Dear Editor,
I read with great pleasure an article in Kaieteur News, February 28, under the caption, ‘Police liaison officers being trained in conflict resolution, anger management.’ According to KN, thirty-eight liaison officers from the Ministry of Public Safety and Security completed a two-day training seminar which was conducted at the Police Officers Training Centre. The Minister of Public Safety and Security Khemraj Ramjattan is reported to have said that this training was an initiative of President David Granger. I am happy that this training was conducted. For some time now I had been advocating that members of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) and its auxilliaries be exposed to training to develop their people skills, because the paradigm has shifted towards members of the force being more community oriented. They are required to police multi-cultural and diverse communities. Hence, the need for people skills.
In order for them to be effective and deliver the highest quality of service to the members of the various communities they swore to serve and protect, they must be given the tools to do the job. This can be addressed through training in specific subject areas, including people skills. The training conducted by the ministry in question is a giant step in the right direction. However, I wondered whether or not this type of training will be available to members of the various rank structures and all the divisions and branches of the GPF.
I was in for a big pleasant surprise. Kaieteur News and Stabroek News of March 7 reported under different captions on the opening ceremony of the following courses conducted at the Police Officers’ Training Centre: Station Management 1/2017; Train-the-Trainers; Criminal Investigation Department Induction; Conversion 1/2017; and Newly Promoted Subordinate Officers 1/2017.
Both papers reported that David Ramnarine, acting Commissioner of Police who declared the courses open, posited that subjects related to people skills formed part of the contents of all the courses under review. He explained that the training will serve to instil interpersonal skills in the participants and that he had no doubt that the programmes were geared to inculcate in the ranks many skills including much needed people skills. I am heartened by the utterance of the acting top cop as I believe that technical competence ‒ knowledge of the law, police practice and procedure and other related skills used to be the most important. Now, and in the future people skills are most important.
My pleasure was short lived. I read recently that eighty-four recruits from courses 351-353 graduated from the police college. At the graduation ceremony many subject areas were mentioned but not a word about people skills. I am not certain if people skills were imbedded in the minds of those five months old probationers. But then again, how much can the instructors do in four or five months with the raw recruits? People skills training must be implemented and sustained at all levels of training conducted at the college in order for members of the number one law enforcement agency in Guyana to effectively deal with people and to promote greater public confidence in the force.
Yours faithfully,
Clinton Conway
Assistant Commissioner of Police (rt’red)
