Rushing To Put Out Fires Is Not A Plan To Eradicate Crime.

At the risk of sound­ing like a bro­ken record I must reit­er­ate that if there is no strate­gic plan with mea­sur­able met­rics aimed at root­ing out crime in Jamaica the prob­lem will not only per­sist but get expo­nen­tial­ly worse.
Commissioner Carl Williams may be among the most qual­i­fied Police Commissioners in the world but aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly qual­i­fied does not equals being up to the task.
Commissioner Williams a PhD is the head of a force of over ten thou­sand offi­cers and a depart­ment which is a third world force with third world strate­gies and third world infra­struc­ture and gov­ern­ment support.

New York City’s police Commissioner William (Bill) Bratton attend­ed Boston Technical High School, grad­u­at­ing in 1965. From there, he served in theMilitary Police Corps of the United States Army dur­ing the Vietnam War.[w] Bratton now heads the NYPD the world’s largest and most sophis­ti­cat­ed police depart­ment. Presently Bratton is on his sec­ond stint as Commissioner of the NYPD hav­ing served under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

In most col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties in the United States life expe­ri­ences are vital cred­its toward obtain­ing degrees. Bratton’s pub­lic pro­file is a case study on how a life of expe­ri­ence can be just as impor­tant as being a Scholar . In addi­tion to being Commissioner of the world’s largest police depart­ment he was for­mer­ly the Commissioner of the Boston PD,. Prior to becom­ing Commissioner of that Department he held sev­er­al senior posi­tions with­ing the depart­ment. Additionally he is also the co- founder of Bratton tech­nolo­gies . He also has inter­est in sev­er­al oth­er pri­vate sec­tor com­pa­nies includ­ing the Bratton Group.

Commissioner Bratton’s resume stands as a strong counter argu­ment to the nar­ra­tive that Good Policing requires a litany of let­ters behind one’s name. I say this with the utmost respect for what mem­bers like Commissioner Carl Williams and some oth­ers in the Jamaica Constabulary Force has accom­plished academically.
However it is because of my intrin­sic knowl­edge of the unique nature of Jamaican polic­ing that I argue that the time it takes to get the PhD’s and the Masters Degrees makes it lit­er­al­ly impos­si­ble for a serv­ing mem­ber to ful­ly grasp Jamaican style polic­ing in the practical.
A PhD may be good for writ­ing pol­i­cy papers but good crime fight­ing tech­niques are devel­oped over time and that is indis­pens­able in the fight against ruth­less criminals.

I too am extreme­ly proud that the Commissioner of Police can address the Media with­out me hav­ing a vio­lent cringe attack. In fact I am hap­py that the Prime Minister can address the Media with­out me hav­ing a cringe attack … Oh hell ‚I’m going to get attacked for this …

Okay that was a low blow, I’ll just take the fact that Jamaica now has a PM who actu­al­ly speak to the Media.
However the Police Department can­not be about speak­ing bet­ter only. The Island needs a police Department that actu­al­ly oper­ates better.
Commissioner Williams does seem to care about the high lev­els of crime and he does show the nec­es­sary empa­thy with vic­tims of vio­lent crime. Despite that , what the fam­i­lies of crime vic­tims need from the Police most of all is cer­ti­tude that per­pe­tra­tors will be brought to justice.
Because Commissioner Carl Williams can­not deliv­er on bring­ing per­pe­tra­tors to jus­tice he has been reduced to consoler-in-chief .

In 1991 I sat in on a basic detec­tive train­ing course at the Police Academy which to the best of my rec­ol­lec­tion was a 6 week sem­i­nar which taught basic crim­i­nal inves­tiga­tive techniques.
One of the things I learned in that train­ing course which is indeli­bly etched in my mind to this very day is this. “No greater task may be giv­en any man that the respon­si­bil­i­ty to bring the killer of the inno­cent to jus­tice”.
I held and still hold that charge dear to my heart because it encap­su­lat­ed every­thing I ever believed as a police offi­cer. From the very first time I put on a uni­form and stepped out in the streets I had a core belief deep inside me that no major crimes should go unpunished.
More impor­tant­ly I held fast to the belief that when offend­ers com­mit crimes and they are not held account­able it embold­ens them to com­mit more seri­ous crimes . I believed then as I do now, that this sets in motion a process which if not addressed erodes the rule of law and sup­plant it with anarchy.

That ship may have already sailed for Jamaica despite protes­ta­tions to the con­trary. The dis­ci­pline known as polic­ing has been reduced to media clips and sound-bites laced with plat­i­tudes and promis­es which are nev­er ful­filled. As I have said pre­vi­ous­ly ‚it requires a spe­cial kind of per­son to run to explo­sions when every­one else runs away .
Many peo­ple are brave and have a whole lot to say as long as some­one else is tak­ing the risks. I nev­er wor­ried about those who has the most grandiose argu­ments about what needs to be done and how to do it , but they would nev­er step for­ward to actu­al­ly get involved.
Every real police offi­cer is con­ver­sant of the Monday-morn­ing quar­ter­backs and the key-board Generals who know exact­ly what to do though they have nev­er done it.

In the ear­ly 1990’s Mayor David Dinkins new York City’s first Africa-American Mayor embarked on a pro­gram with the police depart­ment called” safe city safe streets”.
The pro­gram was a coör­di­nat­ed strat­e­gy between City Hall and One Police Plaza which was geared toward using the polit­i­cal clout of the admin­is­tra­tion and the City ordi­nances to tack­le pet­ty offences in the city.
It was a strat­e­gy which saw offi­cers walk­ing the beat and tak­ing action where nec­es­sary to clamp down on squeegee-men, graf­fi­ti-artists and oth­er qual­i­ty of life offences. The strat­e­gy was not one of sticks only there were car­rots as well, police offi­cers built seri­ous bonds with the com­mu­ni­ties which helped sig­nif­i­cant­ly in low­er­ing crime.

