The Evidence Was Clear, Officers Not Trained/​Perpetuating A Monumental Fraud On The Public…

Over the years we have all seen evi­dence that the police are timid, unsure, and unpre­pared for what they are fac­ing on the streets.
I have per­son­al­ly asked the police for evi­dence that the inci­dents we see of the police act­ing like key­stone cops, is not indica­tive of poor train­ing. Time and again we have been told that train­ing is top-notch.
I have con­sis­tent­ly pushed back at that notion, hav­ing served and hav­ing seen the train­ing. Moreover hav­ing had to cre­ate my own pro­tec­tive mech­a­nisms, I was absolute­ly sure that young offi­cers are not being remote­ly prop­er­ly pre­pared for the streets.

In yet anoth­er exam­ple of its old plan­ta­tion men­tal­i­ty, the Jamaica Constabulary Force is demon­strat­ing that despite ad-hoc cos­met­ic changes, the JCF is still the same decrepit and dys­func­tion­al old house that can­not stop the water seep­ing in.
Blustery, bul­ly­ing and sen­si­ble sound­ing expla­na­tion have replaced blus­tery, bul­ly­ing and dumb sound­ing expla­na­tions.
Sure, the lead­er­ship of the Force has more degrees today, but are they any smarter, are they any more edu­cat­ed than in the past? Their expla­na­tions sound more plau­si­ble but the truth of the mat­ter is that it is the very same bull­shit wrapped in a shinier package.

Student Constables in train­ing in batch­es [121 and 122] have become restive, because they have no idea when they will be allowed to grad­u­ate or (passed out) from their long train­ing.
According to the trainees they com­plet­ed four months of train­ing and have been sent into divi­sions from July 2019.
According to the stu­dent con­sta­bles, at the time of their enlist­ment, they were told that they would be doing four months basic train­ing and four months in sev­er­al divi­sions across the island, in addi­tion to three weeks prepar­ing for grad­u­a­tion.
To date, they are still work­ing in the police divi­sions across the coun­try, with­out hav­ing com­plet­ed their train­ing, with­out a police offi­cer’s salary and they have no idea when the sit­u­a­tion will end.
Now I got­ta tell you, I did not know that the salaries of stu­dent con­sta­bles are less than that of a grad­u­at­ed con­sta­ble.
I do not recall that being the case, but they may have made those changes on the backs of these poor young peo­ple who have stepped up to serve their coun­try, while duplic­i­tous­ly keep­ing them from grad­u­at­ing to max­i­mize exploit­ing them. 

Now con­sid­er that the JCF can­not find qual­i­ty recruits to fill the ever-chang­ing demands of the force. Also con­sid­er that Jamaica has one of the low­est offi­cers to pop­u­la­tion ratio any­where in the world, which puts the lives of Jamaicans in dan­ger and makes the job of the police that much more dan­ger­ous, and the risks to their per­sons expo­nen­tial­ly greater.
Also, con­sid­er that Jamaica is one of the most vio­lent nations in the world, and that the mur­der rate is the sec­ond-high­est in the world.
Consider that approx­i­mate­ly 600 offi­cers resign from the force each year, and that num­ber does not include those retir­ing, or those who are fired.
When all of the fore­gone is con­sid­ered, the ques­tion becomes why would the JCF exploit and abuse the young peo­ple who have stepped for­ward to serve their coun­try by using these archa­ic tac­tics which clear­ly places them at a dis­ad­van­tage on so may levels?

The infor­ma­tion emanat­ed from a let­ter writ­ten by one or more stu­dent con­sta­bles who are con­cerned that they are in lim­bo and the police depart­ment is not giv­ing them the answers they are enti­tled to.
The con­sta­bles out­lined just how uncer­tain­ty is neg­a­tive­ly impact­ing their lives.
Welcome to the JCF young people,[sarcasm].
In an arti­cle I wrote a few months ago, I repeat­ed that giv­en a chance I would take the young offi­cers and dump the entire high com­mand, with the excep­tion of a few here or there.

In the man­ner that has become the modus operand of the JCF, the lead­er­ships pushed back on the claims of the young offi­cers to be, argu­ing that there are no finan­cial con­straints pre­vent­ing their grad­u­a­tion as some have spec­u­lat­ed.
Said the [plan­ta­tion own­ers], (sor­ry), I meant the high com­mand;
“These batch­es [121 and 122] were ini­tial­ly des­ig­nat­ed to be passed out in December of 2019.
They were trained at the staff col­lege for an ini­tial peri­od of four months, after which they are sent to the train­ing divi­sion for a four-month peri­od of train­ing in the live envi­ron­ment. It is after this peri­od which they would be grad­u­at­ed or ‘passed out’.
“However, due to the real­i­ties of vio­lence and crime fac­ing the coun­try, cou­pled with the chal­lenges to law and order in our main urban cen­ters, the JCF and – more impor­tant­ly – the nation need­ed them to remain deployed. Their con­tin­ued deploy­ment car­ried over into the new year as the con­di­tions on the ground remained large­ly the same.”

