Shal­iza Has­sanali and An­na-Lisa Paul

Hours af­ter the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives unan­i­mous­ly elect­ed Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher as the coun­try’s first-ever fe­male Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, she an­tic­i­pates there will be no po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence in car­ry­ing out her du­ties. And if the is­sue aris­es, Hare­wood-Christo­pher said it will be in­cum­bent up­on her to pre­serve the in­tegri­ty of her of­fice and re­sist any such over­tures.

She said that her record of ser­vice has been char­ac­terised by in­de­pen­dence and fear­less­ness and "you can ex­pect my ac­tions and de­ci­sions dur­ing my tenure as CoP to be con­sis­tent with that record."

On Fri­day, all Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion MPs in the House vot­ed in favour of the mo­tion to ap­point Hare­wood-Christo­pher end­ing in a vote of 36 for, none against and ze­ro ab­sten­tions.

In tak­ing over the reign of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, Hare­wood-Christo­pher is ex­pect­ing to be judged even more crit­i­cal­ly on the homi­cide rate as a woman in a male-dom­i­nat­ed pro­fes­sion, and ac­knowl­edged that a lot will be re­quired by her to bring the mur­der fig­ures down and achieve the over­all man­date of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Promis­ing to take a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to in­dis­ci­pline among po­lice of­fi­cers, Hard­wood-Christo­pher said that the TTPS has to bring to bear a high­er lev­el of man­age­ment and su­per­vi­sion and hold it­self re­spon­si­ble and ac­count­able to cit­i­zens.

On Thurs­day, the Sun­day Guardian sent a list of ques­tions to Hare­wood-Christo­pher and these were her re­spons­es:

Who is Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher?

A God-fear­ing Chris­t­ian, a con­sid­er­ate and em­pa­thet­ic leader, a com­mit­ted of­fi­cer, a de­vot­ed wife and fam­i­ly mem­ber, a loy­al friend and a fair, ob­jec­tive and well-bal­anced in­di­vid­ual. A ca­reer po­lice of­fi­cer of 40 years stand­ing that well un­der­stands the needs of the pub­lic and de­mands of polic­ing with the pas­sion and de­ter­mi­na­tion to con­tin­ue to lead the trans­for­ma­tion of the TTPS in­to an ef­fi­cient, ef­fec­tive and dis­ci­plined law en­force­ment body that en­joys the le­git­i­ma­cy and the trust and con­fi­dence of its var­i­ous publics as it de­liv­ers pro­fes­sion­al polic­ing ser­vices.

How old are you?

Fifty-Nine (59) years, be­com­ing six­ty in May 2023.

Where did you grow up?

Plai­sance Park, Pointe-a-Pierre.

Did you come from a large fam­i­ly?

An im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly of nine sib­lings: three broth­ers and six sis­ters

What schools did you at­tend?

I at­tend­ed St Mar­garet Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry and San Fer­nan­do Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary (Mod Sec). 

What are your qual­i­fi­ca­tions?

*Mas­ter's De­gree in Strate­gic Lead­er­ship and Man­age­ment (Can­di­date)

*Mas­ter's De­gree in Ap­plied Crim­i­nol­o­gy and Po­lice Man­age­ment

*Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence De­gree in Pub­lic Sec­tor Man­age­ment

*As­so­ciate De­gree in In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy

*Cer­tifi­cate in Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion

*Ac­count­ing Tech­ni­cian Diplo­ma, from San Fer­nan­do Tech­ni­cal In­sti­tute

What are your hob­bies?

I like gar­den­ing, danc­ing, read­ing, hik­ing and trav­el­ling,

What is your pet peeve?

In­ef­fi­cien­cy and in­dis­ci­pline in the con­duct of one’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. If every­one at every lev­el will prop­er­ly dis­charge their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and as­sume per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to per­form at an ac­cept­able stan­dard and in com­pli­ance with the rel­e­vant poli­cies and pro­ce­dures, we will have in­sti­tu­tions func­tion­ing more ef­fi­cient­ly, pro­vid­ing much bet­ter ser­vice, and de­liv­er­ing on the ex­pec­ta­tions of the cit­i­zens.

