Privatising police

MINISTER in the Ministry of National Security Keith Scotland – the Cabinet member who was in July appointed under the understanding that he was to be assigned responsibility for police matters – should clarify his position on the use of private security firms in the crime fight.

At the launch on November 20 of an elite service run by the National Maintenance Training and Security Company (MTS), Mr Scotland expressed the view that corporate guards should take up some of the slack from the cops.

“There are many functions performed by police which are not directly related to crime prevention, investigations and the combating of crime,” he said at the MTS Plaza, Aranjuez. “Could those services not be delegated to vetted and trained security companies in order to put more police on the ground where they can make a greater impact?”

While he suggested private officers could help by handling “support functions” such as guarding government buildings and serving warrants, the minister also called on private protection agencies to train their workers in areas such as: “policing functions, arrests and procedure, directives concerning the rights of citizens regarding search and seizure, and constitutional rights.”

“In doing so, it would mean that you would provide relief for officers in the police service and you would be providing a very critical service.”

The minister’s views are confusing.

On the one hand, he seems to call for the use of private personnel only in performing very low-level functions. He is also suggesting these same officials might perform some of the very important public roles of the police.

Which is it?

There is nothing new in the idea of having civilian entities operating within the national security landscape.

Besides the Community Comfort Patrols programme of the People’s Partnership administration, which was cut by Mr Scotland’s current Cabinet colleagues, there was the Special Anti-Crime Unit (SAUTT), a controversial unit introduced under the Patrick Manning government in 2004.

That entity merged a reserve of private individuals – including experts recruited from abroad – and members of the Defence Force around a core of police officers.

But for years, and right up to its dismantling, SAUTT did not have legal status.

Mr Scotland’s acknowledgement that some of his ideas “will have legal implications and might be difficult to implement without the necessary legislative amendment” operates in the shadow of all this and more.

Depending on the form it takes, the new vetted unit under top cop Erla Harewood-Christopher might raise similar issues.

Yet private entities already dominate security in TT. There are as many as 60,000 people working in the private protection industry, vastly outnumbering the police force of 6,500.

Nonetheless, the minister still has a duty to be very clear about the implications of the State's ceding further powers to unregulated commercial interests.