Geisha Kow­lessar

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, its pub­lic im­age al­ready taint­ed by nu­mer­ous claims that of­fi­cers are un­pro­fes­sion­al, tardy and in­ef­fi­cient, faces yet an­oth­er chal­lenge, af­ter claims by chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion Nizam Mo­hammed of eth­nic im­bal­ance in the hi­er­ar­chy of the ser­vice.

Mo­hammed sparked con­tro­ver­sy just over a week ago with his con­tention that the Po­lice Ser­vice ex­ec­u­tive was staffed main­ly by of­fi­cers of African de­cent, with no East In­di­ans hold­ing the most se­nior po­si­tions. He fur­ther claimed that in oth­er top po­si­tions, from the rank of Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to su­per­in­ten­dent, there was a star­tling eth­nic im­bal­ance, with Afro-Trinida­di­an of­fi­cers again in the ma­jor­i­ty.

His claims sparked a fierce pub­lic de­bate-Does eth­nic im­bal­ance re­al­ly ex­ists in the Po­lice Ser­vice? Is there a de­lib­er­ate at­tempt to re­cruit and pro­mote on­ly Africans, while East In­di­ans are con­stant­ly be­ing side­lined? Ac­cord­ing to for­mer act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er James Philbert, there "has al­ways ex­ist­ed" more Africans than In­di­ans in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice. He main­tained, how­ev­er, that this was not de­lib­er­ate since the process of pro­mo­tion was al­ways fair and trans­par­ent. Philbert, who en­tered the Po­lice Ser­vice in 1967, said the racial com­po­si­tion of the Po­lice Ser­vice ini­tial­ly start­ed with many Africans and very few East In­di­ans. "In the first place, Trinida­di­ans didn't want to join the ser­vice, so they brought in peo­ple from out­side," he said.

"Then the Africans start­ed to fol­low, but there was al­ways more Africans than East In­di­ans in the ser­vice...no one is deny­ing that. "But it was not de­lib­er­ate to ma­lign any­body, that was just how it hap­pened be­cause at the time Africans seemed more in­ter­est­ed than the In­di­ans." He said as time passed, the num­ber of African in­creased as more and more of them be­gan show­ing keen in­ter­est in be­com­ing po­lice of­fi­cers. The num­ber of East In­di­ans dwin­dled as the ma­jor­i­ty left seek­ing green­er pas­tures out­side of the Po­lice Ser­vice.

"Many of the East In­di­ans who came in­to the ser­vice left to pur­sue av­enues that are more prof­itable like busi­ness...Peo­ple are not re­al­is­ing that," Philbert said. "So the African re­mained and rose to the ranks." He said East In­di­ans pur­sued jobs in the Pris­ons Ser­vice, Im­mi­gra­tion De­part­ment and Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion. The eth­nic im­bal­ance, how­ev­er, is not as se­vere as many be­lieve, he says, since there are some po­lice sta­tions in this coun­try staffed on­ly by East In­di­ans. "In two or three sta­tions, the pop­u­la­tion is on­ly East In­di­ans and in every sta­tion you go to, you will find an East In­di­an," Philbert said. He said Mo­hammed's state­ments "may very well" cre­ate di­vi­sion in the Po­lice Ser­vice. Ex­press­ing con­cern about the at­tri­tion rate, Philbert said while he was in of­fice, as many as 50 se­nior of­fi­cers left in one month, cre­at­ing a short­age in the ser­vice.

Ir­ra­tional to change law

Philbert, an at­tor­ney, said Mo­hammed's re­marks about tack­ling the pur­port­ed eth­nic im­bal­ance through leg­is­la­tion was non­sen­si­cal. "You can­not make a law to say who should stay and who should go and to com­pel peo­ple to stay in the ser­vice," he ar­gued. "Peo­ple have that choice to leave when they want."

