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Posted: Saturday 3 October, 2015 at 8:25 AM

Police and the Community Part II

    In my previous article I said, for reasons given therein that, ‘We need a new Police Force, well educated, well trained and enthusiastic at all times to carry out their mission’.  No one should have thought that this was a call for wholesale dismissal.  We have to create a new and revitalized Force, and the way to do this is through training.

     

    Our Governments have not always been lucky or skilful in their choice of overseas advisers However, by great good fortune, our Government has wisely contracted with a company called Bramshill Policing Advisers (BPA) to recommend and implement the restructuring of the RSCNPF so that there will be full accountability from top to bottom, and to offer training in critical aspects of police work and to establish best practice procedures.

    Bramshill Policing College was well known as the National Training Institute for senior police officers of the Police Forces of England and Wales.  Courses were sometimes open to overseas police.

    The British Government sold the property called Bramshill House and the last course there finished in January of this year. BPA was then set up by an ex-police superintendent who had been an instructor at Bramshill, utilizing others who had also been in similar positions at the College.  So what we have is a group of advisers of superintendent rank or thereabouts who had been chosen by the British Government (Home Office) to develop the policing skills of senior members of the 43 England and Wales Police Forces.  Each of the BPA instructors has 30+ years service.  It should be obvious that, in order to maintain their positions as instructors, they would have had to keep up with and understand to a high level all the latest policing techniques, best practices, technology, forensics, and criminal law and, within the latter, the rules of evidence.  Above all policing skills are practical. What is taught will work. It will not be empty theory.

    One should appreciate that it is not possible for police officers, doctors, lawyers, to take three professions, living on a small island, to gain anything like the wide range of experience open to members of those professions living in a big country.  We have to take advantage of this piece of good fortune, that just when we need it, the services of these top professional police instructors are available to us.  This is the way we can develop a new revitalized Police Force, where every member can take pride in the efficiency and effectiveness of their policing.  It will not be easy.  There will be some who cannot keep up with the level of training, who find it difficult to understand the latest forensic science, rules of evidence, interview methods or other parts of the course work.  There may be some who do not wish to learn more modern practice, some who say irrelevantly of the British instructors that they do not understand our culture. To that I say that they understand the criminal mind , and that criminals and crimes committed  anywhere follow similar  patterns.  There may be some, who resent any interruption to their existing, perhaps comfortable, way of doing things.  There may be police trainers who wish to continue their teaching without the effort of learning themselves, up to date practice.

    Almost twenty years ago, we had a Commissioner from the UK, Brian Reynolds.  He was dismayed at the level of training, and said openly that most of his officers had nothing further than their basic training.  Not their fault, he said.  What must also have troubled him was lack of internal security.  He told me that if information came necessitating that the police intercept at night a particular boat, then this could not be announced within the police.  The raid should be made and the participants told, on the way, what their task was.  Otherwise there was a risk of a tip off.  Even now, eight weeks’ training and ‘I am a Policeman/woman”.  It is not fair to expect policemen and women to know what they should do unless they have had specific training.  If you have had little or no  training in what should be done at a crime scene for collection of evidence it is almost impossible to think about it in a constructive way.  If you do not know what  evidence you should be looking for, and how to preserve its integrity you are unlikely to obtain it for use in court. You certainly cannot take pride in a job if you do not know how to do it.  Only when you can do something well, can you take pride in it.

    What I am anxious about is that our Government will not take on BPA for long enough, on grounds of expense.  Security has to be first, second and third priority. There is a huge amount of work to be done.  If BPA advises that two or three years of 6 or 9 months per year is necessary then please try to make this happen.  We need a rejuvenated Force which we , the community may trust.  We will start to trust our police when convictions for homicides and home and business break- ins rise, and the scale of these crimes diminishes. St. Kitts Nevis is first in line for BPA’s services, but if we do not take them on for as long as we should then they will be booked up by others. Personally I should like to see them here for three years and then be on a watching brief. 

    Other factors include improved legislation – better working together of prosecution lawyers and police.  More detection dogs for location of guns or explosives.  DNA testing ability.  Better finger printing and the skills for its use.  A realistic pay scale for the police so that quality candidates are attracted.  Perhaps a graduate entry scheme.  Police is the poor relation to Lawyers.  It shouldn’t be. 

    This article is a plea to all politicians to leave aside partisan politics and to make decisions based solely on policing merits and not to attempt to score political points off their opponents in the matter of crime, and to offer all necessary support to spending whatever funds are required to give us our revitalised Police Force.  It is a plea to all of us to appreciate that the mainstay of our economy, tourism, is a fragile product. Mr and Mrs Tourist will go where they feel safe.  Without it everything falls apart.  It is a plea to the RSCNPF to appreciate that the Community requires a reanimated Force and that this must happen.  It is your job to keep us safe, and this can only be done when you catch and convict the violent and remove the guns. We want you to succeed not only for our sake and that of our Country and its economy, but for your own so that you can be proud that you belong to the finest Police Force in the Eastern Caribbean, known and respected widely for its integrity and the quality of its policing. 

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