REPEAL AND REPLACE THE INDECOM ACT: Part 2.

The above was the title of yes­ter­days Blog-Post, unfor­tu­nate­ly many peo­ple who respond­ed to the arti­cle chose to see only the word (repeal). I do how­ev­er val­ue the dis­cus­sions we had on this issue and the thoughts shared by every­one. Today I want to expand on the INDECOM Act. It is said that a bad law is worse than no law. The INDECOM Act, is a bad law. For clar­i­fi­ca­tion pur­pos­es I must address one par­tic­u­lar crit­i­cism regard­ing the arti­cle, that is that I am opposed to INDECOM. My quar­rel is not with the Agency, my issue is with the way the law was writ­ten. As I have con­sis­tent­ly said, the law was not prop­er­ly though out. It is impos­si­ble to accuse me of being against INDECOM when I am advo­cat­ing repeal­ing , re-doing, and re-autho­riza­tion of the law.

If crit­ics of my posi­tion feel that they need a law which will put police offi­cers in their place as dumb, illit­er­ate, big-foot­ed morons, who could get noth­ing else to do so they joined the force, then this con­ver­sa­tion is not for them. You are free to have that con­ver­sa­tion with like-mind­ed folks as your­selves. If how­ev­er we want to find a way around the issues of alleged police excess­es and what are char­ac­ter­ized as bla­tant abuse of cit­i­zens rights, then we should have a debate about that. What we should not do how­ev­er, is design a sys­tem which makes vic­tims of one side, even as we seek to assuage anoth­er. I will not re-lit­i­gate the points I raised yes­ter­day which the Federation chair­man has also raised . Sufficient to say that the par­lia­ment was not total­ly brain-dead when it autho­rized the Act. Membes were at least sober enough to give the law a shelf life. This gives them the oppor­tu­ni­ty to revis­it and repair parts of the law which aren’t work­ing so well. Let me be clear INDECOM did not come into exis­tence because some­one came up with the idea that it was good to have trans­paren­cy in a Government Agency. If that was the case Jamaica would be hum­ming as a cul­tur­al and eco­nom­ic hub to be envied. The law came into exis­tence because Police offi­cers con­tin­ue to betray the oath they took, with fright­en­ing fre­quen­cy and impuni­ty. This turned those with the worst intent into legit­i­mate crit­ics of the depart­ment. The depart­ment is then placed in an unen­vi­able ‚unten­able posi­tion. The voic­es of sup­port­ers are often drowned out respond­ing to crit­ics some of whom should be in jail.For those obsessed with the idea that Jamaican police offi­cers are opposed to what they refer to as (pres­sure groups) Oversight, they could­n’t be fur­ther from the truth. They also accuse the fed­er­a­tion Chairman of every­thing , includ­ing being opposed to INDECOM. That is also a lie. I have spo­ken to many offi­cers who wel­come over­sight. What they are opposed to is an agency with inves­ti­ga­to­ry pow­ers and an agen­da con­trary to it’s man­date. That is what INDECOM is . Terrence Williams is not a cred­i­ble head for that agency his friends and asso­ciates are Carolyn Gomes and oth­ers who are known anti-police agi­ta­tors. In a Country of laws Williams would have been fired when he had that Press con­fer­ence with Gomes. One of the foun­da­tion tenets of jus­tice is that it must not only be done , it must also appear to be done. Williams breached that trust of fideli­ty in his quest and desire to self-aggrandize.

There is absolute­ly noth­ing wrong with hav­ing a seaper­ate inde­pen­dent Agency with the same pow­ers as the Police. In fact it is need­ed, com­pe­ti­tion deliv­ers a bet­ter prod­uct to the cus­tomers, the Jamaican peo­ple. One of the rea­sons I have called for the INDECOM law to be repealed and re-done is exact­ly for that rea­son. I believe this new agency should inves­ti­gate all crimes, not just police abus­es. This will draw crit­i­cisms that it would be a dupli­ca­tion of efforts. To those I ask ” is the FBI’s job a dupli­ca­tion of efforts”? Lets have a clean un-encum­bered INDECOM ‚empow­er it to inves­ti­gate crimes includ­ing police, it guar­an­tees a bet­ter law enforce­ment prod­uct through com­pe­ti­tion. When INDECOM mem­bers fall afoul of the law they are sub­ject to being arrest­ed by police. When Police offi­cers fall afoul they are sub­ject to the same treat­ment, what’s not to like it works well for oth­er countries.