JCF Restructures Operations

Commissioner of Police, Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin, has said that a number of divisions will be dismantled or merged as the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) seeks to restructure its operations.
The new arrangements will see the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) and Operation Kingfish merged to form NIB Kingfish, and will be strengthened from appropriate elements of the Special Branch, which will no longer exist.
“[With] the intelligence architecture, we are moving from a situation where we had a number of different formations all having a piece of the intelligence picture but nobody had the total picture, and having the total picture is very critical,” Commissioner Lewin stated at a press conference recently held at the Police Officers’ Club in Kingston.
According to the Commissioner, many of the sections were competing for limited resources and in some cases, were overlapping. He informed that the only aspect of the Special Branch that will remain is the Protective Services Division that provides security for VIPs.
Another aspect of the new arrangements is that Community Relations will be merged into Community Safety and Security. However, Commissioner Lewin explained that the overall mandate for welfare of members, which belonged to Community Safety, will be the responsibility of a small team on the Commissioner’s staff.
“Bear in mind that we are pushing responsibility for command and control back to the areas and the divisions and it is the first stop for many welfare issues, but things of a Force level will be the remit of a Force welfare officer and his small staff,” Rear Admiral Lewin outlined.
In addition, the Professional Standards Branch will be renamed the Inspectorate of Constabulary. “The primary role of the Inspectorate of Constabulary is to inspect all police formations and to ensure that the standards, (and) procedures are being adhered to, that they are the Commissioner’s eyes and ears in every nook and cranny in the Constabulary Force,” he emphasized.
According to the Commissioner, the Inspectorate is not meant to be a big stick, but “its mission is to work with all the formations to point out areas that are not up to scratch and to assist them to come up to the requisite standards and to maintain those standards.” He noted, however, that the Inspectorate of Constabulary will have a big stick “if things are not moving in the right direction or at the right speed that one would expect.”
A new Strategy and Plans post will also be created to deal with reform and modernization issues with an appropriate officer on the Commissioner’s staff. Meanwhile, the Firearms and Coastal arm will be dismantled and replaced by the Firearms and Use of Force Task Group, which will be headed by Assistant Commissioner Paul Robinson, who was employed specifically for that role.
Commissioner Lewin noted that the Task Group will be charged directly by the Commissioner to ensure that “we bring the Force up to the requisite standards and that annual certifications are done.”
A Support and Services Command will also be created to cover areas such as Traffic, Canine, Mounted Patrol, Marine and the Police Band and the Special Anti-Crime Branch will be absorbed into the Mobile Reserve.