Jensen La Vende 

Se­nior Re­porter 

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Head of the Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion ASP Gideon Dick­son says there are plans to bring changes to the way po­lice of­fi­cers are pro­mot­ed. 

Dick­son said that since 2006, every pro­mo­tion for sec­ond di­vi­sion of­fi­cers had been chal­lenged by those ag­griev­ed since the Po­lice Ser­vice Act of 2006 changed how of­fi­cers were pro­mot­ed from se­nior­i­ty to mer­i­toc­ra­cy. 

He said mer­i­toc­ra­cy was the stan­dard glob­al­ly, with the cur­rent lead­er­ship of the po­lice ser­vice be­ing among the first to ben­e­fit from this. 

“I am aware that ef­forts are be­ing made to re­view what is cap­tured by way of the reg­u­la­tions and to make it more ap­peal­ing and more sound struc­tural­ly, so per­sons won’t have the amount of is­sues that they run to the court with,” he said.

Dick­son, who is a mem­ber of the re­view com­mit­tee on pro­mo­tion for sec­ond di­vi­sion of­fi­cers, said a sur­vey was ex­pect­ed to be dis­sem­i­nat­ed among the mem­ber­ship for their views on how the pro­mo­tion con­cerns could be ad­dressed. 

He said with there be­ing more ap­pli­cants than va­can­cies, there would al­ways be a prob­lem when some­one is pro­mot­ed. 

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Dau­rius Figueira said is­sues of pro­mo­tion had been a con­tin­ued strug­gle for the po­lice ser­vice and those en­ter­ing should men­tal­ly pre­pare them­selves if they wished to pur­sue a ca­reer in polic­ing. 

He said this may im­pact the mo­ti­va­tion of of­fi­cers but with­out the da­ta to sup­port it he could not say de­fin­i­tive­ly that it did. 

“But it cer­tain­ly not good for morale and mo­ti­va­tion. It in­di­cates the need for re­form and there is a press­ing need for op­er­a­tional re­form at the po­lice ser­vice. The whole is­sue of pro­mo­tions is one that con­tin­ues to plague the ser­vice, so it has to be solved. A work­ing mech­a­nism must be de­vised and put in place to min­imise this sort of con­flict,” he said.

On Mon­day, High Court Judge Mar­garet Mo­hammed grant­ed leave to 115 con­sta­bles to chal­lenge Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s de­ci­sion to pro­mote of­fi­cers ahead of them ear­li­er this year. 

The mat­ter stemmed from the pro­mo­tion of 896 con­sta­bles to the rank of cor­po­ral from the TTPS Or­der of Mer­it List pub­lished on Sep­tem­ber 28, 2023. 

A com­put­er glitch was blamed for the mix-up which saw 29 of­fi­cers scor­ing be­low some of their col­leagues be­ing pro­mot­ed be­cause of the glitch. Of­fi­cers who scored high­er than them were lat­er pro­mot­ed. Oth­er of­fi­cers who were not pro­mot­ed have tak­en le­gal ac­tion.