Ex-cop: Police using time to study law

He said these aspiring lawyers are “cheating” the Service of valuable police time that could be spent catching criminals.

Maharaj said that over the past ten years, he has seen police elevated to the First Division on the basis of a Bachelor of Law and Management degrees, than crime-fighting record and skills.

Maharaj was the head of the Criminal Investigation Department in San Fernando and Princes Town Police Stations before retiring in 2013.

Asked for a comment on the spate of murders on Monday after he attended the High Court in San Fernando in a case in which he charged a Chinese woman for attempting to bribe a police officer, Maharaj said, “We have among the lowest detection rates for serious crimes in the entire world.

“Part of the reason is because the police service is packed with a growing number of officers who are cheating police time to pursue law and management degrees. Is either they want to defend criminals and make money or be elevated to the higher rank. The police service has become like a business, where officers’ interest is not detecting crimes but becoming lawyers.” Maharaj issued a call for an audit to be done on police officers who have been elevated over the past five years, in respect of the crimes they have solved. The country, he said, will find the results most alarming. Maharaj asked, “Why are police officers not pursuing crime-related subjects such as criminology and in forensics. It is because their interest is not police work. How can a police officers study for five years to become a lawyer (attorney), or for three years in management or Human Resource, without cheating time on the job?” Maharaj said that when citizens give police information on drugs and guns, police officers are either coward to act, or, they are busy reading law books. He frown upon the methodology used to fight serious crimes, pointing out that it is customary to see police officers in marked police vehicles speeding, with blaring sirens, on their way to ‘bust’ a drug blocks. “Is either they are cowards, or, they are corrupt,” Maharaj said. He said he declined an offer to return to service as an adviser on crime under the previous People’s Partnership government.

How can the crime detection rate increase? Maharaj advocated the recruiting of Scotland Yard detectives to work alongside police officers in police stations in localities where serious crimes are rampant.