Ministry of National Insecurity

"Look!" his antics seemed to say to the various members of the media, "Allyuh find we bad but dem bad too." It called to mind a child getting caught misbehaving and when faced with the possibility of punishment, he quickly tells of the misdemeanours of an older sibling in order to spread the blame or, quite simply, to save his skin.

The accusations of ineffectiveness levelled at the police force by the newspapers were based on statistics from a report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, an organisation that effectively monitors and reports on the English police force.

But this is not the only body that monitors the workings and efficacy of the 43 police forces in England and Wales. In fact, each police force effectively monitors itself, as each are responsible for collating all data they receive and record on crime in their respective areas and reporting the figures to the Home Office for the Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships or CDRPs.

According to the Home Office, each CDRP is "a partnership of police, local councils and other local agencies and organisations who have banded together — under the statutory requirements of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 — to develop and implement strategies for tackling crime and disorder."

What this all points at — and what Minister Joseph neglected to mention in his, "We are grappling with an international problem" fiasco — is a high level of accountability in the English law enforcement body that is woefully lacking in our own.

The English police are responsible and held accountable for their own job performance by several entities. Access to crime statistics is readily and easily available via several government and independent bodies.

Many times, it seems our Trinidad police are a law onto themselves and access to statistics related to job performance is often a case of wishful thinking.

The story that ran in The Times claimed that the police was unable to deal with such 21st century crimes as terrorism and drug gang violence, an accusation that no doubt warmed the cockles of Minister Joseph’s heart as he thought about our own bungling of the investigation into the Port-of-Spain bombings and the inability to stem the wave of gang related violence throughout the country.

But the fact remains that despite the lack of resources and improper training — the same reasons our own police force constantly gives when challenged about not producing positive results — crime in England has fallen by over 30 percent and in some areas by as much as 40 percent.

And despite the fact that the media points out their lack of training to deal with acts of terrorism, the suspects in the London bombing were all identified and a careful reconstruction of the events leading up to the acts is well on the way.

While speaking at the PNM’s annual "September Affair" Republic Day celebration, Prime Minister Patrick Manning promised to reveal his Government’s radical new initiatives to treat with the country’s crime wave during the presentation of the 2006 Budget.

He promises that technology will be the key to their success, giving to the media such tasty treats of information as the purchase of a total of nine new sea going vessels to patrol the coastline. It will be interesting how all this will pan out, the introduction of high tech schemes to a police force that every day faces such daunting challenges as not having enough bullet proof vests for its officers. Hopefully, the result of these new proposals will be that the next press conference Minister Joseph calls, he would be able to report on the turnaround he so actively desires and which England is already experiencing.

At the very least, let’s hope that at the next press conference he holds, he’ll be able to get the facts straight.

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