Gov’t First Year Review: Police Received Extensive Training in Critical Expertise

The Ministry of National Security has, since September last year, been placing additional emphasis on training police personnel.
The Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), as part of its crime prevention strategy, trained 40 of its members as crime prevention experts, who are available to provide persons with advice on how to crime-proof their homes.
Two officers of the JCF, were also sent to Scotland for an intensive five-week training course, to provide expertise on physical and social crime prevention, the use of closed circuit television (CCTV), and architectural designs.
In addition, in April, 16 law enforcement officers from Jamaica and 18 from other English speaking Caribbean countries, participated in an intensive two-week training course, at the Twickenham Park-based Caribbean Regional Drug Law Enforcement Training Centre in St. Catherine.
The course was intended to strengthen their interdiction capabilities, in relation to precursor chemicals diverted to make illegal drugs.
Held annually, the programme is a collaborative effort among Jamaica, the Organisation of American States (OAS), Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) and Canada, through the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, (RCMP).
The course examined the regulatory framework for the control and monitoring of precursor chemicals, frequently used in the covert production of illicit drugs, such as cocaine, opium, morphine, crack and heroine. Participants focussed on chemical identification, monitoring and control of specified chemical substances, chemical diversion, chemical trafficking and trends, legislation, treaties, and conventions.
In June, more than 100 police officers, from 14 divisions, were trained in Community-Based Policing (CBP), to be deployed to various communities islandwide.
CBP, which has been implemented in several communities, is a law enforcement philosophy and organisational strategy based, on partnership between citizens and police to address the root causes of crime, disorder, and fear of crime.
To support the introduction of the CBP, the Community Safety and Community Relations Branches, were merged and equipped to deliver a range of services that would effectively meet the needs of communities.
There are now Community Safety and Security Branches in every police division, with trained crime prevention professionals working to support crime prevention, community safety, partnership working, Safe School Programmes, youth programmes, neighbourhood watch, and community policing.
Additionally, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the British High Comissioner’s office, contributed funds towards the purchase of motor vehicles, computers and furniture, to equip the community policing units.
Also in June, 32 law enforcement officials, including clerks of court, deputy clerks, police officers, immigration officers, social service personnel and persons working in the Witness Protection Programme, participated in a human trafficking detection training programme in Mandeville.
The programme, made possible through the collaborative effort of the Ministry of Justice’s Training Institute and the JCF’s Reform and Modernisation Programme, is part of an islandwide drive to train law enforcement personnel, to readily detect signs of human trafficking, and prosecute the perpetrators.
During that same month, some 117 local law enforcement border control personnel, graduated from a special two-week training course at the Police Academy in Twickenham Park, St. Catherine.
The course was aimed at strengthening the capabilities of the officers, to stem the illegal trafficking in guns, gun parts, ammunition, and explosives.
The Traffic Division of the JCF, trained 25 police officers as breath analysts, in July.
The objective of the breath analysing course was to teach persons how to detect excessive alcohol both in the preliminary test using the SD 5 and the confirmatory tests using the intoxilyzer 8000 machines.
The Traffic Division, currently has 20 Intoxilyzer 8000 machines, that do more advanced tests and 200 SD 5 machines, that the officers travel with daily. The JCF now has 58 trained breath analysts, up from 33.
Also, 30 officers participated in a two-week Crime Zone Forensic Mapping Course, at the College of Insurance and Professional Studies, during the month of September. The officers were drawn from the Major Investigation Task Force (MIT), the Scene of Crime Unit (SCU), and Traffic Units.
In the meantime, the complement of the Island Special Constabulary Force (ISCF), was boosted with 119 additional members, comprising 88 males and 31 females. The new members were presented with certificates, at a passing-out parade, held at the Carl Rattray Training College in Runaway Bay, St. Ann.