T&T CHAM­BER OF IN­DUS­TRY & COM­MERCE

When Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Dwayne Gibbs and Deputy Com­mis­sion­er Jack Ewats­ki took over the reins of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) in Sep­tem­ber 2010, they came with a man­date to re­vise and re­vamp the po­lice ser­vice. Six months in­to tenure, we are now see­ing the un­fold­ing of the "21st Cen­tu­ry Polic­ing," a pi­lot project which is be­ing rolled out in the West­ern Di­vi­sion over three to four months, with the ob­jec­tive of or­gan­i­sa­tion­al trans­for­ma­tion of the Po­lice Ser­vice to meet the stan­dards and ex­pec­ta­tions of a mod­ern so­ci­ety. If ad­judged suc­cess­ful, this will be­come the tem­plate for re­form of the en­tire TTPS.

Old polic­ing stan­dards

At a cham­ber mem­bers' meet­ing, Ewats­ki re­marked that he felt a sense of nos­tal­gia up­on first en­ter­ing a po­lice sta­tion in Trinidad, so strong­ly did it re­mind him of Cana­di­an po­lice sta­tions back in the 1970s!

The Deputy Com­mis­sion­er's quip ef­fec­tive­ly sums up the fact: One ma­jor rea­son that the ser­vice of the po­lice is so want­i­ng is be­cause it is bogged down and ren­dered in­ef­fec­tive by old, out­dat­ed sys­tems, pro­ce­dures and prac­tices and in dire need of over­haul.We now find our­selves at the point where pub­lic con­fi­dence, cus­tomer ser­vice and vis­i­bil­i­ty of the po­lice have been all but erod­ed and the Po­lice Ser­vice is per­ceived as cor­rupt and in­ef­fec­tive.

Rad­i­cal changes

To com­bat this, un­der the ini­tia­tive, rad­i­cal changes are be­ing pro­posed, such as mov­ing to two-of­fi­cer mo­bile pa­trols in the com­mu­ni­ties of the West­ern Di­vi­sion, changeover of the Four Roads and Care­nage Po­lice Sta­tions to "Po­lice Ser­vice Cen­tres," which will be open for 12 hours dai­ly, short­er du­ty shifts of 12 hours, spe­cial­i­sa­tion of de­tec­tives, au­toma­tion of the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion--and chang­ing to a more prac­ti­cal po­lice uni­form. Along with these, a num­ber of spe­cial units will be es­tab­lished: Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence and Spe­cial Vic­tims, Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tions and Ca­nine Sup­port, Di­vi­sion­al Traf­fic and Di­vi­sion­al Tac­ti­cal Sup­port.

How­ev­er, even be­fore it has been for­mal­ly launched, there are rum­blings. In the heat of wage ne­go­ti­a­tions, the Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion has threat­ened that the project may be in jeop­ardy, un­less de­mands are met. Res­i­dents of gang-in­fest­ed ar­eas have ex­pressed fears that part-time open­ing of Po­lice Ser­vice Cen­tres and re­moval of the mo­bile polic­ing units will on­ly add to their in­se­cu­ri­ty as crim­i­nals will not feel they are be­ing mon­i­tored. It would ap­pear that de­spite his laud­able plans, the com­mis­sion­er has some way to go in com­mu­ni­cat­ing with that cru­cial stake­hold­er, the pub­lic.

New­ly ap­point­ed chair of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, Dr Ramesh De­osaran, has al­ready sig­nalled his in­ten­tion to seek ac­count­abil­i­ty from the com­mis­sion­er and stat­ed that Gibbs must say "how suc­cess­ful his 21st Cen­tu­ry Polic­ing was go­ing to be in terms of re­sults..."He will be seek­ing, in due course, hard da­ta to sup­port any claims of the ini­tia­tive's suc­cess. Fur­ther­more, he has said that if it NOT a suc­cess, the com­mis­sion­er will be held re­spon­si­ble. The cham­ber, for its part, con­sid­ers re­form of the Po­lice Ser­vice nec­es­sary and is in full sup­port of the change man­age­ment. We are cog­nisant of the dif­fi­cul­ty of the task that has been giv­en to PC Gibbs and Ewats­ki. How­ev­er, like De­osaran, we be­lieve it must be trans­par­ent, with clear­ly de­fined suc­cess mea­sures and a sys­tem of fol­low-up re­ports to all stake­hold­ers.