Bo­bie-lee Dixon

Af­ter 50 years of in­de­pen­dence, of­fi­cers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) are still wear­ing uni­forms that re­flect colo­nial rule. The ma­te­r­i­al used has changed over the years from wool to cot­ton shirts and poly­ester-cot­ton pants, and po­lice of­fi­cers have gone from wear­ing short pants to a full-length uni­form. But the colour scheme and de­sign es­tab­lished un­der British rule re­mains in­tact to­day. For some time now dis­cus­sions have been float­ing around about chang­ing the uni­form en­tire­ly, not on­ly to cre­ate a new im­age, but to al­so cre­ate more com­fort for of­fi­cers-suit­able to our trop­i­cal cli­mate. Last Oc­to­ber Deputy Com­mis­sion­er Jack Ewats­ki an­nounced plans to in­tro­duce new uni­forms. They were said to be navy-blue shirts and navy-blue pants, sim­i­lar to the ones worn by po­lice of­fi­cers in North Amer­i­ca and Eu­rope. But the pro­posed change did not sit well with the Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion for a va­ri­ety of rea­sons. To date, they re­main re­luc­tant to sign a con­sent form giv­ing Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs and Ewats­ki the thumbs up which will al­low Cab­i­net to clear the pro­pos­al.

Bet­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion/in­fe­ri­or uni­forms

As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Anand Rame­sar told the T&T Guardian in a tele­phone in­ter­view that the new uni­forms, which are now be­ing worn by trainees at the po­lice acad­e­my, could not be used be­cause there was no leg­isla­tive pro­vi­sion for them. "If a po­lice of­fi­cer were to ap­pear on du­ty wear­ing the new gar­ment, he could not car­ry out his du­ties," said Rame­sar. He added that one of the biggest er­rors Gibbs made was to pur­chase the uni­forms first and then ask for leg­is­la­tion to sup­port them. "It is the most non­sen­si­cal thing he could have done, bear­ing the cost which would have in­curred. We were ad­vised by the Com­mis­sion­er that the uni­forms cost ap­prox­i­mate­ly $500,000," he said.

Rame­sar said the as­so­ci­a­tion wrote to Gibbs sev­er­al times about the new uni­forms, but had nev­er re­ceived a re­sponse. They want­ed to know, among oth­er things, about the ten­der­ing process and whether the uni­forms had been ap­proved by the Bu­reau of Stan­dards. "We al­so shared our con­cerns about the in­tegri­ty of the prod­uct, be­cause I wore a pair of the boots and when it came in­to con­tact with wa­ter the sol­ing came off," Rame­sar dis­closed.

He added that com­ing out of the ac­tu­al tests done in the north-west­ern di­vi­sion, mem­bers re­port­ed dis­com­fort, es­pe­cial­ly the women, who found the new uni­forms to be an un­com­fort­able fit and not con­ducive to polic­ing. He said the as­so­ci­a­tion would not sup­port the uni­form change un­less they were part of the process. He al­so not­ed that be­sides the as­so­ci­a­tion's ma­jor con­cerns with the pro­posed change, there were al­so many as­pects of the cur­rent uni­form that are sym­bol­ic of the pa­tri­o­tism and cul­ture of T&T that mem­bers do not wish to part with," said Rame­sar.

He said how­ev­er, "If the Com­mis­sion­er is amenable to the in­volve­ment of the mem­ber­ship, it would go a long way in as­sist­ing the process." While the as­so­ci­a­tion is stand­ing its ground re­gard­ing its con­cerns with the pro­posed change in uni­forms for po­lice, Com­mis­sion­er Gibbs con­firmed to re­porters last week, he was un­able to in­tro­duce the leg­isla­tive changes nec­es­sary for the new uni­forms to be of­fi­cial for the streets. The top cop was speak­ing at the launch of the Mar­itime and Port Se­cu­ri­ty Counter-Ter­ror­ism Train­ing Pro­gramme at the Po­lice Train­ing Acad­e­my, on March 19. At the same, he al­so dis­closed the new uni­forms were need­ed af­ter re­search re­vealed that the shirt fab­ric might no longer be pro­duced, then it would be­come more cost­ly to out­fit of­fi­cers. He said the new uni­form was be­ing re­viewed by the au­thor­i­ties who are at present, look­ing at a va­ri­ety of fab­rics, prod­ucts, colours and styles which will be brought back to Cab­i­net.

De­sign­ers say change uni­form

To get the opin­ion of some of our lo­cal de­sign­ers on what they think the new po­lice uni­form should look like, the T&T Guardian spoke with Robert Young and de­sign­er/artist Dar­ren Chee­wah, who had sim­i­lar ideas. Young said he be­lieved the po­lice should go back to wear­ing short pants, as we live in a hot cli­mate, and the uni­forms should not be so heav­i­ly starched ei­ther. "If there are to be new uni­forms, they def­i­nite­ly have to be more breath­able. It must be able to work with our cli­mate," he said. Po­lice­women shouldn't wear skirts, he ar­gued, as that could pose dif­fi­cul­ty in a chase. "The en­tire fe­male uni­form has to be re­de­fined. That wool hat on their heads is mad­ness, and I don't be­lieve their shoes are the right kind ei­ther, Maybe a sneak­er that has grips that can as­sist in run­ning will be a bet­ter choice."

He added that even the sym­bol on the hat-the six-point star known as the star of David, along with a hum­ming bird-does not re­flect en­tire­ly who we are as a peo­ple. "We have to ask the ques­tion: What is the func­tion of the uni­form? What do peo­ple see, en­vi­sion when they see a po­lice of­fi­cer? "The uni­form has to be func­tion­al. It can­not be made to just look good." Chee­wah al­so agreed it was time for the uni­form to change. He said they were out­dat­ed and need­ed to re­flect the 50 years of our in­de­pen­dence. He, how­ev­er, be­lieves that the TTPS should have more than one uni­form.

"There must be a cer­e­mo­ni­al kit, a tac­ti­cal kit, a track­suit, that will still give them their au­thor­i­ty-and, of course, a short­pants uni­form. We are on an is­land, af­ter all."