CMOC Impressed with Improvements in JCF

Improvements within the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) have caught the attention of the country’s anti-crime watchdog.

The Crime Monitoring Oversight Committee (CMOC) has heaped commendation on the Government for the significant advancements that have been made in the JCF.

Chairman CMOC, Lloyd Distant, told JIS News that the body, which is tasked with setting targets to mitigate crime, has been very pleased with the investment the Government has made in the JCF, in relation to several of the transformation pillars.

“We are of the view that part of the reason why we’re seeing the reduction in crime is because of the increased presence of the JCF on the road,” Mr. Distant noted.

That increased presence, he said, has come from the addition of approximately 1,270 new recruits each year.

The CMOC tracks five pillars under the JCF transformation, namely people, force structure, force infrastructure, equipment and technology. Under the people pillar, Mr. Distant said, the JCF has done a phenomenal job in adding people to the force each year.

“Of course, you know retention and attrition notwithstanding, we’re getting a net increase of good officers in the Force and what we’ve seen in that is that the quality of the candidates has been really astounding.

Notwithstanding the minimum qualification to get in, we’re seeing several people with CAPE and university degrees joining the force,” Mr. Distant said.

He added that commendation should also be given to how the Force has approached its training programme.

“Not just the initial training, but the approach to infusing them and orienting them into the Force… it’s over six months to two years before they actually become embedded as a full-blown officer in the Force. It’s not just ‘let’s get some people and put them on the road’. There’s a very robust training and induction programme to bring people into the JCF,” he said.

Mr. Distant pointed out that the officers are so well trained that Caribbean neighbours have sought to poach them from the JCF. “The people in the Cayman Islands and BVI, and Turks and Caicos, they’re all coming to raid our officers,” he said.

The CMOC, which was established in 2020, is an independent body, comprising non-partisan stakeholders from the private sector, civil society, academia, and the political directorate, with a mandate to set goals aimed at mitigating crime and report to the public.