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Monday, July 7, 2025

Polygraphs for 140 southwestern cops

Griffith wants rogues out

by

Radhica De Silva
2311 days ago
20190310
Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith

Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith

NICOLE DRAYTON

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith says with­in the next two weeks over 140 po­lice of­fi­cers who work on the bor­ders of the south­west­ern penin­su­la will un­der­go poly­graph (lie de­tec­tor) tests.

Grif­fith, who met with the of­fi­cers two weeks ago, ex­plained that the test was not an in­di­ca­tion of guilt but was meant to de­ter­mine whether the right set of peo­ple are placed in the zones where drug traf­fick­ing, gun run­ning, smug­gling and hu­man traf­fick­ing take place.

As Grif­fith moves to strength­en man­pow­er in the zones, he not­ed that the poly­graph test would be a key in­di­ca­tor to de­ter­mine whether of­fi­cers will re­main work­ing in the penin­su­la.

“All of­fi­cers on the bor­der will be asked two ques­tions: Do you re­ceive re­mu­ner­a­tion for il­le­gal weapons and guns and hu­man traf­fick­ing? And are you aware of the in­di­vid­u­als in­volved but has not op­er­at­ed as a po­lice of­fi­cer to bring the per­pe­tra­tors to jus­tice?” Grif­fith re­vealed.

He de­nied, how­ev­er, that the re­sults of the test will lead to the ter­mi­na­tion of any po­lice of­fi­cer.

“The ques­tions are not aimed to dis­ci­pline any of­fi­cer but just as they would be poly­graphed to get in­to an elite unit, the ques­tions are there to en­sure that the right per­sons will be in those po­si­tions in the penin­su­la,” Grif­fith said.

He added, “If any­one is a rogue of­fi­cer and is placed in a po­si­tion that he is not suit­ed, he can cost the life of his fel­low of­fi­cers.”

Grif­fith said when he first raised the is­sue of poly­graph tests, the ma­jor­i­ty of po­lice of­fi­cers were very com­fort­able with the re­quest, but then mis­in­for­ma­tion set in and caused con­fu­sion.

“Ini­tial­ly, less than five per cent was not pre­pared to be poly­graphed. Some­one got a bright idea to spread a false ru­mour that if they fail to take the test they will be dis­ci­plined and re­moved from the TTPS. That was to­tal­ly in­cor­rect and did not em­anate from the Com­mis­sion­er,” Grif­fith re­it­er­at­ed.

He said if red flags are raised af­ter an of­fi­cer takes the tests, then fur­ther re­search will be done to see if the of­fi­cer need­ed to be re­as­signed.

“I met with all of these of­fi­cers about two weeks ago to clar­i­fy their con­cern and they were pleased to un­der­stand my thought pat­terns and most of them agreed to do the test,” Grif­fith said.

He not­ed that the ba­sic poly­graph will com­mence with­in the next two weeks.

“It will not be an av­enue to ad­min­is­ter guilt but it is be­ing done to en­sure there is no breach in the bor­ders by pos­si­ble rogue el­e­ments in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice,” he added.

Grif­fith al­so agreed there was a need to do con­tin­ued psy­cho­me­t­ric test­ing among all of­fi­cers.

“I agree that there must be a con­tin­ued eval­u­a­tion to en­sure that of­fi­cers pos­sess the same char­ac­ter traits as when they en­tered the TTPS. Peo­ple change and cir­cum­stances change and this is an av­enue that we could use to clean up the Po­lice Ser­vice,” Grif­fith said.

Last year, 40 of­fi­cers were trans­ferred from the south­west­ern penin­su­la of Erin, Ce­dros and Ica­cos to in­land sta­tions at Point Fortin, San­ta Flo­ra, Siparia, Fyz­abad and Oropouche, af­ter they re­fused the poly­graph test.

T&T Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTP­SWA) pres­i­dent Michael Seales then ex­pressed his sup­port for the trans­fers and urged Grif­fith to poly­graph all 7,000 of­fi­cers in the TTPS. Apart from the poly­graphs and rou­tine psy­cho­me­t­ric tests, Grif­fith al­so plans to boost man­pow­er in the penin­su­la. High-tech drones will al­so be utilised to mon­i­tor the bor­ders in re­al time.


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