Start­ing to­day of­fi­cers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice will re­ceive train­ing in Law En­force­ment Ethics. De­tails fol­low in this press re­lease from the TTPS.

Of­fi­cers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) will be re­ceiv­ing train­ing in Ethics in Law En­force­ment start­ing to­day at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain. The work­shop was de­signed through the col­lab­o­ra­tion of the Caribbean Cen­tre for Hu­man Rights (CCHR) and the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA).

The train­ing ses­sion will be fa­cil­i­tat­ed by Mr. Al­lan Meiguel and will run for four days, high­light­ing the is­sue of po­lice bru­tal­i­ty and the per­cep­tion of law en­force­ment of­fi­cers by the pub­lic. Ms. Denise Pitch­er, Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of CCHR, ex­plained, that the goal of the pro­gramme is to in­crease em­pa­thy with­in of­fi­cers by plac­ing them in the role of vic­tims and show­ing the im­por­tance of their ac­tions.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (Ag), Mc Don­ald Ja­cob, thanked the cre­ators of the pro­gramme and at­tend­ing Of­fi­cers. He ex­pressed his grat­i­tude for such a pro­gramme to lift the stan­dards of po­lice le­git­i­ma­cy and re­in­force those points. He said, “There is al­ways a need for of­fi­cers to be re­mind­ed of their role in law en­force­ment. Though Po­lice of­fi­cers are giv­en the free­dom to act ac­cord­ing to law, they need to be aware of the laws, reg­u­la­tions and use of force pol­i­cy which guides them in en­sur­ing the rule of law is ad­hered to, there­by equip­ping and prepar­ing them to op­er­ate con­fi­dent­ly when deal­ing with the pub­lic.”

Mr. Ja­cob said there is a be­lief that there aren’t much con­trol mea­sures in place to deal with po­lice bru­tal­i­ty, when in con­trast there are. He con­tin­ued, “Al­though there are le­gal mea­sures with­in the ser­vice and the PCA as an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­tiga­tive body, along with the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion (DPP) which ad­vis­es in­ves­ti­ga­tors, the use of tech­nol­o­gy and so­cial me­dia plays a piv­otal role as a con­trol mea­sure for of­fi­cers.” This pro­grammed was de­signed for of­fi­cers to get an un­der­stand­ing of po­lice bru­tal­i­ty and it will be ben­e­fi­cial to all at­ten­dees.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­ers of Po­lice (Ag) Joanne Archie and Pamela Schullera-Hinds of the TTPS Ex­ec­u­tive were al­so in at­ten­dance this morn­ing at the work­shop.