Erla Harewood-Christopher, right, is all smiles as her husband Reitred ACP Theldon Christopher presents her with a bouquet of flowers, at her office in Police Adminstration Building, Sackville Street, Port-of-Spain, on Friday.

TTPS

When and who did you mar­ry?

I have been mar­ried to Mr Thel­don Christo­pher for al­most 26 years.

Do you have chil­dren?

I have none bi­o­log­i­cal­ly, but by sim­ple in­ter­ac­tion and nat­ur­al in­flu­ence, very many.

Why did you choose a ca­reer in the TTPS?

I be­lieve it was just des­tiny. I was ac­cept­ed in­to the Teach­ing Ser­vice and the Po­lice Ser­vice at the same time. I al­ready had two sis­ters who were teach­ers, so I de­cid­ed to se­lect the TTPS. The Po­lice Ser­vice was my first job.

When did you join the ser­vice, and what were your des­ig­na­tions?

I joined the TTPS in 1982 as a con­sta­ble.

*Cor­po­ral-1991

*Sergeant-2001 con­firmed

*In­spec­tor-2005 con­firmed

*Ag As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent Ad­ju­tant of the Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice-2006

*As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice-2007

*Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice-2009

*Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice-2011

Act­ing As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice-2012, con­firmed in 2014

*Act­ing Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (Ag)-2016, 2017

*Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (Ag)-2022

You are com­ing in­to the po­si­tion of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice when the crime lev­el and mur­der count are at the high­est in the coun­try's his­to­ry, how do you pro­pose to deal with this scourge? What will be your first man­date for the TTPS?

The crime, and more pre­cise­ly, homi­cide rates in the coun­try are be­ing dri­ven large­ly by crim­i­nal gang ac­tiv­i­ty and a pro­lif­er­a­tion of il­le­gal firearms in the coun­try. Sim­ply put, the re­sponse to that has to be dis­man­tling the il­le­gal gangs and seiz­ing il­le­gal firearms and to do that, the TTPS has to be­come more ef­fi­cient and strate­gic in the con­duct of its op­er­a­tions in or­der to be ef­fec­tive in re­duc­ing the in­ci­dence of crime.

The TTPS has to bring to bear on the sit­u­a­tion a high­er lev­el of man­age­ment and su­per­vi­sion and hold it­self up as be­ing re­spon­si­ble and ac­count­able to the cit­i­zen­ry for pro­vid­ing them with a safe space to live and con­duct their busi­ness on a dai­ly ba­sis

You will be at the helm of the TTPS at a time when past CoPs have come in for greater scruti­ny and heavy crit­i­cisms from the pub­lic, how do you feel you will be judged?

For quite a while Com­mis­sion­ers of Po­lice have un­for­tu­nate­ly been judged by the pub­lic large­ly on the ba­sis of one in­dex, the homi­cide rate. I ex­pect that I will be no ex­cep­tion and will be judged sim­i­lar­ly, and per­haps more crit­i­cal­ly as a woman in a male-dom­i­nat­ed pro­fes­sion, es­pe­cial­ly since the sit­u­a­tion has be­come more dire giv­en the cur­rent rates.

But I said un­for­tu­nate­ly be­cause, while I ac­knowl­edge the le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tions of the pub­lic, there is a lot that a CoP will be re­quired to do in or­der to re­duce the homi­cide rate and achieve the over­all man­date of the ser­vice.  

How do you plan to han­dle the bar­rage of pub­lic opin­ion, and how do you in­tend to gain pub­lic con­fi­dence?

Pub­lic ex­pres­sion of var­i­ous opin­ions comes with the ter­ri­to­ry. With­out hav­ing the in­for­ma­tion or in­tel­li­gence, or with­out un­der­stand­ing the law, pro­ce­dures, ju­ris­dic­tion or con­straints of the TTPS, peo­ple will ex­press their opin­ions and of­fer ad­vice to the TTPS.

As a re­spon­si­ble pub­lic ser­vice or­gan­i­sa­tion seek­ing to main­tain pub­lic con­fi­dence we have to lis­ten and crit­i­cal­ly as­sess what is be­ing said and em­brace those ideas/sug­ges­tions that we de­ter­mine can be of val­ue to us.

