On Thursday October 25th, close to two months after being named as the country’s Police Commissioner, Mr. Leslie James announced that the nation can anticipate movement towards long-awaited police reform. Perhaps more surprising than the announcement itself was the Commissioner’s disclosure that some of the manifestations of the reform will become apparent within the next six months.
By providing an actual timeline for movement on police reform Mr. James, it seems, is seeking to send a message to the effect that the momentum has already begun and that six months is perhaps the timeline within which some of the lower hanging fruit (like the refurbishment and equipping of some Police Stations) can be reached. The much more challenging aspects of the reform process, one assumes, will be rolled out in phases and over what is likely to be a much longer period. For example, whilst the Commissioner’s pronouncement included mention of an aviation unit for the Force, one imagines that such a unit can only be established over a period of time, as and when the human and technical resources become available to do so.
The whole matter of police reform has become weighed down by a justifiable public cynicism and tiredness arising out of the quagmire of sterile political debate which has gone on for several years. What this means, and one assumes that the Commissioner is aware of this, is that it is only when the reform process gathers meaningful momentum beyond the commissioning of a handful of new, technologically upgraded Police Stations in the non-coastal regions of the country, reaching into the realm of serious substantive improvement in the quality of actual crime fighting, that the public cynicism will be assuaged.
Public calls for a hastening of real reform is linked largely to the fact that the heightened decibel level of the political discourse on the subject has actually coincided with an increase in crime, notably violent crime. At the same time there is, the likelihood that anticipated changes in the country’s economic direction arising out of the transformation to an ‘oil economy’ could bring new, different and more formidable crime challenges.
If it is generally accepted that financial affordability associated with acquiring the physical resources and specialist skills linked with police reform will likely cause the process to move at a slower than desirable pace, there are elements of the reform process that can begin in earnest immediately. Perhaps the most important of these is the commencement of a serious regimen of training and orientation that targets the creation of a Police Force whose work ethic is underpinned by a new interpretation of the Service and Protection motto. Frankly, there is no reason why that aspect of the reform process cannot begin now.
If there is any doubt that the rooting out of corruption and indiscipline from the Force is perhaps the most critical component of the reform process, we need look no further than the recent outpouring of public criticism of the Force’s performance that characterized the months of waiting for the eventual appointment of a Commissioner. President David Granger’s own mouthful on his ‘pick’ for the post went as follows: “Integrity is the most important and I am looking for intelligence and impartiality. I don’t give orders to the Commissioner of Police but I want somebody who is unbribable. I want somebody who is intelligent and want somebody who is committed to carrying out the programme of security sector reform who has the initiative and who can generate public trust. If I put somebody there who is not trustworthy… the public would laugh,” is what the President had to say.
In setting out his desired criteria for filling the post of Police Commissioner, the President, one feels, was painting with a broader brush, venturing into issues that have to do more with integrity, strength of character and a sense of duty than with material resources. So that even when those material resources associated with police reform become available, effective execution will still have to depend (and heavily so) on a recruitment and training culture that focuses on the creation of a cadre of men and women who are truly of the disposition suited to executing the Force’s mandate. This, one feels, could well be much the greater challenge to face the reform process.
