Every year, the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) goes to the trouble of providing statistics that seek to apprise us of the ebb and flow in the relationship between the Guyana Police Force (GPF) and the public. Those statistics have to do with the number and nature of public complaints against the police. Even in a society where figures are often inclined to deceive, those must be some of the most misleading statistics put before the public.
This does not mean that they are inaccurate. The numbers are what they are. It is the impression that they might seek to convey that is the concern of this editorial. Indeed, one has to wonder whether the PCA’s statistics are not grossly unreliable tools with which to reliably assess the relationship between the public and the police.
In so far as the statistics accurately reflect the actual number of complaints that are made to the PCA against the police, those statistics are accurate. On the other hand there is a sense in which they are profoundly misleading.
These days, people tend pretty much to wear their hearts on their sleeves, so to speak, as far as their disposition to the police is concerned. Public attitudes tend to range from suspicion and circumspection to unqualified loathing, though this does not mean that sections of the citizenry may not perceive the police in a much more wholesome way. The fact is, however, that large numbers of citizens have had what one might call ‘bad experiences’ with the police, experiences ranging from the coarsest and crudest shakedowns by traffic cops bent on extracting ‘a raise’ in exchange for setting aside a charge, to police-inflicted intimidation and violence that has left unpleasant, sometimes unforgettable memories in their wake. Other kinds of equally unsavoury accusations are routinely made against the police.
The turn of the century has witnessed the emergence of new, more hostile confrontations between the police and the various publics. If, in many instances, the police can contend with justification that they have had to raise their game in response to more challenging forms of criminal behaviour, the public, by the same token, can point to what, in far too many instances have been displays of unacceptable heavy-handedness and a propensity for indiscriminate violence by some policemen.
No less disconcerting is the emergence of a public perception that some policemen sometimes behave no better than ordinary hoodlums, so that, inevitably and in far too many instances the relationship between the police and the public is informed by fear and loathing on the part of the public.
It is this perhaps above all else that causes the PCA’s statistics to become a decidedly unreliable barometer with which to measure the quality of the relationship between the police and the public. Of course public complaints against the police have increased, though if we add to those, numbers who have troubled themselves to complain, those others who consider complaining a waste of time, or who fear that complaining might attract reprisals, then the actual numbers of justifiable complaints become much larger and far more alarming.
Put differently, the PCA’s revelation that the number of complaints filed against the police for the year so far has increased by five per cent over that which was filed in the previous year is to tell us nothing of earth-shattering importance since the bottom line is that the number of people with grouses against the police who either consider it a waste of time to complain or are just plain scared to complain probably far exceeds those numbers mentioned in the PCA’s report.
Some of the statistics provided in the PCA report are, in all likelihood, simply not a credible reflection of reality. According to the PCA, this year so far there have been nine complaints of officers acting in a manner to bring discredit to the force and one relating to corrupt transaction. Few if any Guyanese are likely to believe that these numbers come even remotely close to telling the truth about the behaviour of the police in circumstances where instances of alleged unprofessional and corrupt conduct by policemen are quite commonplace.
One statistic that is relevant and worthy of comment has to do with the number of complaints – 67 out of 147 – that have been processed by the Commissioner of Police. It would be interesting to know, for example, what the Commissioner’s findings on those complaints have been and whether or not those complainants who, presumably, are awaiting responses to their complaints, will secure those responses in a timely manner.
We note too Chairman Kennard’s comment on what he believes is the salutary performance of the force under undefined “exigent” circumstances though we believe that it is entirely appropriate to state that, in some, indeed, many instances, those exigencies have been a function of considerable official neglect. In this context it is apposite to state that it does not appear that sufficient attention is being paid to rooting out corruption in the Force.
Long before PCA Chairman Justice Cecil Kennard made his pronouncements about complaints against the police, there was good reason to believe that the situation as far as the relationship between the GPF and the public is concerned had actually grown worse. The issue as far as the statistics are concerned is that they may well seriously understate the extent of the breakdown in the relationship between the police and the public.
