Police Ready For New School Year in St. James

Deputy Superintendent of Police in charge of the St. James Community Safety and Security Branch, Angela McIntosh-Gayle, says the unit is in a state of readiness for the new school year, which begins on Monday, September 5. 

In an interview with JIS News, Mrs. McIntosh-Gayle said the police will be out in their numbers from as early as 6:30 a.m. to ensure a smooth flow of traffic.  

Additionally, she indicated that officers will be going into the various schools across the parish to engage students and staff on safety protocols, updating emergency contacts, participating in devotional exercises and more to keep them safe.   

“We will have persons going into the schools to speak with the principals, address students and we are doing it for the entire week, and we will continue for maybe two weeks,” Mrs. McIntosh-Gayle outlined. 

“We have the school resource officers who will be paying attention, as we realise that there is violence in schools at times and children take in weapons to school, and so we want to ensure that we are on top of our game, where we send in our police officers to be impactful in the school and help the children to understand,” she added. 

Mrs. McIntosh-Gayle further stated that re-establishing and revamping police youth clubs in schools is among the primary focus for the St. James Community Safety and Security Branch in the new school year.  

She said police youth clubs will be imperative, as they will give youngsters a chance to communicate and interact more with police officers, thus improving good police-community relations.  

“It will let them see the police as their friends and not their enemies. So, with more interaction in their clubs and all that, I think we will reach more children [and] find out what is happening,” said Mrs. McIntosh-Gayle. 

She added that the Branch recently concluded a youth summer camp in the Norwood and Salt Spring communities, where youngsters who took part were happy, felt a sense of belonging and opened up to the police. 

“So, we see that getting the children in one space, speaking to them more and more, it will help them. Some will have a little fight of course, but after asking them questions, ask them how they feel, let them apologise and all of that, it was a different set of children,” Mrs. McIntosh-Gayle pointed out. 

“For two weeks, we saw a change in behaviour, a lot of changes [and] so, this programme just adds value to what we are doing,” she added, noting that similar results will be reached with the police youth clubs in schools.