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THE EDITOR, Sir :

The heirachy of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) has nev­er been recep­tive to new ideas, nei­ther to lis­ten to them nor to imple­ment them. The evi­dence of this is the high attri­tion rate from the agency, yours tru­ly being one that decid­ed to leave.

Our coun­try con­tin­ues to strug­gle with a police depart­ment that though scru­ti­nized and held up to ridicule many, refus­es to get it.

Members of the JCF, on a con­sis­tent basis, have con­tin­ued to engage in activ­i­ties that make even some­one like me, one of their most ardent sup­port­ers, cringe.

The Police Academy, in light of these occur­rences, should seek to revamp its cur­ricu­lum as it is clear it does not work. There are ample exam­ples where it is absolute­ly clear that offi­cers, young and old, are mak­ing crit­i­cal mis­takes that mush­room out of con­trol to the detri­ment of all involved, includ­ing the taxpayers.

Latest inci­dent

I speak of the Buckfield, St Ann, inci­dent, as well as the lat­est inci­dent where a young offi­cer was shot and killed, alleged­ly by his colleagues.

There has always been sim­ple safe­guards that elim­i­nate any oppor­tu­ni­ty for the occur­rence of either of these two inci­dents. Police offi­cers are duty-bound, once they have arrest­ed some­one ‚to ensure that pris­on­er’s safe trans­porta­tion to a jail. The State through its agents, must ensure the safe­ty of pris­on­ers for the dura­tion of their incarceration.

Had the offi­cers involved in the Buckfield shoot­ing, two or three of them, got down on the ground and sub­dued that alleged mur­der­er, prop­er­ly hand­cuffed and removed him from the scene in a pro­fes­sion­al man­ner, the accused would be alive, and they would not be fac­ing mur­der charges.

Had the offi­cers, once they arrest­ed their col­league, prop­er­ly adhered to inter­na­tion­al polic­ing pro­to­cols and placed him in hand­cuffs, as well as prop­er­ly secured the weapon seized from him, we would not be hav­ing this discussion.

Surrendering con­trol

The cop on motor­ized patrol who decides to pull a motorist over, with two, three, or even more occu­pants, then makes the grave mis­take of order­ing all occu­pants to exit the car, places him­self, his part­ner, as well as all occu­pants of the car in har­m’s way, he just gave up con­trol of the situation.

This lack of fol­low­ing prop­er pro­ce­dure falls on the mid­dle man­agers of the JCF, they do not ensure that offi­cers going out on patrol have their batons, hand­cuffs, flash­lights, pep­per spray, and oth­er non-lethal tools that are now in their arse­nal. In addi­tion, super­vi­sors must vis­it younger police per­son­nel on patrol to ensure that pro­ce­dures are being observed. Only then will we begin to see a decrease in these incidents.

Mr. Beckles, I find your pre­sen­ta­tion inter­est­ing; how­ev­er, you seem unaware of the fact that closed-mind­ed­ness is ram­pant in Jamaica. If a leaf is declared to green, not many of us would agree that the same leaf has the poten­tial to become brown tomor­row. Very dis­ci­plined, intel­li­gent mem­bers of the Force do expe­ri­ence a cer­tain degree of resent­ment from their col­leagues, but that is not unique. That is a com­mon cry.