We are acute­ly aware that the pub­lic’s trust and con­fi­dence are es­sen­tial to us in the con­duct of our work and for us to make a very con­scious and con­cert­ed ef­fort to de­vel­op that as a pri­or­i­ty.  

I be­lieve my style of lead­er­ship will be ef­fec­tive in ad­dress­ing the is­sue. I pro­mote mu­tu­al re­spect, trans­paren­cy, hon­esty, open­ness, eq­ui­ty and in­clu­sion as es­sen­tial el­e­ments of a trans­for­ma­tive style of lead­er­ship. I be­lieve this will go a long way in treat­ing with any is­sue of lack of trust with­in the TTPS and in build­ing ef­fec­tive, re­spect­ful and mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial re­la­tion­ships with all our stake­hold­ers.

Are there any males or fe­males you ad­mire in the TTPS?

The TTPS, by and large, is still a very no­ble or­gan­i­sa­tion and there are many males and fe­males there that are wor­thy of ad­mi­ra­tion both in a pro­fes­sion­al and per­son­al ca­pac­i­ty. By way of ex­am­ple on­ly, be­cause the list can be a long one, I can men­tion Mr James Philbert, Mr Stephen Williams, Mrs June Young-Kendal and Mrs Am­ber De­noon.

Be­ing the first fe­male to be ap­point­ed CoP, do you think you will have to go above and be­yond to prove your­self as a woman in a male-dom­i­nat­ed pro­fes­sion?

My job is to ful­fil the roles and func­tions of the of­fice of the com­mis­sion­er, which is well de­fined and the same, whether the in­cum­bent is a male or fe­male. If I go above and be­yond, it will not be to prove my­self as a woman, but rather to en­sure that I ex­cel in the role.

How do you view women in lead­er­ship?

Women in lead­er­ship have a dis­tinct op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­fuse in­to the cul­ture of any or­gan­i­sa­tion the es­sen­tial at­trib­ut­es of em­pa­thy, sen­si­tiv­i­ty, and com­pas­sion which they pos­sess in a unique man­ner. They can be strong, yet flex­i­ble; kind, but not weak; hum­ble but not timid; thought­ful but not un­du­ly com­pro­mis­ing.

 Would you say that women are break­ing the glass ceil­ing in the TTPS?

From my own per­spec­tive, I will not say there is a glass ceil­ing with­in the TTPS. The TTPS is a mer­it-based or­gan­i­sa­tion with very eq­ui­table and trans­par­ent sys­tems for up­ward mo­bil­i­ty.

Do you be­lieve that women are re­spect­ed by their male coun­ter­parts in the TTPS?

Women in the TTPS are well re­spect­ed by their male coun­ter­parts. A lack of bound­aries in­vites a lack of re­spect and women in the TTPS do very well in en­sur­ing that those bound­aries are es­tab­lished and re­spect­ed.

How do you view the ad­vance­ment of women in the TTPS?

I have been pre­ced­ed by sev­er­al women ad­vanc­ing to se­nior po­si­tions in the TTPS. In the not-too-dis­tant past, we had six fe­males on the ex­ec­u­tive, which con­sist of 15 per­sons. Women have al­ways had equal op­por­tu­ni­ties and have been steadi­ly ad­vanc­ing through­out the ranks of the TTPS. I ex­pect that that will con­tin­ue to be so with even in­creas­ing reg­u­lar­i­ty giv­en the in­crease in the num­ber of fe­males that have been re­cruit­ed in­to the Ser­vice in more re­cent times. In fact, at the mo­ment there is a large pop­u­la­tion of women that now com­prise the First Di­vi­sion of the TTPS.

Would you be paving the way for an­oth­er fe­male CoP to take over the TTPS?

My re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is to ef­fect prop­er suc­ces­sion plan­ning with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion that is premised on de­vel­op­ing the skills and com­pe­ten­cies of of­fi­cers to as­sume high­er re­spon­si­bil­i­ties ir­re­spec­tive of gen­der. As­cen­sion to the of­fice of CoP is not gra­tu­itous but based on mer­it. That be­ing said, it’s quite pos­si­ble to have an­oth­er fe­male in the po­si­tion of com­mis­sion­er.

 De­scribe your re­la­tion­ship with the past CoP Mc Don­ald Ja­cob.