So here is the real­i­ty, from July to February is rough­ly 8 months. The sounds you hear, that’s me slap­ping my chest and count­ing my fin­gers.
Add that to the four months they did at the staff col­lege, that’s a whole year. and remem­ber they will still have to go back and do field­craft, and pre­pare for grad­u­a­tion.
Why would the police com­mis­sion­er not com­mu­ni­cate the rea­son for the delay to these young peo­ple?
The rea­son is sim­ple, as the mul­ti­tude of peo­ple who have passed through the JCF has main­tained all along, the agency is incom­pe­tent and it’s lead­er­ship arro­gant, unre­spon­sive and igno­rant bul­lies who have no lead­er­ship skills.
Having young untrained peo­ple doing police work is a dan­ger to both the pub­lic and to the students. 

Over the last cou­ple of years that the Government has ini­ti­at­ed the pol­i­cy it labels ZOSO, Zones Of Special Operations, and has includ­ed States of Emergencies as part of its crime-fight­ing efforts, I have argued that what the Government is doing is to use the bod­ies of police and sol­diers as a form of crime data sup­pres­sant, rather than devel­op a sus­tain­able and coher­ent plan of action.
This state­ment from the high com­mand is proof that this is all about boots on the ground and tak­ing a chance to see if the high­er vis­i­bil­i­ty of secu­ri­ty per­son­nel will have a deter­rent effect on the crime pro­duc­ers.
Well, we all have seen that it does­n’t work, those of us who have worked in the busi­ness saw it for what it was, a three-card-monte.
The Government of the day has been play­ing a dan­ger­ous game with the lives of the nation’s most vul­ner­a­ble and exposed cit­i­zens. It is no bet­ter than the incom­pre­hen­sive incom­pe­tence dis­played by the for­mer PNP admin­is­tra­tion as it relates to crime.
The strat­e­gy of appease­ment to the Criminal rights fra­ter­ni­ty at the expense of the lives of ordi­nary Jamaicans, have had dis­as­trous con­se­quences.
Last year we had well over 1300 Jamaicans mur­dered and this year is already on pace to see an eight or so per­cent­age point increase over last year.

What has become man­i­fest­ly clear is as I have warned, the intent is to secure votes, and appease the crim­i­nal rights fra­ter­ni­ty at the expense of the secu­ri­ty forces. This admin­is­tra­tion, like the one pri­or, and the one pri­or, has no inten­tion of rolling up its sleeves and tak­ing on the nation’s crim­i­nals.
Criminals know it, and as such the killings con­tin­ue.
Let me be clear, there is only one strat­e­gy that will work and that can­not be white­washed or papered over, it can­not be couched in hifa­lutin legalese.
The police know who the mur­der­ers are, and so does the peo­ple in the affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try.
Administrations of the two polit­i­cal par­ties have abdi­cat­ed their oath to defend the Jamaican peo­ple in order to please the United States, Canada, and The United Kingdom.
They do not want Jamaican crim­i­nals dealt with as they deal with their crim­i­nals, or even the inno­cent peo­ple they exe­cute who have not com­mit­ted any crimes.
At the same time, the three coun­tries are the largest depos­i­tors of crim­i­nal depor­tees in Jamaica.
The so-called police watch­dog groups are in fact for­eign agen­cies ded­i­cat­ed to the con­tin­ued slaugh­ter of our peo­ple.
Notice that they are eeri­ly silent regard­less of the grue­some nature, or the num­ber of peo­ple killed each day?
They don’t care, what they are focused on is ensur­ing that crim­i­nals are kept alive to dis­rupt the Island’s poten­tial of becom­ing a self-suf­fi­cient devel­oped state.

This Government has repeat­ed­ly stat­ed that it does not want the police to kick doors in and go after crim­i­nals. This means that the admin­is­tra­tion is quite com­fort­able with the mur­der­ers exist­ing as long as they do not make the admin­is­tra­tion look bad.
Please do not smile com­rades. I am not mak­ing a polit­i­cal state­ment. I am mak­ing a Jamaican state­ment. Neither polit­i­cal par­ty wants the crime epi­dem­ic in the coun­try solved.
Unless the Police are freed up to go in guns blaz­ing to erad­i­cate and exter­mi­nate these killers there is no hope that this total­ly pre­ventable blood­shed will dry up.
Both polit­i­cal par­ties in gov­ern­ment and in oppo­si­tion, under­stand that for the most part, the peo­ple being affect­ed by the vio­lence are the poor­est cit­i­zens, politi­cians have police details, their rich upper Saint Andrew cabal can afford to live in gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties with pri­vate secu­ri­ty guards, some bet­ter armed than the police.
On the oth­er hand, they are quite com­fort­able hav­ing untrained peo­ple out in the pub­lic giv­ing the pub­lic the false impres­sion that they are being pro­tect­ed.
It is a mon­u­men­tal fraud and it has been exposed for all to see.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Jamaican police Detective cor­po­ral, busi­ness­man, researcher, and blog­ger. 
He is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al web­sites.
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