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By Tony Fraser |
Port of Spain, T&T, March 10, 2005: It has become the accepted wisdom that the police cannot contend with the criminal element on their own.
Succeeding ministers of national security, prime ministers even, police commissioners, criminologists and governments have been saying it is inconceivable that we, the entire society, could even contemplate leaving the created problems of community and culture to the Police Service to clean-up.
Moreover, the contention goes, the entire national community has a stake in a society free of the deep-seated fear that is gradually closing around us all.
It cannot be that the society hires 5,000 police officers (or whatever the correct number be) and tells them go eliminate the problems that have been created by our lifestyle, values and all the other factors that have contributed to growing criminality in the T&T of the last 20 years.
And to those who continue to say it is gang warfare and drug dealers fighting over turf and those of us outside of those circles should not be too worried, tell that to the relatives of the most recent kidnapped victims.
Government and the police may not want to acknowledge it but there are indications that those intent on committing the gun crimes have recently taken their warfare against the society to a new level of brazenness.
If it is that they are going after someone and he happens to be outside the State Prison and it is broad daylight, then so be it.
If the target happens to be on the Lara Promenade with thousands of people around, then that's okay too.
If the best place to abduct a veterinarian is to go to his office in front of his staff and others, then it will be done.
It is not unreasonable or fanciful to expect that if the target is in a cell in one of those broken-down police stations and a full-scale attack on the station would be considered the most effective way to get the prey, then it will be done.
It has been done in Guyana and criminals and their methods are getting around the Caribbean faster than the integrationists.
Not intending to unnecessarily alarm, but in the Parish of St James in Jamaica, criminals have taken over a government-constructed housing development, legitimate owners being deathly afraid to occupy their homes. Jamaica and Guyana are just a little further down the road than most other countries.
All of this is preliminary to launch a set of ideas, proposals and methods for going after criminals by a group of citizens, Communities Mobilising Against Crime.
Approximately one year ago after a few open and unconscionable murders in the west, CMAC invited to one of their meetings this columnist and a few other persons who were deemed to have an interest and perhaps influence to agitate communities against criminal activity.
The group went publicly silent after stuffing the St Finbar's RC Church with people fired-up to mount a citizens resistance to crime. In the interim the working members have been engaging from the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice, the DPP and indeed senior officers in the Police Service, attempting to themselves find the right mix of measures that could defuse criminality in this place.
CMAC has distilled what the group considers the 12 most "effective actions" that have to be adopted to make this place safe again.
Because all of the people and institutions who are seeking to counter crime say that we cannot just leave it up to the police, I start today to tease out a few of the ideas being suggested by CMAC, adding my own commentary where and when I deem it necessary. It's going to be a challenge to those who say that "all ah we" have to be active against crime to take seriously the ideas of this and other community groups and citizens. It cannot be that we simply contract out the problems to American criminologists.
Here goes.:
Set targets for the Commissioner of Police and his executive to meet with what is called "rigorous measurement," meaning, I presume, that the taskmaster must be hard when it comes to reviewing what has been achieved.
The taskmaster must be the Minister of National Security as, according to the group-and this is especially for those who may be jittery about the minister keeping track of the CoP, the chairman of the Police Service Commission-it is well within the right of the minister to establish the targets and hold the CoP accountable.
It is obviously not lost on the CMAC group, comprising businessmen and professionals, that "target setting and performance measurement" are fundamental principles of effective management. That is number one on CMAC list and is obviously directed towards making the CoP and his executive even more effective in their attack on the criminals.
MAC is advocating that the bar be raised on qualifications for people to get into the Police Service and a concomitant increase in compensation packages and training. Indeed, the group notes that it is standard practice in metropolitan cities to require those coming into the Police Service to have a university degree.
The use of polygraph testing is proposed to ensure an objective assessment of would-be officers.
In the last 12 months there has been a veritable trebling of police officers on the beat. That may be a time-honoured strategy of police officers serving as deterrents. I have, however, often wondered if one in every three of those teams can be pulled off the beat and trained in the science of crime-fighting, if it would return higher rewards.
Having an appropriate university degree would be of great value in creating an advance team of forensic crime-fighters.
The third effective action will certainly send sections of the service-especially those who have cocoa in the sun-into a panic: bring in non-local, expert special investigators to identify and gather evidence on the rogue cops, states CMAC.
The suggestion is based on the very logical assumption, even empirical evidence, that it would be difficult for police officers to investigate their peers.
Contract officers from either the FBI, Scotland Yard or Royal Canadian Mounties to "address the debilitating effect of "rogue cops," CMAC states and wants the Government and all of us to net-off the cost of people's lives and safety against the approximately $10 million it would cost to contract the officers.
Of course there would be legal restrictions to effect this action, but who says it's going to be easy.