Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher has de­fend­ed her de­ci­sion to send se­nior of­fi­cers on va­ca­tion leave amid the cur­rent up­surge in crime across the coun­try, and giv­en as­sur­ances that the crime fight won’t be hin­dered as a re­sult.

Yes­ter­day, a memo to Su­per­in­ten­dent Roger Alexan­der in­form­ing him of ap­proved 763 days leave was cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia.

There were con­cerns raised by some oth­er of­fi­cers as well as mem­bers of the pub­lic.

How­ev­er, in a me­dia re­lease this morn­ing CoP Hare­wood-Christo­pher said one of the con­sti­tu­tion­al man­dates of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice is the ef­fec­tive man­age­ment of the re­sources as­signed to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, which in­cludes “the very valu­able, hu­man re­sources”.

She ex­plained this man­date cre­ates “an in­evitable con­flict be­tween the de­mand for ser­vices and the need for the ef­fec­tive de­ploy­ment of of­ten lim­it­ed re­sources, which ne­ces­si­tates very de­lib­er­ate and care­ful man­age­ment in or­der to achieve a healthy bal­ance be­tween these ob­jec­tives, while pur­su­ing max­i­mum re­sults.”

“This sce­nario is very ap­par­ent in the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion where the TTPS is chal­lenged to bat­tle an un­de­sir­ably high in­ci­dence of crime while hav­ing to main­tain an ad­e­quate, com­pe­tent and ef­fec­tive com­ple­ment of its hu­man re­source on a sus­tained and pro­tract­ed ba­sis,” she said.

The Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er ob­served: “Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, the or­gan­i­sa­tion is in an un­ten­able sit­u­a­tion of hav­ing many of­fi­cers work­ing con­tin­u­ous­ly over very ex­tend­ed pe­ri­ods with ex­ces­sive­ly high va­ca­tion leave en­ti­tle­ments, which in many cas­es is in ex­cess of two—and some cas­es—three years.

The Top Cop said this sit­u­a­tion is detri­men­tal to both the of­fi­cer and the or­gan­i­sa­tion as it presents the po­ten­tial for is­sues re­lat­ed to health and wel­fare and work-life bal­ance, and pos­si­bil­i­ties of di­min­ish­ing re­turns for the of­fi­cer, as well as the loss of ef­fi­cien­cy and ef­fec­tive­ness in op­er­a­tions for the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

She said this is “sim­ply not a vi­able po­si­tion.”

“As a con­se­quence, and as an ini­tia­tive to mit­i­gate the risk and the li­a­bil­i­ty of ex­ces­sive va­ca­tion leave en­ti­tle­ments, the Ser­vice has im­ple­ment­ed a pol­i­cy by sched­ul­ing such of­fi­cers to utilise por­tions of their leave on a phased and con­trolled ba­sis,” she dis­closed.

“These of­fi­cers will, how­ev­er, re­main avail­able to be re­called if the cir­cum­stances so war­rant,” she added.

CoP Hare­wood-Christo­pher al­so ex­plained that of­fi­cers pro­ceed­ing on leave may oc­ca­sion the trans­fers of of­fi­cers in some in­stances to fill va­cant po­si­tions.

“The Ad­min­is­tra­tion as­sures that all trans­fers will be made pru­dent­ly and with the ob­jec­tive of en­sur­ing the best fit of of­fi­cers to de­liv­er the max­i­mum re­sults in the po­si­tions they are as­signed to,” she as­sured.

The Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er sought to re­as­sure those ex­press­ing con­cerns in the pub­lic do­main about of­fi­cers pro­ceed­ing on leave.

“The ad­min­is­tra­tion of the TTPS re­mains acute­ly sen­si­tive to the lev­el of polic­ing that the cur­rent crime sit­u­a­tion war­rants,” she stat­ed, while as­sur­ing that, “an­ti-crime ini­tia­tives will not be com­pro­mised by of­fi­cers pro­ceed­ing on leave.”

“Fur­ther, the ad­min­is­tra­tion as­sures that the process is be­ing ef­fec­tive­ly man­aged, as it must be, both in the short and long-term in­ter­est of the Ser­vice, and the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the coun­try,” she added.

The Top Cop ad­dressed the re­cent call out of De­fence Force Vol­un­teers, not­ing:

“It is in this con­text al­so, that the TTPS wel­comed the re­cent sup­ple­men­ta­tion of the Ser­vice with mem­bers of the De­fence Force, as an ini­tia­tive that will pro­vide us with ad­di­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty to sup­port the main­te­nance and in­ten­si­fi­ca­tion of our an­ti-crime op­er­a­tions.”

“The TTPS sees this ini­tia­tive of leave man­age­ment as a cru­cial and nec­es­sary in­vest­ment in im­prov­ing its over­all per­for­mance,” she said, “and looks for­ward to hav­ing its re- en­er­gised of­fi­cers re­sume du­ty to as­sist in tak­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion to a high­er lev­el of ef­fi­cien­cy and ef­fec­tive­ness in its bat­tle against crime.”