When de law can’t count or spell

Dec 18, 2025 Dem Boys Seh, Features / Columnists

(Kaieteur News) – Dem boys seh a roadblock is a serious place. Blue lights flashing, ranks standing tall, and everybody pretending they wasn’t speeding. So when a rank stop a driver and say, “Yuh speeding—produce yuh documents,” the driver decide to test who really qualified. He say, calm like Sunday morning, “Boss, before I give you mine, leh me see yours.”

The rank get vex. “What documents?”
“Well,” the driver ask polite-police-like, “yuh Maths and English certificates.”

Now de roadblock nearly turn into a classroom. The rank ask how that got anything to do with speeding, and the driver explain that if a man can’t pass Maths, how he know what speed mean, and if he can’t pass English, how he reading de law he enforcing. Dem boys seh that explanation probably require extra tuition to understand.

Now a recent media report say government giving junior ranks three years to pass CSEC Maths and English. Three years! Dem boys seh some people take three years just to learn how to switch on a calculator, so dem hoping miracles is part of the syllabus. But seriously, Maths and English ain’t luxury subjects. Is dem same two things you need to read a charge, spell a name, calculate a fine, or understand that “km/h” ain’t a new political party.

Dem boys seh if de Force really serious, they should bring remedial classes right in de stations. Chalkboard next to the notice about absenteeism. “Today lesson: difference between ‘their,’ ‘there,’ and ‘they’re,’ and why you can’t charge someone parked illegally at Main and Middle Streets while the driver imbibing nearby.

It remind dem boys of de time one traffic policeman stop dem on Urquhart Street for riding bicycle without lights. The man start writing hard-hard, then stop and ask, “What dis street name?”

When dem boys say “Urquhart,” the man pause, scratch he head, look at he pen, and say, “Go round de corner to Main Street. I gon charge yuh there.”

Dem boys seh when law enforcement can’t spell the street, can’t count the speed, and can’t read the charge proper, is not crime prevention—that is comedy policing. And in this country, de joke is always serious business.

Talk half. Leff half.

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Dem Boys Seh, English certificates, Law, Maths

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