KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Not every­one hop­ing to join the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is un­em­ployed. Some al­ready have jobs.

But for the more than 9,000 ap­pli­cants who re­spond­ed to the TTPS’ lat­est re­cruit­ment dri­ve, a ca­reer in law en­force­ment rep­re­sents an op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve the coun­try while se­cur­ing sta­ble em­ploy­ment.

The TTPS re­ceived 9,100 ap­pli­ca­tions dur­ing its lat­est re­cruit­ment ex­er­cise, with the Po­lice Acad­e­my now in the ver­i­fi­ca­tion stage as it nar­rows the pool of prospec­tive of­fi­cers. Act­ing ASP Gushi­er Grant, who over­sees ad­min­is­tra­tion at the Po­lice Acad­e­my, said of­fi­cials are ver­i­fy­ing ap­pli­cants’ aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions and sup­port­ing doc­u­ments be­fore they ad­vance to the next stage of the se­lec­tion process.

“To­day we have the sec­ond phase of the ver­i­fi­ca­tion process for the ap­pli­cants who would have ap­plied dur­ing the pe­ri­od of in­take in the Po­lice Ser­vice. To­day we are ver­i­fy­ing the doc­u­ments, mak­ing sure they are qual­i­fied with the five CXC pass­es, in­clud­ing Eng­lish, and the oth­er re­quire­ments of a dri­ver’s per­mit and na­tion­al ID for in­take,” Grant said.

The ver­i­fi­ca­tion ex­er­cise be­gan in Mara­bel­la on Mon­day be­fore mov­ing to the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Cou­va yes­ter­day, where more than 1,500 ap­pli­cants were ex­pect­ed to have their doc­u­ments checked. Grant said the num­ber of ap­pli­ca­tions was close to the ser­vice’s tar­get. “In to­tal, we had 9,100 ap­pli­ca­tions on the sys­tem, the Em­ployTT plat­form. It’s av­er­age be­cause we were ex­pect­ing about 10,000 ap­pli­ca­tions, but we got 9,100 ap­pli­ca­tions.”

Ap­pli­cants who suc­cess­ful­ly com­plete the ver­i­fi­ca­tion stage will sit an on­line ex­am­i­na­tion. Those who pass will then be short­list­ed be­fore un­der­go­ing fur­ther as­sess­ments, in­clud­ing med­ical and psy­cho­log­i­cal eval­u­a­tions.

Grant said while many ap­pli­cants cit­ed a de­sire to serve the coun­try, the re­sponse al­so re­flect­ed the ap­peal of polic­ing as a se­cure pro­fes­sion.

“Most per­sons, when we pass them, want to serve their coun­try, Trinidad and To­ba­go. It is a very at­trac­tive means of em­ploy­ment. It’s sta­ble; as we know in re­cent times we had COVID-19, and this is more of a se­cure way for per­sons to earn a liv­ing, and it’s a very good ca­reer.”

She not­ed that many ap­pli­cants pos­sess qual­i­fi­ca­tions be­yond the min­i­mum en­try re­quire­ments, in­clud­ing diplo­mas, bach­e­lor’s de­grees and mas­ter’s de­grees, which could strength­en spe­cialised units with­in the ser­vice.

“We have recog­nised that we have a lot of per­sons with diplo­mas, de­grees and mas­ters that have ap­plied to the Po­lice Ser­vice. So it shows that per­sons are look­ing for em­ploy­ment, look­ing for some sort of sta­bil­i­ty and the Po­lice Ser­vice is here to give that.” Grant said those qual­i­fi­ca­tions would be an as­set in sev­er­al spe­cialised ar­eas.

“We have medics, we have lawyers, we have the le­gal unit, we have foren­sic, we have poly­graph units, we have dif­fer­ent sec­tions where per­sons who have mas­ter’s de­grees would be a def­i­nite ben­e­fit to the Po­lice Ser­vice.” Among those hop­ing to join the TTPS is 25-year-old Sachin Joseph, who said he wants to play a role in mak­ing the coun­try safer. “My mo­ti­va­tion is to make a dif­fer­ence in the com­mu­ni­ty, to make a dif­fer­ence in the coun­try. Just in gen­er­al, try to make the coun­try a safer place,” Joseph said. While ac­knowl­edg­ing the risks as­so­ci­at­ed with polic­ing, he said mean­ing­ful change re­quires sac­ri­fice.

“It does, but at the end of the day, you have to make a sac­ri­fice in or­der to make a change in the coun­try.”

Christo­pher John, who cur­rent­ly works in pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty, said his ex­pe­ri­ence mo­ti­vat­ed him to pur­sue a polic­ing ca­reer. He said the coun­try’s crime sit­u­a­tion and the high lev­el of com­pe­ti­tion did not dis­cour­age him.

“To be hon­est, the crime rate in the coun­try is ridicu­lous right now, and I re­al­ly want to pro­tect and serve my coun­try. That’s why I’m ap­ply­ing,” he said.

The ver­i­fi­ca­tion ex­er­cise in Cou­va ran more smooth­ly than Mon­day’s ses­sion in Mara­bel­la, where large crowds and traf­fic con­ges­tion cre­at­ed lo­gis­ti­cal chal­lenges.

Grant said ap­pli­cants were en­cour­aged to at­tend ac­cord­ing to their as­signed time slots, re­sult­ing in a more or­der­ly process.

“To­day, at Cou­va, we recog­nised that that has been ful­filled. So now we have an eas­i­er flow. There are no long lines. The per­sons are not out­side in the hot sun, and there’s no traf­fic dead­lock out­side.”

The Po­lice Acad­e­my cur­rent­ly has the ca­pac­i­ty to train about 230 re­cruits at a time. Grant said the TTPS is ex­plor­ing op­tions to ex­pand its train­ing fa­cil­i­ties to ac­com­mo­date larg­er in­takes in the fu­ture.