JCF Welcomes New Chief Chaplain

MANCHESTER, Jamaica – The Jamaica Constabulary Force yes­ter­day wel­comed a new chief chap­lain at an affir­ma­tion ser­vice on the grounds of the Northern Caribbean University in Mandeville, Manchester.

He is Pastor Gary Buddoo-Fletcher, Assistant Commissioner of Police.

The new chap­lain takes over from Bishop Gary Welsh, who now heads the Community Safety and Security Branch.

According to a release from the police’s Corporate Communication Unit (CCU), Buddoo-Fletcher enrolled as a vol­un­teer Chaplain in 2012 and there­after became a cer­ti­fied mem­ber of the JCF. In 2014 he was asked to fill the posi­tion of Acting Assistant Chaplain for the Area One Division. His out­stand­ing work and ded­i­ca­tion to the force led to him being appoint­ed chief force chap­lain, the release added.

The chief chap­lain will now take up his post and serve the Force along with the eight oth­er Force Chaplains under his com­mand. “I am hon­ored to serve God, my com­mu­ni­ty and the JCF in this capac­i­ty. I will do my best to give eth­i­cal, moral and spir­i­tu­al sup­port to the men and women of the JCF and their fam­i­lies and who serve, pro­tect and reas­sure cit­i­zens of our coun­try,’’ said the ACP.
Story orig­i­nat­ed here: JCF wel­comes new chief chaplain

PUBLISHER’S NOTE.
This Article is not exact­ly clear !!!
Despite the crit­i­cal need for coun­selling of the high­est cal­i­bre for police offi­cers I do not believe that it has to be wrapped in the pack­ag­ing of an Assistant Commissioner of police.
One does not have to be a mem­ber of the Police Department to be a part of the sup­port struc­ture. There are to the best of rec­ol­lec­tion 12 Assistant Commissioners of Police . It makes sense that those ranks be made avail­able to police offi­cers who have paid their dues to aspire to.
Those few ranks ought to be pre­served for Career Police offi­cers who have toiled for years and paid their dues show­ing com­pe­ten­cy and commitment.

The JCF present­ly has a force of over 14,000 offi­cers if the num­ber of 12 assis­tant com­mis­sion­ers is still cor­rect it means that it is incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult to reach those ranks. If these posi­tions are hand­ed out as tro­phies, regard­less of the val­ue oth­ers offer to the ser­vice it does a tremen­dous dis­ser­vice to the hard work­ing peo­ple who take the risks and brave the bullets.
Daily we hear about doing things in new ways one thing I recall learn­ing is that you nev­er throw out the baby with the bath water, you don’t fix what’s not broken.
Some of the com­plaints I have heard from mem­bers of the force is dis­en­fran­chise­ment, nepo­tism, demor­al­iza­tion, and a gen­er­al lack of con­fi­dence that the Force cares about officers.
This may be evi­denced by the sui­cide rates we are wit­ness­ing in the force.
The JCF should be mind­ful that in the quest to adopt things new, sim­ply for the sake of doing so,that it does not adopt a fix which is actu­al­ly con­tribut­ing to the problem.