After years of work, the rehabilitation and expansion of the Brickdam lockups has been finally completed to the tune of $60M and the facility was handed over yesterday to the Guyana Police Force (GPF).
Minister of Home Affairs Robeson Benn officially commissioned the facility which was built to accommodate a total of 52 persons.
The project commenced in 2012 under former Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee.
Delivering his address yesterday, Benn said that after taking up office, he learnt that the lockups had not yet been completed since there was a need for adjustments such as ventilation and internal works.
As such, he said the Ministry believed that it was an “urgent” matter and measures were put in place for the completion of the facility.
“We have now been able to fix them to a standard with proper ventilation, so that they can be occupied and that the persons we have to take charge of in a situation where they have to be constrained and confined, that they will be better housed. In a more respectful manner too,” Benn said.
To date, Benn said the overall cost of the work on the lockups has amounted to $60M. He said the facility comprises steel beams and solid cast walls.
Benn reminded all members of the GPF that in instances where persons are housed in police stations, ranks are required to be respectful and professional.
“So I don’t want to expect any more to go to police stations and find them dirty, to find the mattresses on the floor dirty, to find the accommodations not properly kept. Facilities must be of a proper standard so that they can be properly used. That upon inspection, they are satisfactory. That the language and demeanour used in the police stations are appropriate for communicating between ourselves (and) the public,” the Minister said.
Benn said that he learnt that the GPF did not have an Inspector General and as such he is hoping to appoint someone to fill this capacity.
“Whether it’s an old policeman or serving policeman, somebody who goes around and at all levels in respect of the accommodations, in respect of the conduct of our policemen, to remind them of the training which they have received and to remind them of the standard which the public, who pay the taxes and who provide the possibility for us to carry out our work, they are treated in a respectable manner and that they feel proud of us,” he explained.
Rough
The Minister further related that the era of “rough” policing and being “cruel and dispassionate” have to end.
“I want to pay particular attention to the humanistic approach which we have to adopt in respect (of people in our custody). That we should not have or continue to have situations where we offer these people and in so doing, even creating for ourselves a brutalizing experience for prisoners and that we demean our vow with respect to service and protection to the Guyanese public as we are policemen and people in the security sector,” he said.
Benn related that the quality of service of the GPF and all other Disciplined Services is not defined by “how well you dress yourself” but in engaging with the public.
“It’s the level of respect that we offer them even while they might have troubles, they come to us, that we have to offer a high level of professional service and respect. And so we have to recommit ourselves always to the issue of service and protection to the public and to our country particularly in this difficult role of policing,” he said.
He further urged ranks to work together to improve themselves at both a personal and professional level.
“…When we are upset with each other to sit down and do our own conflict resolution within ourselves and to have us gradually, as we are trying to do now improve our environment, improve our facilities, improve our infrastructure and improve ourselves so that the communities all around, at all police stations and places, so that there will be proud of us,” he noted.
According to Benn, a lot of the issues within the force within members of the force can be resolved if ranks engage each other. “We don’t want to go to the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) or to be running to the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR). A lot of the issues seems to be issues which we can gradually work out by engaging with each other and having an understanding of the environment, the challenges and the pitfalls which may be out there in respect of policing,” Benn asserted.
He said he will be demanding that local police achieve a “high” standard of policing. “So whatever the difficulties are, it isn’t too late to change and it isn’t too late to have an introspection with respect to our own professional and personal development and with the task with which we have to do,” he said.
In 2018, former Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan had explained that the design and the construction of the lockups had been problematic.
In September, 2017 the ministry, invited bids from qualified persons to execute a $16.4 million project to focus on fixing the ventilation system and the washroom facilities at the lockups. Ramjattan had said then that the works were expected to be completed at the end of that year.
