Mark Wignall | Security settings very shaky
Published:Thursday | December 19, 2019 | 12:00 AM
Last Sunday, about mid-morning, as I left my car and walked across to one of the fruit and vegetable vendors close to the police station in the small semi-rural town centre, a policeman – a sergeant – who I knew from the 1990s beckoned to me. We settled against a concrete wall and talked.
“As yu look roun so di man dem leave di work. Me lucky. I get a few allowances so I can take home about $160,000 per month, although it costs me $40,000 in gas to reach and leave work from Portmore, and occasionally use my vehicle for police work because the station is only assigned one service vehicle.
“A constable joining now will be taking home $65,000 a month. A security guard can earn that and supervisors in that industry much more.”
A retired policeman, who was once in charge of a ‘division’ in the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), had an additional take on it as we linked by phone two days ago. “I have followed up Security Minister Horace Chang’s utterances where, in recent days, he has been citing INDECOM as some sort of hindrance to effective policing.
“The minister is in party campaign mode and is trying to remind the JCF that he (and the JLP and the JLP government) is on the side of the corporals, constables, sergeants, inspectors and top officers there.” We laughed at that, but agreed that election signals could be driving that narrative.
I asked the retired senior officer if he agreed that the voluntary attrition rate was a significant negative factor for the JCF. “I believe the attrition rate in the 1980s could have been higher, but a new factor exists at this time. The economy has opened up jobs for police personnel with adequate qualifications, so the government has been a victim of its own success.”
The sergeant had an additional twist to that. “Me have some squaddie who did force fi borrow funds because of the starvation wages, and dem find themselves in a sticky situation when dem can’t pay it back. Some leave di bad loan dem, and gone a foreign.”
OFFICERS UNDER PRESSURE
An inspector in charge of a small station told me the media has placed the senior officers in the JCF under pressure, and others of his rank and above are forced to adopt an almost tyrannical approach in trying to get those at the base to conform to best practices.
“No man or woman wants to feel that he is bullied every day and placed under pressure while he is taking home starvation wages. The brighter ones can get jobs in Barbados or Cayman, but those who stick it out here are always on the verge of leaving.”
The murder rate has been ticking in the wrong direction, and although it is driving the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) into a ‘rediscovery’ that crime fighting starts at the community level, we can’t quite can’t quite figure why those involved in social intervention are being picked on.
It seems to me that Minister Chang and the JLP went far out on a limb with the SOEs and zones of special operations, and now that limb is touching the ground and there are no more trees in the forest.
Most sensible people have always known that only a united effort can stem the tide of murders. Conveniently stressing that now may seem to the more cynical that the government is vexed with itself and has no other choice but to skilfully fob it off on the people.
In the battle for words versus action on the security front, I expect to see a big win for words in the week before Christmas.