Police Reform

Two weeks ago, a group calling itself “Facing the Future” (FTF) organised a forum involving the parliamentary political parties on “Reform of Policing in Guyana”. Apart from its announcement in the press, the event seemed to have dropped into a black hole. I was not surprised since the guidelines explicitly warned against focusing on “ethnic balance” in the police force. The solitary report in Demerara Waves confirmed that APNU and AFC toed their line.
Of what relevance is any police reform in Guyana, if the elephant in the room is ignored? Wasn’t Ogunseye’s call for a post-electoral “kith and kin” solidarity for agitation, a wake-up call for these Rip van Winkles?
On January 17, 1999, when “ROAR against Crime” was launched, we cautioned re police reform: “We should not be stampeded into taking ad hoc initiatives without formulating a plan that addresses the need to make fundamental changes in its structural base – or the malfunctions will continue unabated. “Modernisation” of the Force must not be equated simply with improved weaponry.”
In addition to over twenty specific recommendations, four medium-term, structural changes were suggested. They are still relevant.
Our first recommendation, “Balancing the Force” echoed the conclusion of Dr Cynthia Enloe, who studied Guyana first hand, after a worldwide survey in her essay, “Police and Military in the Resolution of Ethnic Conflict”: “Any lasting resolution of ethnic conflict may require that the distribution of political authority and influence in the society be basically reordered and that, as part of that reordering, the police and military be ethnically reconstituted at the top and the bottom. Resolution of inter-ethnic conflict will be tenuous if the security that is achieved is merely state security and not security for each of the state’s resident communities.”
Ever since we floated the above suggestion over a decade ago, we have taken a lot of flak. I hope we have now gone past the fears we were trying to undermine the Force. It is now widely conceded in all multi-ethnic countries that Forces that are more representative of the various elements of the communities are more effective ones. The hurdle that is now paraded most often is the rhubarb that “Indians do not join the Force”, in tones that imply that this reluctance may be some genetically inherited quality.
We do not intend to expand on the historical bases for the Indian aversion to the Force but simply want to point out that PPP Minister of Home Affairs, Balram Singh Rai single-handedly proved between 1960 and 1962 that this could be overcome. Now that all political parties agree  the GPF ought to be more representatives as per the parliamentary approved Disciplined Forces Report, why wasn’t the FTF pulled up over its snide criticism, “Efforts to date have tended to excessively equate ‘representative’ with ‘ethnic balance’”?
Recommendation 2 was, “Decentralising the Force”. We showed that unlike the police forces of most low crime jurisdictions that were decentralised, the GPF was heavily centralised due to the historical imperative of the colonial power to suppress rather than to protect the local population. The complaint in 2008, for instance, that the Bartica Police resources were totally inadequate to deal with the massacre, resonates in all police stations outside of Georgetown. It is rooted in the concentration of all police strength at the centre.
We suggested in 1999: “The centralised structure of the GPF has led to widespread ineffectiveness and dislocations. Administrative effectiveness is not the sole test of police competence, which should rather be the greatest effort in the promotion of the Rule of Law and entrenching citizens’ security. We recommend that the GPF be split into six separate forces: Metro-GT, Demerara, Berbice, Essequibo, Rupununi and a Central Force (like a FBI). Each Force would have its own Commissioner and its own command structure. The Central Force wound oversee a central Forensic lab, the Anti-drug Unit, Intelligence and international co-ordination.”
Recommendation 3: Supplementing the Force: The first part proposed “Community Policing” on which the administration has since happily embarked on enthusiastically. This effort must be deepened and broadened. Secondly, we proposed the resuscitation of a People’s Militia – which we later dubbed a “Peoples’ Home Guard”.  The Home Guard would have all the training as regular army units and in all regards would constitute a reserve for the Army – and a recruitment pool. They would have the wherewithal to discourage the high-powered banditry that has become endemic in our country.
Recommendation 4: Streamlining the Force: We pointed out that, “Only approximately 30% of the GPF are engaged in crime detection and prevention. We elaborated on all the various non-policing elements that could be farmed out – especially to civilian staff. Does immigration really qualify as a “policing” task? Shouldn’t each Police Force have its own Prosecutors Office manned by high calibre qualified permanent staff?
To those who may widen their eyes at the apparent massive swelling of the Force that the recommendations apparently entail, the streamlining would free-up spending for real police work.