Two weeks after Commissioner of Police Henry Greene passed the normal age of retirement and celebrated his thirty-fifth year in the Guyana Police Force, he remains on the job. President Bharrat Jagdeo announced last week that he was “considering” extending Greene’s tenure of the office to which he was confirmed only on December 31 last year. Deputy Commissioner Edward Wills is also due to retire.
If the President wants to grant the Commissioner an extension of service, he should do so quickly. If not, he should allow his successor to assume command immediately. Delaying the decision can generate unhealthy and unnecessary uncertainty. It can undermine the morale of other police officers, distract attention from law enforcement and encourage rumour-mongering. There ought not to be speculation about the selection of the commissioner. As one of the largest corporate organisations in this country, the police force needs clear rules, professional standards and a settled policy for the selection and succession of its senior officers.
The complexities of transnational crimes such as narcotics-trafficking, money-laundering and trafficking in illegal firearms and the current challenges of everyday armed robbery, rural and hinterland banditry, riverine piracy and other forms of criminal violence require fresh minds and fresh policies. The events of the past decade have made it clear that the brute-force tactic of sending out hunting parties to shoot bandits has not eradicated those transnational crimes which keep pumping guns, drugs, dirty money and criminal violence into the country.
Systematic police reform − that emphasises crime intelligence and human security − is necessary if the country is to enjoy a sustained era of public safety and economic stability. Only a transformed security environment will attract foreign investment and persuade local talent to remain in the country. The Security Sector Reform Action Plan was meant to achieve that, among other things.
Beyond the phoney bonhomie that has come to characterise recent annual police officers’ conferences, evidence of real overall improvement in law enforcement is hard to find. How could the past year that witnessed the two worst massacres, a surge in armed robberies, relentless narco-trafficking and the embarrassing appearance of 113 policemen before the courts on charges of corruption and other crimes be considered successful? The Police Complaints Authority reports only on those cases about which the public complains. But ordinary citizens make many more allegations of everyday shakedowns by the police.
There is no evidence that detection rates for serious crimes have improved. The police rarely publish annual statistics on the number of unsolved murders or the number of unconvicted ‘suspects’ they have shot dead in their enforcement operations. Nor is there evidence that public confidence in the police has improved. Do people actually feel that the police have been doing such an excellent job despite record increases in the annual budget of expenditure – $13.7B in FY 2009 – and the fact that the police force now has 20 per cent fewer police officers than its establishment requires?
What the police force needs now are clear and coherent policies to restructure its organisation, retrain its members and remodel its outdated techniques. It also needs a competent commissioner, supported by a committed command team, who together are capable of implementing those reforms courageously in order to improve the present unsatisfactory state of public safety.
The President must use the opportunity presented by the superannuation of Commissioner Henry Greene and Deputy Commissioner Edward Wills to pursue long-term policies for police reform and public safety. The force has already had far too much political interference that has demoralised competent senior officers and derailed the implementation of its essential reform programme.
