Denyse Renne

Purg­ing the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) of cor­rupt of­fi­cers is one way of re­duc­ing es­ca­lat­ing crime in this coun­try. This is the view of the steer­ing com­mit­tee which was ap­point­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and led by act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams.

The com­mit­tee, which com­prised Prof Daniel Gibran, for­mer di­rec­tor of the SSA Col Al­bert Grif­fith, deputy di­rec­tor of the SSA Julie Browne, and for­mer per­ma­nent sec­re­tary Jacqui Wil­son, was man­dat­ed in 2010 to come up with a plan to re­struc­ture the Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Unit of T&T (Sautt).

The 67-page re­port, which was sub­mit­ted to Cab­i­net last year, stat­ed, "Re­duc­ing cor­rup­tion in TTPS is a pre­req­ui­site for re­duc­ing crime in T&T." The re­port sug­gest­ed a ro­bust and sus­tained ef­fort to clean up the TTPS of cor­rupt of­fi­cers, "which is both in­trin­sic and wide­spread among rank and file."

Not­ing there was need for pol­i­cy­mak­ers to con­struct cre­ative ways in or­der to com­pen­sate po­lice of­fi­cers, the re­port lament­ed the col­lu­sion be­tween po­lice of­fi­cers and gang mem­bers was get­ting stronger. As a re­sult, the re­port stat­ed, some­thing need­ed to be done to dis­rupt such col­lu­sion. "Thus the key to crime re­duc­tion in T&T lies with rolling up crim­i­nal gangs and putting them out of busi­ness."

The com­mit­tee al­so said that cer­tain in­tel­li­gence agen­cies, in­clud­ing the now de­funct Sautt, were head­ed by mil­i­tary per­son­nel and this may have been an er­ror. Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, the is­sue of lead­er­ship in the sec­tor was a ma­jor is­sue as it is "ill-equipped and large­ly au­thor­i­tar­i­an as top per­son­nel in a num­ber of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies are drawn from the mil­i­tary."

Al­lud­ing to the for­mer di­rec­tor of Sautt and the three for­mer di­rec­tors of the Strate­gic In­tel­li­gence Agency (SIA)-who were all mil­i­tary of­fi­cers-the re­port said though the di­rec­tors had a good grasp of mil­i­tary-style op­er­a­tions, they "did not have the ben­e­fit of de­vel­op­ing the depth of knowl­edge and ex­per­tise in crime-fight­ing tech­niques, in­tel­li­gence, and the broad­er is­sues of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in their train­ing."

Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare re­sponds

Pres­i­dent of the Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion Sgt Anand Rame­sar in a tele­phone in­ter­view with Sun­day Guardian said the rec­om­men­da­tions made by the steer­ing com­mit­tee were in no way nov­el.

"These rec­om­men­da­tions have been ex­ist­ing for the po­lice ser­vice for quite some time even be­fore the (Stephen) Mas­tros­f­ki era. The re­al is­sue for the po­lice ser­vice is the de­vel­op­ment of poli­cies and struc­tures that are de­signed to car­ry out these rec­om­men­da­tions," Rame­sar said.

Stat­ing in the past there had been calls for a more ro­bust ef­fort to erad­i­cate crim­i­nal and cor­rupt el­e­ments from the po­lice ser­vice, Rame­sar said his as­so­ci­a­tion has on nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions called for a dis­ci­pli­nary sys­tem that would be ad­min­is­tered by an in­de­pen­dent tri­bunal.

"The is­sue of com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing falls with­in the ef­forts of the cur­rent act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice as it re­lates to proac­tive polic­ing," Rame­sar said. Adding that re­peat­ed calls have been made for the pro­vi­sion of leg­is­la­tion as it re­lates to reg­u­la­tion for se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers, Rame­sar said his as­so­ci­a­tion re­mains con­cerned about the re­cruit­ment dri­ve in the ab­sence of such leg­is­la­tion.

"It will be an up­hill task to re­move a se­nior who is sus­pect­ed of un­healthy be­hav­iour in the ab­sence of such reg­u­la­tion," he said.