The Police Federation - which represents the more than 7,000 rank and file members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force - says it will not support the government's plan to recruit cops from overseas, as part of the administration's strategy to deal with run-away crime.
By TK Whyte"We will not encourage any move by government that will disenfranchise our membership, or anything that will put the employment and upward mobility of our members at risk," said the federation's chairman, Inspector Handel Morgan. "We would naturally resist such a move."
Security minister Peter Phillips' announcement Thursday night that the recruiting was already under way had come as a shock, Morgan said.
"They (government) have not contacted us at the Federation on it," he told the Observer yesterday. "The first time I heard about recruiting overseas police to work here was in the (security) minister's broadcast on Thursday, which hit us by surprise."
During the national broadcast, Minister Phillips fleshed out details of Operation Kingfish, a task force which was officially launched on Tuesday. It will target organised criminal gangs and their leaders and a new hotline - 811 - has also been established in an attempt to provide members of the public to come forward with information that may lead to arrests and convictions.
Over the years, the Jamaican Government has worked closely with the UK and the USA as it tries to break the back of a crime problem that leaves, on average, more than 1,000 Jamaicans dead every year. There have constantly been calls for more outside help, calls which Phillips answered Thursday night.
"We are continuing our effort to recruit additional police personnel to increase the ratio of police-to-population," he said. "Specific requests have been made to secure officers from overseas to serve in the JCF. And this request is being processed."
According to the force's planning and research department, the island's police-to-population ratio is one police to every 343 citizens, the highest in the Caribbean. JCF insiders say there is a recommendation for the strength of the force to be increased from the current 8,172 to 12,000, which would reduce the ratio to one police to every 217 civilians.
The ideal number of cops, referred to as the establishment, is 8,500. With the strength of the force (number of cops actually employed) at 8,172 - including 220 gazetted officers who are categorised as managers and therefore are not engaged in daily operational duties - there are 108 vacancies to be filled.
Security sources have indicated that the recruits will come from Britain, but Phillips did not indicate, last Thursday, how many cops would be recruited from overseas or when they would arrive in the island.
While the federation says it welcomes the general move to use overseas lawmen as trainers, to strengthen the investigative capability of police officers in areas such as forensic evidence, DNA testing and rapid detection of firearms used to commit crimes, it has rejected any move to include them as members of the force.
Morgan told the Observer that the federation will meet with Phillips next week, when the recruitment issue will be high on the agenda.
In the meantime, he is hoping that the minister will submit a proposal to the federation before the meeting so that his members will be able to study the document "so that we can discuss it intelligently".
Chairman of the Police Officers Association (POA), which represent gazzetted officers, senior superintendent Leon Rose, declined to comment on the proposal. "I am not in an informed position to speak," he said.
But there is already some opposition from within the ranks.
One senior police inspector, who spoke on condition of anonymity, blasted the proposal. Efforts by other Caribbean islands - such as Bermuda and Cayman - to recruit Jamaican cops, he argued was an indication that local lawmen were good at what they do.
The problem, the cop argued, was not a shortage of manpower but inefficiencies at the supervisory and management levels.
"We have sufficient talent in Jamaica around which to build a good police force, so there is really no need to send abroad for policemen," he said, adding that better pay would also help.
The federation has been lobbying for a 45 per cent salary hike, a move being resisted by the government which signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the country's unions that would hold pay increases to three per cent.
