This month marks the fifth anniversary of Justice Ian Chang’s presentation of the report of the Disciplined Forces Commission to Speaker of the National Assembly Mr Ralph Ramkarran on May 6, 2004. The report was laid before the National Assembly which accepted it unanimously a few days later.
Then stasis set in. The report was subjected to such dilly-dallying that it has become evident that both the administration and the Assembly appear to have accepted the present easy-going tempo of meetings. Members of the Assembly ought to understand that their complacent attitude to approving the report hurts, rather than helps, the reform of the Guyana Police Force.
When the commission was convened, the troubles on the East Coast Demerara were still raging. Little could be done then about the inadequacy of the force’s short-term response to the surge in violent crime that began in February 2002. Rather, it was concerned with the long-term reform of the force to prevent it from being caught off-guard a second time. Its terms of reference were weighted excessively on the Police Force which was then, as it is now, regarded as educationally, technologically and operationally retarded.
It was realised that the force’s procedures were ponderous and prone to procrastination; its personnel were not efficiently employed or sufficiently equipped and resourced; its crime intelligence capability had been impaired; its investigations were still characterised by outdated hit-or-miss techniques and, occasionally, foreign experts had to be summoned to conduct tests for essential forensic evidence on certain crimes; and its ancient, manually maintained ledgers and files could disappear or be damaged.
These were some of the matters which the commission was concerned about and which led to its making 71 serious recommendations to improve police performance. The most important of these, perhaps, were for the improvement in the management of the force’s personnel. At the top of the list was the scheme to enhance the attractiveness of police careers by increasing salaries substantially, to augment the numerical strength, and to raise the minimum educational criterion for recruitment from that of a ‘sound primary education’ to, at least, a ‘sound secondary education.’
The commission also recommended that a police academy should be established to graduate better-educated officers. In so doing, urgent consideration was to be given to introducing a revitalised cadet scheme to attract successful secondary school and university graduates and to place the selection and training of cadets on a regular, annual basis. In particular, emphasis was to be placed on the recruitment of scientists from society at large to serve in the force’s scientific laboratory and on the acquisition of the means to conduct DNA tests.
The commission felt that more trained policeman could be released for operational duty around the country. So it recommended that members of the Special Constabulary should be relieved of static guard duties as watchmen and be allowed to function as true reserves by participating in mobile operations which require more personnel. Civilians should be engaged to perform certain functions such as the examining of vehicles for road fitness certificates, processing passport applications and doing office work and store-keeping − jobs that do not require uniformed policemen. Similarly, the serving of summonses and other duties in rural areas should be done by rural constables.
These are a few glimpses of the commonsensical suggestions which the Disciplined Forces Commission made to improve the Guyana Police Force and over which the National Assembly has been deliberating for all of five years. It is time to think of transferring responsibility for managing the parliamentary process to review the report to someone who respects deadlines and understands the urgency of police reform. There is no place for complacency on matters of public safety.
