger­ous crim­i­nals, these men have large­ly gained their noto­ri­ety, through dif­fer­ent means , brutality,callousness, aid­ed and abet­ted by sym­pa­thet­ic mem­bers of the pub­lic, Politics, cor­rupt-cops, the ter­rain of our coun­try, and oth­er means.

Conversely we have pro­duced deter­mined cops who knew how to remove crim­i­nals from the streets, Cops like Keith (trin­i­ty) Gardener, Joe Williams, Anthony Hewitt, Altimoth (par­ra) Campbell, Isiah Laing, are some of the more rec­og­niz­able names, of course there are men, and yes Women, Like Hortense Brown, who in many cas­es were just as effec­tive, Dick Hibbert, Ruddy Dwyer, Benjamin, O C Hare, and a long line of valiant sol­diers of urban polic­ing who under­stood our coun­try’s ter­ror­ists and how to deal with them.

The men and women whom I did not men­tion need not doubt their con­tri­bu­tion to our coun­try’s sta­bil­i­ty, you know your­selves, the point was about the most cel­e­brat­ed, the most well known.

I nev­er wore , nei­ther did I ever see a bul­let-proof vest dur­ing my decade of ser­vice from 1982 to 1992, we did not have com­put­ers, we did not even have type-writ­ers, at the Constant Spring CIB which serves some of the most depressed com­mu­ni­ties and some of the most upscale, we did not have a typewriter.

I sug­gest­ed to detec­tive Seargant McInnis that we use col­ored pins and a map of our geo­graph­i­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty to assist us. Different col­or pins rep­re­sent­ed dif­fer­ent types of crimes. Red for mur­der, blue for rapes, green for break-ins, yel­low for shoot­ings and so on.

This very sim­ple ‚unso­phis­ti­cat­ed method, allowed us to see, in real terms ‚what type of crimes were being com­mit­ted where. Complainants sup­plied us with the when, it made it eas­i­er for us to find the who.

I sought and gained per­mis­sion to approach inter­est­ed par­ties oper­at­ing in our precinct, and asked for old dis­card­ed type-writ­ers. Business-peo­ple were more than hap­py to give us usable type-writ­ers and desks, this made the demand from the kha­ki-clad clowns for a tor­rent of paper-work more pos­si­ble. At the time I was at the CIB office, they demand­ed 5 copies of all crimes com­mit­ted in the Parish of St. Thomas, St. Catherine and St. Andrew North, which con­sti­tut­ed Police Area 5.

It gen­er­al­ly took hours to record the crimes from St Catherine, a sin­gle detec­tive work­ing the office on any giv­en night would start writ­ing as soon as he entered the office at 8:pm some­times he would still be writ­ing at 9:am when the morn­ing shift arrived and some­times , long after. All of those crimes in detail had to be record­ed by hand and dupli­cat­ed 5 times.

I came up with the nov­el idea of car­bon paper, they put the brakes on that com­plain­ing that car­bon cre­at­ed smudges, which ren­dered the doc­u­ment illeg­i­ble, so it was back to writ­ing and writ­ing and writing.

One copy for the Commissioner’s Office, one for the Divisional Officer, one for the Area Officer,one for the crime chief. one for the Divisional Detective Inspector. A colos­sal waste of paper and man­pow­er to large­ly sat­is­fy the egos of lazy pompous over­weight dead-woods.

My point in all of this is this. The Commissioner will nev­er have all the resources he needs, what he does have is the infi­nite resource called the brain. Commissioner Ellington must devel­op strate­gies in con­junc­tion with capa­ble offi­cers at his dis­pos­al, to stop the scourge of crime. That will not get done with most of the kha­ki-clad crew he has, most should be retired to save tax-pay­ers money.

Pushing paper, or sit­ting behind a desk is not polic­ing. Most of these peo­ple, some I served with, are more con­cerned with the way a piece of fools-cap paper is fold­ed, so they may write non­sense on it, than how to remove crim­i­nals from the streets. In fact, many of them nev­er arrest­ed any­one, nev­er been to court, but they are car­rear cops, and don’t ever let them hear an explo­sion, Usain Bolt would have to seri­ous­ly strug­gle to keep his world record.

No won­der the coun­try is inun­dat­ed with crime, the kha­ki-clad clowns are more cor­rupt, more cor­rod­ed by pol­i­tics than the young men. Money being the only thing which flows upstream.

I would be hap­py to sup­ply the Commissioner with a detailed plan, out­lin­ing how to reduce crime by 20 to 30% in the first year. By the time the sec­ond year comes around, crime will begin to take a seri­ous trend downwards.

All he has to do is ask.

More to come on this issue: