Re­cent­ly, I ac­com­pa­nied per­sons to Tu­na­puna and Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tions and com­mend­ed staff on du­ty on their pro­fes­sion­al­ism.

In the mid-2000s, un­der for­mer Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Trevor Paul, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) adopt­ed the mot­to “To Pro­tect and Serve with PRIDE” - aim­ing to build bet­ter pub­lic trust. The let­ters in the acronym PRIDE stand for TTPS’ five core val­ues: Pro­fes­sion­al­ism, Re­spect, In­tegri­ty, Dig­ni­ty, Ex­cel­lence.

Dur­ing that time, I was a mem­ber of T&T’s Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC). My tenure ran from 2003 to June 2007. I had been ap­point­ed by the late George Maxwell Richards, TC, CMT, the then Pres­i­dent of T&T. I served un­der two ex­cel­lent chair­men —the late Ken­neth R Lal­la, SC, who served as the PSC’s chair­man for 14 years be­fore Christo­pher R. Thomas was ap­point­ed to the po­si­tion on Ju­ly 1, 2004.

I am still “haunt­ed” by the chal­lenges we faced on the PSC. Mar­jorie Thor­pe, a mem­ber of the PSC with me, al­ways re­counts the day that I be­came so frus­trat­ed when deal­ing with is­sues re­lat­ing to “rogue cops”, I blurt­ed out dur­ing a meet­ing: “What would Je­sus do?”

There are “good cops” and there are “bad cops”. T&T is faced with the chal­lenge of chang­ing po­lice cul­ture and op­er­a­tions. Some crim­i­nol­o­gists and aca­d­e­mics sug­gest adopt­ing a com­bi­na­tion of in­ter­nal ac­count­abil­i­ty, struc­tur­al le­gal re­forms, and ac­tive com­mu­ni­ty over­sight.

I have al­ways been an ad­vo­cate for com­mu­ni­ty and per­son-cen­tred polic­ing. Rather than fo­cus­ing on rapid, re­ac­tive law en­force­ment, I am con­vinced that proac­tive, em­pa­thet­ic col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween po­lice and the com­mu­ni­ty will yield sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter re­sults than tra­di­tion­al law en­force­ment alone. The fol­low­ing pro­found state­ment by Ja­maica’s Prime Min­is­ter is note­wor­thy:

“Com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing is about be­ing present, help­ful, and trust­ed. The po­lice can­not fight crime alone. Crime goes down when com­mu­ni­ties work with us, when young peo­ple see of­fi­cers as role mod­els, and when peo­ple be­lieve jus­tice will be fair and quick.

“Polic­ing is about serv­ing the peo­ple. Com­mu­ni­ties re­spect of­fi­cers who re­spect them, and crim­i­nals lose pow­er when peo­ple trust the po­lice. Be­ing a good of­fi­cer is about char­ac­ter and build­ing strong re­la­tion­ships with the peo­ple you serve” (Jan­u­ary 25, 2024).

Un­til 2006, the role of the PSC was some­what dif­fer­ent. The 2006 Con­sti­tu­tion­al Amend­ment (Act No 6 of 2006) shift­ed the PSC’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to pri­mar­i­ly fo­cus on ap­point­ing and dis­ci­plin­ing the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) and Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP). It al­so in­tro­duced a re­quire­ment for the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to ap­prove the PSC’s nom­i­nees for CoP and DCP be­fore ap­point­ment.

And in 2007, the Po­lice Ser­vice Act was amend­ed to de­volve di­rect re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the re­cruit­ment, pro­mo­tions, and dis­ci­pline of all oth­er po­lice of­fi­cers (up to the rank of As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er) to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. Pri­or to this, the PSC han­dled these mat­ters for the en­tire ser­vice.

There is no doubt that Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, who as­sumed the role and took com­mand of the na­tion’s po­lice ser­vice in June 2025, faces sev­er­al chal­lenges, in­clud­ing pub­lic de­mand for im­me­di­ate, tan­gi­ble re­duc­tions in gang vi­o­lence, home in­va­sions, and vi­o­lent crime, which re­mains ex­cep­tion­al­ly high.

The sanc­tioned strength of the TTPS is 7,884 reg­u­lar of­fi­cers, sup­ple­ment­ed by 3,005 Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice. How­ev­er, due to va­ca­tion, sick leave, train­ing, and court du­ties, the ac­tu­al front­line op­er­a­tional strength on any giv­en day is ap­prox­i­mate­ly 5,500 of­fi­cers.

To in­crease po­lice vis­i­bil­i­ty and bor­der se­cu­ri­ty, the gov­ern­ment an­nounced a five-year phased re­cruit­ment pro­gramme to ex­pand the sanc­tioned strength to 10,200 of­fi­cers.

How­ev­er, an in­crease in num­bers is not suf­fi­cient. The TTPS must im­prove struc­tur­al re­forms, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and the ef­fi­cient use of of­fi­cers, con­sid­er­ing, e.g. on-go­ing train­ing and de­ploy­ment of Of­fi­cers. I note that the TTPS is adapt­ing to ad­dress evolv­ing crime pat­terns, par­tic­u­lar­ly since crim­i­nal el­e­ments are shift­ing in­to rur­al coastal ar­eas and adapt­ing their tac­tics. We need a high­ly mo­bile and in­tel­li­gence-led po­lice re­sponse rather than re­ly­ing sole­ly on tra­di­tion­al sta­t­ic polic­ing.

I pray that the TTPS’ in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven an­ti-crime op­er­a­tions will bear fruit. To re­main rel­e­vant, ef­fec­tive, and ef­fi­cient TTPS must al­so ad­dress the op­por­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges we face in an in­creas­ing­ly dig­i­tal world.

As Cather­ine de Bolle, ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of Eu­ropol said: “AI will pro­found­ly al­ter the land­scape of law en­force­ment… How­ev­er, along­side these ad­vance­ments, AI in­tro­duces new chal­lenges and po­ten­tial vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly in ar­eas like da­ta pri­va­cy and the in­tegri­ty of AI-dri­ven de­ci­sions. It is im­per­a­tive that we nav­i­gate these ad­vance­ments with a strate­gic ap­proach, bal­anc­ing in­no­va­tion with the eth­i­cal im­pli­ca­tions and so­ci­etal im­pact.”