ACTING COMMISSIONER OF POLICE PLEDGES INCREASED SUPPORT FOR COMMUNITY POLICING

Kingston, Jamaica: Acting Commissioner of Police Owen Ellington has announced that over 1200 police officers have been trained in community policing, as the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) makes the necessary changes to intensify that programme islandwide.

To this end, there has been a general re-education of members of the force in community policing strategies and changes are being made at the leadership, supervisory and basic recruitment training levels to facilitate the process; reported the Acting Commissioner of Police. “Every single member of the JCF is being trained to operate as a Community Policing Officer,” he said. Additionally, he pledged his commitment to ensuring that there are strong leadership structures in facilitating the expansion of community based policing islandwide. The Acting Commissioner emphasized that a prerequisite for building better communities is the building of strong leadership structures. Ellington was speaking at the JCF’s Community Based Policing Conference at the Jamaica Conference Centre in Kingston on Wednesday, March 17.

The Acting Commissioner has underscored the need for citizens to see community policing/community safety as their right and responsibility. Pointing out that community policing is anchored on the belief that citizen’s partnership is crucial to the building of safety and confidence in communities, Acting Commissioner Ellington added, “We believe that community safety is indeed a shared responsibility, and for very long we have been talking about expansion of community policing and I think too long we have been trying to pilot community based policing in Jamaica. I think we are now at a stage where we can mainstream community based policing.” Emphasizing that “public trust is the greatest asset”, if the police is to play a successful role in community safety, Ellington stated that every effort is been made internally to ensure that the police execute their duties in a manner that will earn the trust of citizens.

At Wednesday’s Community Policing Conference, which was themed “Community Safety – Everybody’s Business”, the success stories and hurdles in Community Policing were placed under the microscope. The conference was jointly hosted by the Jamaica Constabulary Force, the Ministry of National Security, USAID Community Empowerment and Transformation Project (COMET), Department for International Development (DFID), United Nations Development Programme, Jamaica Chamber of Commerce and the Social Development Commission. The new model of community policing being pursued by communities, places emphasis on joint problem solving and partnerships. Assistant Commissioner of Police Novelette Grant elaborated on the nature of Community Policing: “Problem solving here refers to a process in which the police, citizens, Social Development Commission, church, and other stake holders work in partnership to identify neighbourhood crimes, disorders, and other social problems.” She told the conference that the partners try to understand the conditions that give rise to those social problems; and develop and implement short and long term solutions.

The USAID Community Empowerment and Transformation Project (COMET), which has been giving technical and administrative support to the JCF, on its Community Policing Programme believes that Community Policing is essential to community improvement and is central to the culture change and other key reforms stipulated in the Strategic Review Implementation Plan (SRIP) of the JCF. Addressing residents at the community policing conference, Dr. Karen Hilliard, Mission Director, USAID/Jamaica, expressed the belief that the community policing initiative had grown “from a pilot project” to a high impact approach” islandwide.

Citing recent findings from the Jamaican arm of the Latin American/Caribbean Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), Dr. Hilliard was of the view that there is a greater working relationship between the police and citizens. She said the findings revealed that 85 per cent of respondents viewed the police as helpful friends instead of abusive, while 90 per cent thinks that working with the police makes a difference in fighting crime in communities. 

Dr. Hilliard pledged her organization’s continuing support to the community safety partnership. She pointed to other initiatives with which the USAID will continue to give assistance, namely,  youth/entrepreneurial training programmes, engaging the youth in a positive way through sports and cultural training, instructional development for national security, and support to fight transnational crime and implement reforms to the justice system.

Fifty-seven communities islandwide have dedicated community policing programmes and action plans to enhance social development and the security in the respective areas. Among the communities now reaping success in the Community Policing Programme are Enfield in St. Mary, Race Course in Trelawny, Canaan Heights in Clarendon,  Mountain View and Havendale in St. Andrew, and Russia in Westmoreland. At Wednesday’s event, Anthony Earle a resident of the once volatile inner-city community of Russia in Westmoreland reminisced on the improvement that the community policing had brought to the area. In Russia, police statistics show that major incidents of crime dropped from18 in 2006, to 12 in 2007 and eventually seven last year. Mr. Earle said he and many in the community consider the police their friends and not a threat. “Once we have the police officers doing the right thing, others will fall in line,” declared Earle.

Similar sentiments were echoed by Bernard Constantine of Enfield, as he recalled the upsurge of violence that the community experienced before the community policing partnership began in the area. Constantine made it clear that no single entity can tackle the problem of crime in the country, not the police, not the church, not the schools, and he was adamant that a collaborative approach is always needed. “If we have a better community it means we will have a better Jamaica,’ he chanted, to the applause of the audience.

Among other speakers at the Community Policing Conference were: Howard Drake, British High Commissioner, Akiko Fujii, Deputy Resident Representative, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and Assistant Commissioner of Police John McLean. The JCF presented awards to the major partners in community policing, during the Conference.

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