The pro­gram took on an omi­nous turn when Dinkins was suc­ceed in City Hall by Rudolph Giuliani who adopt­ed a more stri­dent brand of polic­ing which had racial end eth­nic com­po­nents with­ing it in a pro­gram called ( COMPSTAT) , com­bi­na­tion of man­age­ment, phi­los­o­phy, and orga­ni­za­tion­al man­age­ment tools. COMPSTAT is now used by many police depart­ments across America . Supporters of the pro­gram believes in data dri­ven polic­ing which they say pro­duces results. Detractors say the num­bers arrived at using COMPSTAT are noth­ing more than quo­tas , which forces street cops to engage in undue or over-polic­ing of minor­i­ty communities.
That debate rages as America’s police forces become more and more mil­i­ta­rized and iso­lat­ed from many of the com­mu­ni­ties they are sup­posed to serve.

The Administration which was just replaced in Kingston did not seem to have a desire to empow­er the Police to go after crim­i­nals. Even though the Administration mouthed the words which would make it seem that crim­i­nal­i­ty would not be tol­er­at­ed . It was unwill­ing to expend any polit­i­cal cap­i­tal to bell the cat. As a result the poor­ly trained , poor­ly equipped, poor­ly remu­ner­at­ed police depart­ment was left hold­ing the bag on crime.
Instead of seri­ous­ly going after crim­i­nals the Administration gave more and more pow­er to the INDECOM Act to go after police officers.
This medi­um have said repeat­ed­ly that Government can go after crim­i­nals wher­ev­er they are whether they wear police uni­forms or they oper­ate in the inner cities and enclaves of the Island.
We can guar­an­tee cit­i­zens rights while empow­er­ing and sup­port­ing our police offi­cers , these two ini­tia­tives are not mutu­al­ly exclusive.

The Commissioner has nei­ther imple­ment­ed a work­able strat­e­gy to inter­act and inject mas­sive amounts of foot patrol offi­cers into com­mu­ni­ties. Neither has there been as seri­ous approach to get­ting the inves­tiga­tive capa­bil­i­ties of the force up to stan­dard . Putting up crime scene tape and bring­ing in a scene of crime van does not an inves­ti­ga­tion make.
The Commissioner of Police is nei­ther blind nor deaf he must see the litany of videos where police offi­cers on the streets are being assault­ed , berat­ed, ridiculed , and total­ly dis­re­spect­ed when­ev­er they try to make sim­ple arrests.
In may cas­es it is a sin­gle offi­cer against the com­mu­ni­ty, at oth­er times there may be anoth­er offi­cer but he or she stand by as a spec­ta­tor. This is absolute­ly a lack of prop­er police training.
At the first inkling that a sus­pect is going to be bel­liger­ent that sus­pect must be tak­en to the ground hand­cuffed and cart­ed off to jail.
The longer the scene plays out the more agi­ta­tors join the fray the more embold­ened the sus­pect becomes the less like­ly it is things will end well.

There is no unwa­ver­ing sup­port from the Commissioner nor any of the oth­er top offi­cers in sup­port of the offi­cers on the streets. Subsequently offi­cers are unsure, and hes­i­tant. The high com­mand of the JCF seem more suit­ed for a fan­cy dress par­ty in their ridicu­lous cos­tumes than actu­al­ly get­ting the job done.
The police train­ing which is still the old , “left right left right , up down up down” is as car­toon-ish as the cum­mer­bund-clown suits offi­cers are forced to wear.
The Commissioner of Police would be bet­ter served if he places before the new admin­is­tra­tion a plan to pro­tect police offi­cers as they do their jobs.
That plan should include com­po­nents which remove the INDECOM Act from the equation.
The present Government is formed by the par­ty which tabled and passed the crim­i­nal sup­port­ing piece of leg­is­la­tion that has seen crime go up with no end in sight. The for­mer admin­is­tra­tion hid behind it effec­tive­ly while doing noth­ing about crime. Sure there are less police killings but it’s not because there aren’t gun­men wreak­ing havoc.
The stark real­i­ty is that offi­cers sim­ply do not want to get tan­gled up in the non­sen­si­cal bureau­cra­cy of the INDECOM Act.
Sure Jamaica’s police offi­cers need to have strict rules gov­ern­ing the use of force includ­ing lethal force as does all police departments.
The INDECOM Act is not it.

This Administration oper­at­ing on a one seat major­i­ty in the leg­is­la­ture is less like­ly to do much about crime as can be deduced by the deaf­en­ing silence on the issue.
I am inclined to believe that with pre­cious lit­tle polit­i­cal cap­i­tal this admin­is­tra­tion will be even more cau­tious on the issue .
It will not want any per­cep­tions it is sid­ing with the police to root out crime, after all” every man haf­fi eat a food”. Simply remov­ing a street ven­dor from the streets in Jamaica , though the cor­rect thing to do, risks an uproar which cast the Government as insen­si­tive to the plight of poor people.
Such is the case when polit­i­cal par­ties politi­cize law enforce­ment by allow­ing crim­i­nals to hold sway over the rule of law.
The chal­lenges for the new admin­is­tra­tion are many, not the least of which is how to exe­cute it’s growth agen­da amidst a riv­er of blood and even with will, pre­cious lit­tle polit­i­cal capital.