Mr Ja­cob and I would have worked to­geth­er in the Po­lice Ser­vice for a num­ber of years. We worked to­geth­er as ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers for a pe­ri­od of two years pri­or to his ap­point­ment as act­ing CoP. And I worked with him af­ter his ap­point­ment as act­ing CoP, serv­ing as his sec­ond in com­mand as the most se­nior deputy com­mis­sion­er. We main­tained a pro­fes­sion­al re­la­tion­ship and worked very ex­ten­sive­ly and col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to de­vel­op pol­i­cy and shape the strate­gic di­rec­tion of the TTPS.

What was the biggest/tough­est de­ci­sion you had to make as act­ing CoP?

It’s dif­fi­cult to sin­gle out one par­tic­u­lar de­ci­sion. The of­fice of CoP is con­front­ed on a mo­ment-by-mo­ment ba­sis of hav­ing to make very cru­cial de­ci­sions with far-reach­ing con­se­quences. Maybe the biggest and tough­est is yet to come but for now, the grav­i­ty of the mat­ters that I have had to deal with have all been very sub­stan­tial­ly crit­i­cal.

How do you plan to deal with po­lice of­fi­cers who are per­ceived to be cor­rupt and those who abuse their au­thor­i­ty? 

The TTPS has in­ves­tiga­tive and dis­ci­pli­nary sys­tems in place to treat with er­rant of­fi­cers. These sys­tems are ad­e­quate and have served us well and will con­tin­ue to be utilised in deal­ing with of­fi­cers who are per­ceived to be cor­rupt or are in­clined to abuse their au­thor­i­ty. It is in­struc­tive to note that it is my in­ten­tion to ap­ply those sys­tems read­i­ly and con­sis­tent­ly in sup­port of our ze­ro-tol­er­ance po­si­tion on po­lice in­dis­ci­pline.

How will you deal with po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence in the TTPS–re­count­ing claims by for­mer CoPs, Jules Bernard say­ing he was a "tooth­less bull­dog" and Gary Grif­fith say­ing he would not be bul­lied?

I must con­fess that I have nev­er equat­ed the phrase "tooth­less bull­dog" with "po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence" and I can­not say that I know that Mr Grif­fith was bul­lied. The of­fice of CoP is a con­sti­tu­tion­al one that is pro­tect­ed by the pro­vi­sions of the Con­sti­tu­tion. I do not an­tic­i­pate any po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence but if that is­sue is to arise it will cer­tain­ly be in­cum­bent up­on me to pre­serve the in­tegri­ty of the of­fice and re­sist any such over­tures.

Can you as­sure the pub­lic of your in­de­pen­dence and fear­less­ness as a CoP?

My record of ser­vice has been char­ac­terised by in­de­pen­dence and fear­less­ness and you can ex­pect my ac­tions and de­ci­sions dur­ing my tenure as CoP to be con­sis­tent with that record.

How do you jug­gle mar­ried life with this de­mand­ing job?

My hus­band is a re­tired po­lice of­fi­cer so he is not un­fa­mil­iar with the oc­cu­pa­tion­al de­mands of the job. It has al­ways been a chal­lenge and will con­tin­ue to be so giv­en the de­mands of the job. But I do make a con­scious ef­fort to have work/life bal­ance by re­serv­ing time to do the things that will bring re­ju­ve­na­tion and recre­ation.

Which po­lice sta­tion you were first as­signed to work at?

My polic­ing ca­reer start­ed at the Freeport Po­lice Sta­tion. My tasks in­volved gen­er­al polic­ing, pa­trols, and in­ves­ti­ga­tions with a spe­cial em­pha­sis on in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­volv­ing women and chil­dren.

Your strengths and weak­ness­es as a leader?

I pro­mote mu­tu­al re­spect, trans­paren­cy, hon­esty, open­ness, eq­ui­ty and in­clu­sion as es­sen­tial el­e­ments of a trans­for­ma­tive style of lead­er­ship. I make de­ci­sions based on facts, cog­nisant of the many per­spec­tives, con­sis­tent with strate­gic ob­jec­tives, and in the in­ter­est of the max­i­mum ben­e­fit to the largest num­ber of peo­ple.