Two police sergeants from Grove Police Station were jailed earlier in November after they were found guilty of a “corrupt transaction” by accepting a bribe while being officers employed by the state. The two took cash as payment to return a firearm which was seized from a citizen. At present, another sergeant and a constable are facing the charges of “unlawfully wounding” a teenager last October at the ‘C’ Division Headquarters at Leonora.
Lately, separate incidents of attempted rape and rape occurred at the ‘B’ Division Headquarters in New Amsterdam and at the Springlands Police Station, Berbice, respectively. In the first, a subordinate officer attempted to rape the wife of a man whom he had arrested for robbery. He had escorted the man’s wife under the pretence of taking her to see her husband at the station. In the other incident, two constables attempted to rape a young woman who was arrested at the police station for “wandering.” They allegedly allowed a rural constable to rape the woman instead.
The most brazen attempt at deliberate misrepresentation occurred when Police Headquarters − desperately seeking a scapegoat over the torture case at a police station in the West Demerara ‘C’ Division − transferred the divisional commander Assistant Commissioner Paulette Morrison, seemingly on the suggestion of the Minister of Home Affairs. Now that fresh allegations of criminality have arisen in East Berbice ‘B’ Division, will headquarters similarly transfer the divisional commander – Assistant Commissioner Stephen Merai?
The next attempt at misrepresentation occurred on the government television show Perspectives This Week: Law Enforcement Accountability. Featuring Head of the Presidential Secretariat Roger Luncheon and Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee, the show sought to make light of police abuses – torture and rape – as if these were manageable misdemeanours. Luncheon tried to suggest that oversight mechanisms exist to prevent misconduct from recurring.
He referred to the Police Complaints Authority and Police Service Commission which he said “seek to ensure the integrity of the security forces and certify that the actions of individuals and institutions, over which they have oversight, subscribe to the fullest extent of the law.” He voiced the notion that “The interplay of executive and parliamentary oversight does generate that environment in which all aspects of accountability have been dealt with.”
This is not so. Oversight of the police force by the National Assembly is nugatory. The PCA and PSC do not possess the capabilities to conduct independent investigations and are obliged to refer complaints about policemen to the police force itself! These oversight mechanisms cannot properly investigate, much less prevent, criminality. As a result, abuses have been recurring with frightening frequency.
Police misconduct should be seen for what it is – a chronic gangrene that has festered as a result of years of inappropriate training, inept management and political interference. Until the force is comprehensively reformed, abuses will recur. Reform has never been a job for the PCA, PSC and OPR!
The IDB-funded Citizen’s Security Programme and the DfID-funded Security Sector Reform Action Plan have contributed to the technical improvement of the force. Serious human problems – command, leadership, management and training – persist, nevertheless. Misrepresenting misconduct by shuffling divisional commanders, singling out scapegoats, spinning press releases and scuttling real reforms cannot improve the conduct of members of the force.