In­di­ans "dropped out" be­fore "pass­ing out"

Echo­ing Philbert's sen­ti­ments, for­mer pres­i­dent of the Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, Cpl Em­rol Bruce, said even be­fore mak­ing it to the "pass­ing-out pa­rade" there was a high per­cent­age of East In­di­an drop-outs. "Soon af­ter train­ing I would say that more than 75 per cent of the East In­di­ans who had been re­cruit­ed dropped out even be­fore mak­ing it to the pass­ing out," he said. "Some of the East In­di­ans might not have been that phys­i­cal­ly en­dowed as the Africans...They came in the ser­vice and with­in five to eight years they dropped out." Dur­ing his tenure in the as­so­ci­a­tion, Bruce said there were nev­er com­plaints of East In­di­ans be­ing by­passed for pro­mo­tion. "Dur­ing my tenure three years ago, we lob­bied and were suc­cess­ful to se­cure a place for mem­bers of the as­so­ci­a­tion to be on the pro­mo­tion pan­el to en­sure the sys­tem is fair and trans­par­ent," he said. A po­lice of­fi­cer for 31 years, Bruce claimed African po­lice of­fi­cers who "worked hard" to climb up the ranks were now be­ing per­se­cut­ed for their ef­forts. "The East In­di­ans, the ma­jor­i­ty of them, choose to be mas­ters of their own des­tiny," he said.

"Sev­er­al of my batch­es who joined with me dropped out to pur­sue ca­reers even in agri­cul­ture and have been very suc­cess­ful." Hail­ing some of his East In­di­ans col­leagues, Bruce iden­ti­fied Dyo Mo­hammed, Farouk Ali, Nadir Khan and Noor Ken­ny Mo­hammed as of­fi­cers who had left an in­deli­ble mark on the Po­lice Ser­vice. He added that there had been a trans­for­ma­tion in the ser­vice as more East In­di­ans and even Chi­nese were join­ing. "The ser­vice has be­come a lot more at­trac­tive, es­pe­cial­ly where the pay pack­age is con­cerned," Bruce said. "But some of the peo­ple join­ing are com­ing in be­cause they are look­ing for a work...They are not in­ter­est­ed in ded­i­ca­tion and loy­al­ty."

Fo­cus on build­ing the ser­vice

Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er in charge on Op­er­a­tions Jack Ewats­ki urged mem­bers of keep their at­ten­tion fo­cused by build­ing the Po­lice Ser­vice. "I think a lot has been said but in the midst we need to main­tain our fo­cus and con­tin­ue to work in an en­vi­ron­ment that is con­ducive," he said. "We need to keep our fo­cus to deal with the

PO­LICE SER­VICE EX­EC­U­TIVE

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs

Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er (Op­er­a­tions) Jack Ewats­ki

As­sis­tant Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er (Mo­bile) Wayne Richards

As­sis­tant Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er (Com­mu­ni­ty Re­la­tions) Mar­garet Samp­son-Browne

As­sis­tant Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er (Homi­cide) Ray­mond Craig

As­sis­tant Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er (Crime) Harold Phillip

RE­CRUIT­MENT CRI­TE­RIA

Age

As of Jan­u­ary 1 of a can­di­date's ap­point­ment year, a Trinidad and To­ba­go po­lice of­fi­cer must be at least 18 years old and no more than 35 years old.

Cit­i­zen­ship

A po­lice of­fi­cer can­di­date must have Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zen­ship.

Gen­er­al ed­u­ca­tion

Trinidad and To­ba­go po­lice of­fi­cer can­di­dates must have pass­ing scores in five sub­jects, in­clud­ing Eng­lish Lan­guage, on the Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil (CXC) ex­am­i­na­tions.

Health

Of­fi­cer can­di­dates must have good gen­er­al health and be free of con­di­tions that in­ter­fere with their abil­i­ty to per­form ef­fec­tive­ly as a po­lice of­fi­cer. Can­di­dates must pass a med­ical ex­am ad­min­is­tered by a gov­ern­ment med­ical of­fi­cer.

Phys­i­cal con­di­tion­ing

Po­lice of­fi­cer can­di­dates must be in good gen­er­al shape and will need to pass an agili­ty test. Male of­fi­cer can­di­dates must be at least five feet, six inch­es in height, and fe­male of­fi­cer can­di­dates must be at least four feet, 11 inch­es tall.