For-mer po-lice com-mis-sion-er Gary Grif-fith is crit-i-cis-ing Gov-ern-ment plans to in-crease the strength of the Trinidad and To-ba-go Po-lice Ser-vice from 7,884 of-fi-cers to 10,200 of-fi-cers over five years, ar-gu-ing that the coun-try needs im-proved polic-ing sys-tems and ac-count-abil-i-ty rather than more per-son-nel.
The pro-posed ex-pan-sion was an-nounced yes-ter-day by Home-land Se-cu-ri-ty Min-is-ter Roger Alexan-der dur-ing a state-ment in the House of Rep-re-sen-ta-tives, where he said the phased re-cruit-ment pro-gramme would sig-nif-i-cant-ly im-prove the op-er-a-tional ef-fec-tive-ness of the TTPS.
Re-spond-ing in a state-ment post-ed on so-cial me-dia, Grif-fith de-scribed the pro-pos-al as “not a se-ri-ous crime-fight-ing strat-e-gy” and ar-gued that in-creas-ing po-lice num-bers was of-ten used when those in charge could not de-liv-er re-sults.
He said the ap-proach of re-quest-ing more man-pow-er, equip-ment and fund-ing with-out ad-dress-ing struc-tur-al prob-lems had pre-vi-ous-ly been op-posed by both him-self and for-mer po-lice com-mis-sion-er Dwayne Gibbs.
Grif-fith urged the Gov-ern-ment to seek in-de-pen-dent in-ter-na-tion-al guid-ance from qual-i-fied law en-force-ment ex-perts, in-clud-ing through the British High Com-mis-sion and the Unit-ed States Em-bassy.
Ac-cord-ing to Grif-fith, the key prob-lems af-fect-ing the TTPS in-volve lead-er-ship, ac-count-abil-i-ty, pro-duc-tiv-i-ty, vis-i-bil-i-ty, re-sponse times, train-ing, in-tegri-ty and pub-lic trust.
He ar-gued that Trinidad and To-ba-go al-ready has one of the high-est po-lice-to-pop-u-la-tion ra-tios in the world and com-pared the TTPS with the New York Po-lice De-part-ment.
Grif-fith said New York City has ap-prox-i-mate-ly 35,000 po-lice of-fi-cers serv-ing more than 8.5 mil-lion peo-ple dai-ly, adding that based on Trinidad and To-ba-go’s pro-posed ra-tio, the NYPD would re-quire near-ly 57,000 of-fi-cers.
“This com-par-i-son alone ex-pos-es the flaw in the think-ing.
The an-swer is not quan-ti-ty.
The an-swer is qual-i-ty,” Grif-fith said.
He point-ed to the 2018 to 2021 pe-ri-od as an ex-am-ple of what he de-scribed as “21st-cen-tu-ry polic-ing,” say-ing pub-lic trust and con-fi-dence in the po-lice reached about 60 per cent dur-ing that time.
Grif-fith said mea-sures in-tro-duced then in-clud-ed high-vis-i-bil-i-ty pa-trols, GPS track-ing for po-lice ve-hi-cles, im-proved com-mu-ni-ca-tion sys-tems, stricter com-mand ac-count-abil-i-ty and on-line re-port-ing sys-tems de-signed to re-duce sta-tion du-ties and place more of-fi-cers on the streets.
He al-so re-ferred to ini-tia-tives in-tro-duced un-der Gibbs, in-clud-ing the Com-mu-ni-ty Com-fort Pa-trol, Emer-gency Re-sponse Pa-trol and Rapid Re-sponse Unit.
Grif-fith warned that in-creas-ing the size of the TTPS with-out stronger ac-count-abil-i-ty sys-tems could weak-en the or-gan-i-sa-tion by mak-ing su-per-vi-sion more dif-fi-cult and in-creas-ing the risk of un-qual-i-fied or poor-ly trained of-fi-cers en-ter-ing the ser-vice.
He ques-tioned whether tax-pay-ers would see mea-sur-able im-prove-ments in polic-ing if the State spent an ad-di-tion-al $500 mil-lion an-nu-al-ly to sup-port the ex-pand-ed po-lice ser-vice.
“More of-fi-cers sit-ting in sta-tions will not re-duce crime.
More of-fi-cers with-out per-for-mance met-rics will not im-prove re-sponse times,” Grif-fith said.
He ar-gued that the mon-ey could in-stead be used to im-prove oth-er branch-es of the na-tion-al se-cu-ri-ty sys-tem, in-clud-ing the Prison Ser-vice, Cus-toms and Im-mi-gra-tion, the Fire Ser-vice, De-fence Force, Po-lice Ma-rine Branch and Air Guard.
Grif-fith said if au-thor-i-ties re-ject-ed his po-si-tion, in-de-pen-dent in-ter-na-tion-al ex-perts should as-sess whether the cur-rent size of the TTPS was al-ready suf-fi-cient.
“Trinidad and To-ba-go does not need a bloat-ed Po-lice Ser-vice.
It needs a dis-ci-plined, ac-count-able, vis-i-ble, re-spon-sive, and in-tel-li-gence-led Po-lice Ser-vice.
Any-thing less is not re-form,” he added.
Gary Griffith, TTPS expansion, Trinidad and Tobago police, Roger Alexander, police reform, national security, crime fighting