Geisha Kow­lessar

A new ini­tia­tive called "Shift" with a $1.3 mil­lion price tag is the lat­est plan to trans­form the cul­ture of the Po­lice Ser­vice and by ex­ten­sion the at­ti­tude of po­lice of­fi­cers. The plan was de­signed by the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion with in­put from the mem­ber­ship.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er, who ad­dressed mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty yes­ter­day dur­ing a break­fast meet­ing host­ed by the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, said $1.3 mil­lion was a small price to pay. The meet­ing was held at the cham­ber's build­ing in West­moor­ings. Shift stands for Ser­vice, Ho­n­our, In­te­gra­tion, Fo­cus and Tran­si­tion.

The plan, how­ev­er, was re­ject­ed by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs in 2010 on the ba­sis of lack of fund­ing. The new ini­tia­tive, which Warn­er said was not a crime plan, aims at im­prov­ing at­ti­tude and em­pow­er­ing po­lice of­fi­cers to change their be­hav­iour and work ethics. Warn­er met with ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers of the as­so­ci­a­tion, in­clud­ing pres­i­dent Sgt Anand Rame­sar and sec­re­tary Sgt Michael Seales, at his min­istry at 5 am yes­ter­day.

De­scrib­ing the meet­ing as "ab­solute­ly su­perb," Warn­er said: "I met the as­so­ci­a­tion mem­bers, from a de­pressed bunch of guys to more pleas­ant guys they are now. "And I would say the mon­ey is worth it...it is a good in­vest­ment," he added. The plan would be mon­i­tored by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry and its key fo­cus was to "do a tran­si­tion" of the Po­lice Ser­vice, Warn­er said.

"This was not so in the past. This is not an an­ti-crime plan. This is a tran­si­tion plan to change the im­age of the Po­lice Ser­vice...they want to change the im­age and get bet­ter re­sults and bet­ter ser­vice, and this is what they are work­ing on. "The as­so­ci­a­tion has said the im­age is not the best and the ev­i­dence is there...I have seen this," Warn­er said.

About Shift

Rame­sar said the plan was in the mak­ing two years ago when the as­so­ci­a­tion be­gan an ex­ten­sive da­ta-col­lec­tion ex­er­cise. "The plan is re­al­ly about shift­ing the par­a­digm in the Po­lice Ser­vice and up­lift­ing its cul­ture," he said. "It is about im­prov­ing at­ti­tude and get­ting po­lice of­fi­cers to change their be­hav­iour and work ethics. "We are tak­ing the bull by the horns be­cause we want po­lice of­fi­cers to dis­play the right type of at­ti­tude to the pub­lic."

A main fea­ture of the plan will be awards for a po­lice­man and po­lice­woman of the year, to be cho­sen by the com­mu­ni­ty. He said the as­so­ci­a­tion hired a Unit­ed King­dom-based con­sul­tan­cy firm, Bar­rett Val­ues Cen­tre, to analyse da­ta gath­ered by the as­so­ci­a­tion and in­de­pen­dent con­sul­tants.

Rame­sar said fo­cus was placed on in­ter­nal trans­for­ma­tion, in­clud­ing fa­cil­i­ties in the Po­lice Ser­vice. "There is the as­pect of ex­ter­nal trans­for­ma­tion, which fo­cused on be­ing more proac­tive rather than re­ac­tionary," he said. "There is al­so the is­sue of strate­gic al­liances, which fo­cus­es on ar­eas the Po­lice Ser­vice needs to part­ner with."

The plan, he added, would not on­ly re­sult in a cul­tur­al change but al­so pro­duce more mo­ti­vat­ed po­lice. "When we pro­duce the po­lice of­fi­cer with the right at­ti­tude, this would tran­scend in­to the so­ci­ety and pro­duce im­proved com­mu­ni­ty links," Rame­sar said. "This would even­tu­al­ly change the so­ci­ety...this is not a cos­met­ic ap­proach to polic­ing."

Asked whether this plan would be du­pli­cat­ing some of the core fac­tors of the Po­lice Acad­e­my in St James, Rame­sar de­scribed the teach­ing at the acad­e­my as based on the­o­ry. "The acad­e­my fo­cus­es heav­i­ly on syl­labus, a lot of lit­er­a­ture and the­o­ry...It does not fo­cus on char­ac­ter-build­ing of a po­lice of­fi­cer," he said. "This plan deals with the re­moval of ego from the po­lice of­fi­cer."