Excerpts of Robert Montague’s statements made at the Annual Devotional Exercise staged by the constabulary at the Police Commissioner’s Office.
“Whoever is the next commissioner, and whoever is the next assistant commissioner will have to sign a contract with performance standards and timelines.”
“Every member going forward now who is going to the high command [will] have to sign a contract. You have to resign from your regular service and sign a contract, or don’t take the promotion, so you have a choice.”
“As the minister, I am held accountable by the public of Jamaica,” he said, adding that the police commissioner is the person who has operational responsibility for dealing with crime, “so he or she has to come to the table with a plan”.
“We don’t hear that over 700 men and women in the force have a first degree, we don’t hear that 320 serving men and women have a master’s degree, some have two. We don’t hear that five members of the force are currently writing their dissertation for PhDs, and we don’t hear that 20 members are attorneys-at-law, and then they tell me that there is nobody competent in the force to lead? Run wey wid dat!”
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/New-commish-must-provide-performance-targets – says-Montague_85511
IF YOU UNDERSTAND ACCOUNTABILITY AND PERFORMANCE YOU MUST BE STUNNED BY THIS.
You are probably as stunned as I am at this statement.
On the face of it the idea of a potential commissioner of police coming to the job without a crime fighting strategy of his/her own is absolutely stunning.
It is shocking at least to me, that a potential candidate for the Nations top cop would be hired without a strategic plan on how to deal comprehensively with crime.
So what was the criteria for hiring previous commissioners of police?
Additionally, what were the prerequisites for promoting people to senior leadership positions , outside the normal, nepotism, friends, yard-boys, sleeping with the boss, news-carrying, long service, yes men/women etc?
For years I made the case that the so-called police high command is largely an over-bloated useless bureaucracy with no clear performance standards.
I believe the Minister’s statements bore that out succinctly.
For years after leaving the Police department I have written extensively on best practices which I believed, and still do, should enhance the process of good leadership in the JCF and good policing on the streets.
It is utterly disheartening to me , to now hear that there wasn’t even a strategic vision by previous commissioners of police.
At least by inference.
At the risk of flogging a dead horse I must divest the esteemed Minister of National Security of the notion that people with PhD ‘s and multiple graduate degrees translate into good cops.
Education is absolutely great, but a cop must want to be a cop, not a lawyer or anything else. People having graduate degrees does not naturally translate into good leaders , much less good cops.
It may only mean they can’t find other vocations in Jamaica’s limited work environment.
One has to assume that a commissioner of police who comes to the job without his own crime fighting plan will not be effective executing someone else’s plan , a plan he does not believe in, or more shockingly, a plan which does not exist.
There is an old saying “if you don’t know where you are going you are already there”.
PhD’s and other degrees are not panaceas for effectively dealing with the Island’s crime problem. If they were, the problem would have been fixed with the hiring of Carl Williams.
As I have stated repeatedly in this medium, Former NYPD commissioner William Bratton is a template of effective cop/commissioner.
He never had a degree, throughout his career he did multiple courses germane to his chosen profession.
He was a beat cop who started out on the streets of Boston Massachusetts.
He was a cop’s cop , a man who wanted to be a cop. Not a cop who wanted to be a Dr or Lawyer.
Sure these are noble parts of the puzzle , but being a good police officer does not hinge on any of that.
Jamaica needs good police officers, good middle managers, and a good commissioner of police who understands Jamaica’s unique policing complexities.
Not a Commissioner and a cadre of fancy dressed wall-flowers who never made an arrest but use their positions to make life difficult for their juniors instead of providing mentor-ship and leadership.
Jamaica’s crime problem cannot and will not be solved by the police alone.
Government and civil society cannot hide like cowards from the part they too must play in solving this puzzle.
Norman Manley once said “there can be no real victory without a few broken skulls” .
Jamaicans will inevitably come to realize that you first secure and render a scene safe before you care for casualties.
Yes we must be mindful of human rights abuses , but we can never successfully do so unless we neutralize those who would do harm to the innocent.
I am not suggesting that citizens rights be sacrificed on the altar of crime fighting. The two are certainly not mutually exclusive.
I am merely suggesting that if the nation is serious about the existential threat crime poses , its loyalties ought to lie with the police department, flawed though it is.
It will be a work in progress, Jamaicans must realize that it is the dirty corrupt Governments they tolerated for decades which led to corruption in the police department.
Jamaica will have significantly less crime when the people allow themselves to be governed by the rule of law and not the rule of the jungle.
It’s all in their hands.