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A peculiar kind of discipline
A few years ago, discipline was harsh, even draconian. It was also made public as part of the punishment, and with the intent to shame into rebuilding self. Today, outlooks have changed significantly, and discipline is best noted for how short of real punishment it has become. Often, the corrective neither deters nor persuades nor comforts.
Unsurprisingly, this is where things are in this country. Any scrutiny of a handful of pillars of relied-upon institutions provides information as to how backward, if not topsy-turvy, matters are locally. Though not mysterious in objectives, there is still bewilderment for regular citizens. For it is about movement from pillar to post and then back to the penthouse of partnership and comradeship.
A start is made with the public service. There is a choreography around such outbreaks about malfeasance in office. Political players and senior bureaucrats are first named in allegations of serious wrongdoing. Nothing happens. Then, there are more allegations of violations through persistent public (media) clamour. Only then, something belatedly occurs: Next on the dance card is reshuffling (if a minister is involved) to some less visible place. It is a waiting game: let things blow over. And last, there is quiet recall and reinsertion right back to the beginning at the starting gate. Over and out. Next.
In situations involving public servants, sustained public pressure about sticky hands leads to switching around and repositioning. And then just as quietly they are back. Nobody knows on what basis, or by whose mandate. There is no public statement; nothing for the taxpayers to appreciate; nothing related to the how or why of reinstatement. The courtesies of explanations are withheld from a resigned public. There is only going and coming.
Next, there is the private sector, specifically financial institutions, such as commercial banks. These are supposedly homes of sturdy characters and of impeccable financial standards and integrity. But there are human hands and hearts involved, and that means there is room for temptation, for miscalculation, for falls. And yet, there are never any reports of fraud or similar-type failure, originating from those hallowed confines. The only clues are officers gone abruptly and without announcement. And the inevitable whispers that seep out later. That neither disciplines nor protects.
There is local law enforcement. It has earned a national reputation for being compromised through and through; this is widely accepted. Compromised is a pale and limp identifier of how bad things really are, even with some administrative efforts to clean the stables. It is one of Elysian and Himalayan proportions. And still there is the heavy countrywide sense that discipline is selective, superficial, and self-serving. That is, means nothing, changes nothing, remedies nothing.
“When it comes to punishing its own, it looks like…a roulette wheel for discipline, and it’s rigged…” One officer who was on the receiving end of punishment admitted, “It’s all who you know,” the officer said. “It’s a buddy system and if you have a good buddy, they will take care of you.”
That was about the New York Police Department (NYPD) in an article in the New York Daily News dated May 28, and titled, “Probe finds inconsistent disciplinary punishments give rogue New York cops wrist slaps for harming everyday people.”
It might have been about the grave issues occurring in the Guyana Police Force (GPF).
The NYPD has watchdogs galore, a powerful Internal Affairs Department, and massive media attention. Nonetheless, police corruption and police efforts at disciplining are greeted with lukewarm regard at best.
What about corruption-ridden and money laundering Guyana and an underpaid, largely unwatched, and almost unpunished GPF? Here there is stillness and silence, as if those will make the wind blow over; the equivalent of clubby, gentlemen’s arrangements, and the special delivery (instances where there is absolutely no choice) of transferring deceivers and rogues to other distant precincts. Cooling off; incentivising wrongdoing; perpetuating troubles and fears.
How can any such society get anywhere clean?
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