NEWS > 18 February 2007

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Jamaica Observer - Kingston,Ja
18 February 2007

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Jamaica Constabulary Force

Changing the face of the polic

If you are young, bright and willing to serve your country, the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) wants you. Especially if you are bright.

That is the tune of the constabulary's latest recruitment drive which, according to Assistant Commissioner of Police Delworth Heath, who is in charge of training at the police academy in St Catherine, is all part of the JCF's rebranding process.

"The statistics are saying to us that the overwhelming majority of persons are not passing, especially the entrance test. And we feel that there is still that population out there of persons who would not have that difficulty," Heath said.

"One of the big reasons behind it is that we still have quite a number of vacancies to fill in the organisation and we want to ensure that we get the attention of the higher achievers to ensure that we can cut down even on the admin[istration] cost of running so many persons through a programme who can't manage," he added. "So we want to ensure that we appeal to a greater number of persons, where the probability of passing the test is higher. We want the force to be seen as a viable career for young people."

Since 2004, more than 16,000 people have applied to join the police force. Just over 5,000 have passed the academic test, but only about 1,600 or 10 per cent of the total number of applicants have been accepted. Heath attributes this to the JCF's rigorous selection process, which, for the most part, successfully weeds out the unqualified.

Heath and fellow instructors at the academy know, however, that the Jamaican public's perception of the police force has a lot to do with the calibre of persons who apply. The challenge, therefore, is to "lift the image of the force", Heath said.

According to Deputy Superintendent Enid Ross of the police academy, in former years the constabulary never asked applicants for subjects. "Because. we just say we want persons with sound educational background, Jamaicans believe that if you don't have a degree, if you don't have that amount of subjects, then you are stupid," said Ross.
"Not so," she continued, "but that is how we are socialised. I find that when persons (police officers) started to go into university, the perception started to change somewhat."

The Jamaica Constabulary Force was started in 1865 after the Morant Bay Rebellion and up until about 10 years ago never required its members to have much academic qualifications.
Now, with an establishment of over 8,000, the force has a graduate entry programme under which persons with a first degree are fast-tracked, and more and more police officers are seeking higher academic qualifications.

The selection process

The current selection process for candidates wishing to enter the JCF has five stages. The first is the academic test. Here is where most applicants, especially males, fail.
"There is a dilemma here, because the force now operates with a 20:80 ratio (female to male). Notwithstanding, you have a situation with a long list of women on the waiting list and they are passing the test to come in and for the past couple of years, I can't recall us having a waiting list for men," Heath said.

"The challenge, therefore, is to get enough males who are capable of successfully going through the various stages of the selection process. Each intake, we'll select the best among the female candidates and so at the moment, we are not so much picking persons who would have been there the earliest," Heath said.
Those candidates who pass the academic test enter an assessment centre, where they spend time doing practical problem-solving.

"We give them real-world scenarios, issues to look at, topics to speak on, group discussion," Heath said, adding that assessors pay attention to the recruits' "ability to speak, their ability to analyse, their ability to co-operate with others, their ability to respect others' views, their own perception on life and their understanding of what is happening around them".

After the assessment centre, recruits are interviewed by a panel made up of members from the force chaplaincy unit. Then the recruits move to perhaps the most extensive leg of the process - the antecedent - which is an elaborate background check. Checks are made in communities where the recruits live or lived, their places of work, any clubs with which they are affiliated and information is sought about them from various people.

The recruits are also required to submit three references from notaries public who know them well.
"The challenge there is that very often, and we know this because people call us, members of the public are of the view that even if a youth out there is not doing well. a lot of them feel that the police force can reform them and are prepared to give them references to come in," Heath said. "We think that is dangerous, because when you look at some of the kinds of criticisms that are levied against the organisation. we want factual information. we want the public to tell us about people."

Heath said, however, that over the past five years, 26 cops have been dismissed based on information provided by members of the public. He encouraged more people to come forward with necessary information about those seeking to enter the police force.

The police academy requires, for example, that applicants who have served in the public sector state whether they were dismissed and their reason for dismissal, which many of them lie about. For that, they are dismissed, regardless of what stage of the training they are at or even if they have actually been sworn in as police officers, Heath said.

"And we don't think twice about doing that. We have the view that if somebody comes here and tries to mislead us, you're likely to have problems with those, so that is something we don't go easy on," Heath said, adding that applicants with criminal records overseas, which were not picked up in initial checks, are also dismissed immediately.

"Anybody who gives false info anywhere in their service, they can be dismissed," Heath said. "And we encourage members of the public, even up until the last day they [recruits] are in training, to give us information."
A medical and physical examination and two weeks' orientation follow the antecedent.
During the orientation, the recruits are observed again "to see if there are things we need to investigate more before they are sworn in as police officers", Heath said.

The recruits are also given non-law training, which involves fundamentals in education, sociology and psychology, which Heath said is to help them understand how people behave. They also receive training in ethics, the use of force and firearms, community-based policing, self-defence, and the core of their training - laws and police practices.
Heath said the academy hopes to introduce a psychometry test for applicants it has concerns about and a mandatory drug test in the short term.

Stupidity among police just perception?

"There is a reality that police are uncivil and not so bright," executive director of local human rights group, Jamaicans For Justice, Carolyn Gomes said, adding that there needs to be inside the force some definition of the parameters for acceptable behaviour among members.
While she acknowledged efforts at reform, Gomes said what is needed in that process is a mechanism that ensures accountability as "people with 10 O'Levels want to get into the force to do wrong".

"If you've ever had to give a statement in a police matter you will understand why people are concerned with the level of training and intellectual achievement of the police," Gomes said, adding that that certainly does not apply to all members of the constabulary.

Heath admitted that some members of the force behave less than desirable, as with any other organisation. His position, however, is that the constabulary does not exist in a vacuum and its members are therefore not immune to social ills, even though the expectation is that the training would reduce the possibility of that happening.

"It's not just a police phenomenon, we are told that we don't verbalise very well in Jamaica. So we are getting our police officers in safe encounter training to verbalise very clearly and audibly their intention."
For instance, when a cop accosts a man, the cop is required to introduce himself, tell the man why he is being accosted and if it is necessary for him to accompany the policeman to a police station that will be told to him.
"We don't want them to go and hold people and abruptly start to search them and so get a fair amount of resistance," Heath said.

Bishop Howard Gregory, the Anglican Bishop of Montego Bay, believes that the negative view of the police force among Jamaicans has to do with the images that parents send their children, which prevent them from wanting to join the force.
"It's both a perception and how we understand and respond to the force," Gregory said. "Many of us don't want our children to join the force. It's like teaching, we tell them 'Don't go into teaching because there's no money it'," he added. "So the police have to accept those who come forward."

Gregory concurred with Heath's analysis that the police have to function within the wider society and that while the way they are expected to behave can be taught, those things may not be put into effect, "when falling back on societal attitudes". He pointed out, however, that a higher standard is expected from police officers because of their training.
Conceding that academic qualifications are not all encompassing, Heath believes they are a good place to start in the process of revamping the force, as more educated people are easier to train.

"It's a perception [that police are stupid] that has been there over the years and I'm not sure I know why, but a lot has happened in recent times to change that mindset. A lot of people tend to believe that only school drop-outs are in the police force. We have a studying organisation now," he said.

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Article sourced from

Jamaica Observer - Kingston,Ja18 February 2007

Changing the face of the polic

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Jamaica Observer - Kingston,Ja
18 February 2007