Loud and clear

Newspaper reports pointed out that this is the first time the Police Service used a clause in the Police Service Act No 7, 2006, which permits the Commissioner of Police to ask senior police officers to step down based on poor performance.

Holding police officers accountable for their lack of performance is a major step forward in fighting crime.

This action should make senior police officers examine more innovative ways to fight crime.

If crime is skyrocketing in your division, then you must, as a police officer, look at new ways to prevent crime. Be creative. Get out into the community. Be a part of the community.

Don’t hide in your offices or your vehicles. Don’t engage in foot patrols where you’re doing nothing but chatting with your fellow officers.

Make meaningful connections in communities. Mentor young people.

There are endless possibilities to challenge police officers.

This means that your job as a police officer is not merely to run around like Keystone cops chasing culprits after a crime has been committed.

It means you must look at community-based initiatives that demonstrate police presence and develop a positive message that conveys crime doesn’t pay. It means that communities must see police interacting with individuals in high-risk neighbourhoods in a way that clearly demonstrates that police are invested in those neighbourhoods.

Police need to earn people’s trust, and trust cannot be earned when crime is out of control. If the statistics in a given district are dismal then that clearly indicates that the police need to change gears and do something different.

As police officers, you can’t simply blame crime on criminals. Your job is not just catching criminals. It is preventing crime. If you don’t know that, then you should not be a police officer. Live by your motto “Protect and Serve”.

I have written several columns before about people in other countries who have taken back their communities.

They’ve done it with the presence of police not merely patrolling the place or “investigating” crimes after they have happened. These communities integrate police into the community.

I don’t understand how any high-ranking police officer can excuse poor statistics and then turn around and say that these statistics are only part of the picture and the detection rate for crime has improved in their district.

This means nothing to me unless you have earned the trust of people in those communities that you truly are “detecting” the right people.

I sincerely hope that Acting Commissioner Williams sticks to his guns. He should continue to hold high-ranking police officers accountable for their actions. Talk is cheap. Action is priceless.

Now, the next problem we have to tackle in the Police Service — and the prison system for that matter — is all of this “acting” business.

This is not Hollywood, but the joke out there on the streets is that we have more people “acting” in roles in the police and prison system than Hollywood.

Appoint police officers and prison officers to positions. It sends a clear message that we hold you accountable in your position. The public has more faith in people who are in a position rather than acting in a position.

Good for you, Commissioner Williams.

Your message is loud and clear: Do your job.