Get rid of PSC, make police a force again

THE EDITOR: I am grateful to Gary Voss’ timely article to the media, under the headline “Top cop solution” in the Sunday Newsday, in once again raising the issue of the management of the police vis-a-vis the out-of-control crime situation.

He does not address, however, the question of how we got here and what to do a about it. Indeed, his article was merely the tip of the iceberg. This is not a simple problem, but if not properly addressed now we are doomed.

The reason for all of this is the Police Service Commission period. It, among other things, turned the police from a quasi-military unit into a civil service. It destroyed the Sandhurst-trained officer corps where we got our leaders and managers from, introduced an absurd 40-hour week and God knows what else. In fact, don’t blame the police; the PSC has effectively destroyed the service.

The solution, therefore, is to get rid of the PSC and return the police to what it should be – a police force, a quasi-military unit.

I now urge the Prime Minister to create a sea change in the management of not only the police but of the entire country. The most egregious imposition on the unsuspecting citizens of TT at the Marlborough House independence talks was that of the service commissions – teaching, civil, legal, police, all of them. They have destroyed our country. As well, our former colonial masters have long dispensed with them.

Every day we wake up to lurid headlines, weeping and gnashing of teeth, failed crime plans, trite responses and excuses from clueless people. I can guarantee the PM that the population will get behind him. Begs the question: what does he have to lose?

F MOUTTET, Westmoorings

Comments

"Get rid of PSC, make police a force again"

More in this section