THE POLICE FORCE NEEDS MORE RECRUITS FROM THE MIDDLE CLASS

Oct 16, 2021 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

Kaieteur News – You are not going to improve the professionalism and performance of the Guyana Police Force by simply having a strategic management team located outside of the existing management apparatus seeking to devise plans for the entity.
You are not going to root out corruption and improve the crime fighting capabilities of the Guyana Police Force by simply pumping more monies and resources into that institution.
You are not going to restore confidence in the Guyana Police Force by even implementing the recommendations of the Disciplined Services Commission, as well-intentioned as they are.
You are not going to achieve an efficient police force by simply improving the training of members, establishing forensic capabilities or even paying the ranks more money. In fact, the situation is as such that no matter how much you increase the pay of staff, there will still be an unacceptable level of bribe taking and slackness within the institution
The Guyana Police Force needs a total revamp, one that will entail removing or retiring at least 90 percent of the existing staff. The diagnoses of why the imperfect police force inherited upon Guyana’s Independence came to such a sordid state are well known, but the narrative is often selectively read so as to avoid facing the reality of some of the central developments that led to the decline in public policing.
One such development was the failure to accede to recommendations made by the International Committee of Jurists who had recommended just after Independence that the police force be made to be more reflective of the ethnic make-up of the society.
Such a balancing would have encouraged greater public confidence by the public in the police force, which is a fundamental requirement for improving policing and ensuring greater public safety.
Another development was the food crisis of the seventies which forced many ranks to engage in corruption. The Guyana Police Force has never, in fact, recovered from the corruption that many of its members were forced to enter into because of the food crisis of the late seventies and eighties in Guyana.
It was this crisis more than any other that destroyed the morale of ranks because many of them had no compunction of shame in demanding a box of Chinese food in order to turn a blind eye to some indiscretion.
As a consequence of the police losing their pride in their badge, the public began to increasingly see these ranks as irritants and as an object of ridicule. The norm became that if you did something wrong on the road, however harmless, the police would not give you a warning because they were looking for something.
The norm also became that since some police ranks may be looking for something, you did not have to worry about breaking the law because a little something would go a far way to avoiding the book being thrown at you.
The culture of corruption that has been bred in the Guyana Police Force since the food crisis of the late seventies and eighties is endemic, too pervasive and too entrenched to be rooted out or reversed.
Instead, what is needed is rebuilding a brand new Guyana Police Force one in which recruits enter to pursue a career in policing rather than simply hoping to cash in on the perquisites of the job.
There is a need to return to the good old days when policemen joined the force not because of the pay but because a police rank was a respected member of the community. That respect is gone because the police force allowed it to go down the drain by not taking enough pride in their job by refusing enticements to be unprofessional.
There is a need to return to the days when policemen could be relied upon to settle disputes not always by waving the big stick but by offering counsel and advice to citizens.
There is need to return to the days when most of the ranks in the Guyana Police Force were drawn from the middle class and lower middle class. These ranks saw a respectable and a rewarding career in the police force.
Today, you will not find many middle class and lower middle class persons wishing to join the police force and that is because they got turned off by the politicisation of the force in the seventies and eighties. Increased recruits from the middle class will increase the chances of there being more hardworking, decent and honest cops seeking a career rather than a mere hustle.
What is equally needed is for greater public confidence in the Guyana Police Force. Instead of excuses about the persons of certain ethnic groups not wanting to join the force, there should be an affirmative action policy to encourage greater diversity and an investigation as to how the internal culture within the force deters minorities from staying on in the institution.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

---

---