Despite the formalities of inviting applications for the job, it seems a foregone conclusion that Mr Owen Ellington will, in due course, be confirmed as commissioner of police unless an excellent candidate from abroad, with clear Jamaican roots, now applies for the post.

Mr Ellington's strongest domestic rival for the position, Mr Danville Walker, the former director of elections and current head of Customs, who many people feel would be a shoo-in if he expressed an interest, has stated publicly that he does not want the job. He has endorsed Mr Ellington.

In the weeks since he has acted in the position, Mr Ellington has spoken with the assurance of someone who owns the job and, critically, has been saying mostly the right things. However, for Mr Ellington's sake, we feel it prudent to reiterate the anxiety we feel for him and one significant trap he must consciously seek to escape once he is officially designated commissioner of police.

Indeed, for many Jamaicans, the major baggage Mr Ellington will take to the post is not any perception about himself, but his endorsement by the Police Officers' Association and the union of lower-ranked constables, the Police Federation. The fear, with logic, and the basis of history, is that it is a kind of entrapment.

Most Jamaicans, unless they have been comatose for decades, are aware that our police force is endemically corrupt. Most people believe that this corruption permeates all levels of the constabulary, including the leadership ranks. Too many policemen enjoy lifestyles that would be inexplicable from their known incomes. Moreover, many in the management ranks of the police who may not be corrupt are incompetent. Several years ago, during the tenure of Dr Peter Phillips as national security minister, a report suggested that over half of the senior officers of the constabulary should be removed.

Corruption

The corruption issue came to the fore, in two incidents in Clarendon last week, of policemen, in their private capacities, escorting or travelling as bodyguards or colleagues of accused criminals and gang, members. In one incident, seeming rogue cops were involved in a high-speed gunfight with other gangsters and, eventually, legitimate law officers. In the other case, a bodyguard cop was shot dead by gunmen.

Mr Ellington has expressed concern over the growing trend of policemen consorting with criminals, and has pledged to drive them from the force. Raymond Wilson, the chairman of the Police Federation, agrees, which is good. We recall that Sergeant Wilson called for the resignation of Les Green when he claimed that some of the police killed in Jamaica had died because of their involvement with criminals.

The larger point is that rooting corruption from the Jamaica Constabulary Force will be a tough job that will lose the person who seriously attempts it many institutional friends, as was the case with the two men who really made the effort - Colonel Trevor MacMillan in the 1990s, and Mr Ellington's immediate predecessor, Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin, both outsiders.

It is not that those who speak on behalf of internal organisations condone misbehaviour, but they become slaves to institutional loyalties and grow concerned about hanging organisational linen in public which, perforce, is necessary in any aggressive action for change. This is one reason why Mr Ellington, who came through the ranks - which makes it more difficult - must escape such organisational embrace if he is to have a decent go as commissioner.

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