DERRICK SMITH, Opposition Spokesman on National Security, is in no doubt that there must be a less aggressive approach by the police, since, according to him, traditional 'hard policing' has not been effective.
"We need to be bold enough to begin to introduce a softer approach to policing. If hard policing was as effective as people said it was the situation would be getting better. This hard policing is what is serving to alienating more of the citizens," Mr. Smith argued, even though he acknowledged that there will be circumstances which require strong resolute police action.
Police excesses are not unknown to Flo O'Connor, human rights consultant to the Ministry of National Security. While crediting outgoing Police Commissioner Francis Forbes for reasserting police respect for the rights of citizens, she believes that the two decades under the regime of the Suppression of Crime Act (1970s and 1990s) have done untold damage to the culture of policing in Jamaica.
PROCEDURES
"For those two decades we had officers who knew nothing about proper police procedures, how to serve a warrant, or that they were required to allow a detained person a phone call, so it has been a massive re-education process, and I'm not sure how we are ever going to change the attitudes of some senior members, although, happily, some of them are now seeing the light and are encouraging the new recruits to behave differently," she said.
For too long, Miss O'Connor continued, the force 'literally knew' nothing about human rights. It was not unheard of, she said, for the police to beat a suspect in the head with the log book or a gun butt to obtain information, "and when I spoke to them, they would ask, 'Den Miss O'Connor, how we suppose to get the information out a dem?'."
Miss O'Connor, who conducts a one-day session on human rights with police recruits at training school, said while the training was useful, it was not sufficient, and could be quickly undone, depending on which sub-officer the young cop is assigned to.
A similar point was made by Derrick Smith, who is calling for greater care to be taken in the orientation of young police personnel.
In the meantime, ACP Leon Rose continues to rely heavily on the social outreach efforts of the force to improve police-community relations; such as the police youth club movement, the Scout movement, the safe schools programme and the social intervention programmes in communities such as Mountain View, Payne Land and Hannah Town.
"There is no doubt that the actions of some of our members whether driven by operational interventions or corruption undermine our best efforts at closer community cooperation, but we have had our successes and we will persist with it," he vowed. Overall, the Bill Johnson poll on crime and violence, conducted on behalf of the Ministry of National Security, found that there was a much more negative view of the crime problem, nationally, than how it is viewed by respondents in their own neighbourhood.
