Corporal Curtis Orr does not need a gun nor a badge to patrol his community.
“Pleasant afternoon Sir,” Orr said flagging down a Nissan B14 on Laventille Road. “Here is some road safety tips,” he said handing over some pamphlets to the driver, “stay safe on the road, have a wonderful Christmas and watch out for the weather,” Orr also said pointing upwards.
As the car drove off, Orr looked with a proud smile.
The officer of the Community Oriented Policing Section said his key to connecting with the people is to show them the same respect he would like to receive.
He said, “When you come down here with a normal little vibes, you will see how they will love you.”
But Orr has added another dimension to his policing, something that has not only changed the way he sees certain crimes but has deepened his connection with the community. Orr is a graduate of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service’s (TTPS) gender sensitivity training programme.
“In the past I may have generalised everyone into one category and now that I completed this training you realise that you have to look at everyone on a different scale, this has brought about a better interaction with the community, a ‘sit down and listen’ model,” he said.
Meanwhile, a facilitator of the one-month programme, Constable Arondell Brizan explained to Guardian Media what exactly is gender responsive policing.
“It looks at a holistic approach of police officers in applying the law to offences that are geared towards persons because of their gender, so if a crime is perpetrated against a woman because she’s a woman, or a child because they’re a child, once those crimes are targeted because of their gender, that is gender responsive policing,” Brizan said.
Brizan used sexual abuse as an example.
“When we think about rape and the trauma that goes with rape, we have to be minded that in most cases the victim is a woman, so there are certain things that need to be done, she may need to be taken for a medical exam, there may be other personal issues specific to her being a woman that have to be addressed so it’s really adding a qualitative approach outside of general policing where we are just dealing with the law,” he said.
Put simply, he said gender responsive policing is the awareness that different genders have different needs.
The facilitator said this also means teaching police officers the difference between tolerance and acceptance.
“We’ve had discussions where we learn to address persons by the pronouns they want to be identified as, because when you put on your hat as a police officer, we swear an oath so you have no room for bias.”
Melissa Moreau, administrator for Advanced Programmes and Services at the Police Training Academy, also spoke with Guardian Media on the matter and was quite honest when asked what are officers’ and trainees’ reception to this type of training.
She said. “I would say some are, and some aren’t so responsive to it because it’s a matter of socialisation and culture and what you have been exposed to, a traditional view for someone may be that police are strict and are about the law and the psychological thing is for social workers, however their response to it is growing and it is also growing through education, so the more training we provide, the wider reach we get and persons will understand the concept of gender responsive policing and see it as part of their regular policing.”
Moreau said so far over 425 officers have benefited from the training since it was launched in October 2021.
