Was The Police Force Of The Past Better?

Yesterday I wrote that the JCF has dis­card­ed name brand cops. Some of my friends con­strue that to be a Clarion-call for a return to the old days, They inter­pret my assess­ment of the force of two decades ago and the exist­ing Constabulary of today, as a ring­ing endorse­ment for unin­tel­li­gent cops. I will try to set the record straight, using some facts and data sup­plied by the Constabulary itself.

I am not going for dis­band­ment of the Force as Reneto Adams did, maybe Adams knows some­thing I don’t, why he calls for the dis­band­ment of the depart­ment. After all he served for 41 years, I did a mere 10 years, 9 ¹⁄₂ to be exact. I am not ask­ing that the depart­ment be dis­band­ed, it would be self­ish to do so, it is an imprac­ti­cal solu­tion which is not guar­an­teed to pro­duce a bet­ter or dif­fer­ent result. As I have asked before, where would we source these peo­ple of impec­ca­ble char­ac­ter to staff this new department?

The Constabulary the coun­try has, is the con­stab­u­lary the coun­try will have to work, with and improve! I must ask though where is it writ­ten that the rule of law should take a back seat, or step back when crim­i­nals become more aggres­sion? Where is it writ­ten that mere­ly being able to present data bet­ter makes a bet­ter police force ?

One of the things the JCF has done is to fast track some recruits to the high­er ranks.[note I did not say senior ranks] Seniority is not some­thing you get from a col­lege or University, it is earned. Now here is the dis­con­nect between my friends and I . Even though I under­stand the need for more intel­li­gent offi­cers, and God knows over the years senior cops have embar­rassed us, there also needs to be a love and desire for the job by those who serve.

Over the years Jamaica’s Elitists have made the argu­ment that the Police Force was pop­u­lat­ed with fools who could not get any oth­er job. We don’t hear a peep out of those elit­ists, now that they have their plants at the top and through­out the depart­ment. These plants are not just elit­ists, they are par­ty hacks, they are unable to pro­vide results, they are not cops, and they will nev­er be cops.

Those of us who served want an intel­li­gent , suc­cess­ful, police depart­ment we can be proud of. It is impor­tant that we are able to say we were once a part of that. Unfortunately it is impos­si­ble, despite the rhetoric from some, for any­one to make that state­ment with­out hav­ing tongue in cheek. Police offi­cers are com­mit­ting more crimes than ever before, rob­beries, rapes, mur­der for hire, lar­ce­ny, tam­per­ing with wit­ness­es, graft , and every type of cor­rup­tion imaginable.

As I have stat­ed time and again the JCF which I love and which some of my dear­est friends and fam­i­ly are still a part of , are only clear­ing up 30% of crimes. Those num­bers are ques­tion­able , how those clear-ups are done are open to inter­pre­ta­tion. Detectives read­ing this knows what I am talk­ing about. Only about 7% of mur­der­ers are being arrest­ed or held to account. Again those num­bers are ques­tion­able. The con­vic­tion rate is even more dis­mal, and when they do secure a con­vic­tion in the coun­try’s lib­er­al courts , they are some­times over­turned on appeals.

In oth­er words, the JCF despite the hype as a com­pa­ny or a cor­po­ra­tion is a dis­mal fail­ure. There are tremen­dous forces which impact those real­i­ties, yet the hier­ar­chy, should be able to deliv­er more to the Jamaican peo­ple, their real bosses.