Latest update May 3rd, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 01, 2017 Letters
Dear Editor,
The frightening thing with police brutality is, like other forms of abuse, it escalates if not confronted and stopped, and more citizens will die at the hands of those who swore to protect and to serve. For the police will perceive our silence as tact support of their behaviour. When this coupled with our tendency to order investigations after each police killing while rarely releasing their findings, ideal conditions for continued police abuse is created.
Throughout its history the Guyana police force has always been inclined to be brutish when dealing with the poor. Indeed, the police was initially created to keep the poor in their place. Thus, the ex-slaves, the indenture servants, were the police early targets. At the birth of a nationalist movement it was the common man and their leaders who took the brunt of this same police brutality.
Later it was the police who beat staff members at Guyana Stores who dared to strike during PNC rule and it was the same police who shot at our nurses and dragged them like manure bags during the reign of the PPP. All this was done to our people for committing the unpardonable sin of with- holding their labor in their quest for a decent wage. Yes, whether we were/are law abiding or not, poor people have always been at the receiving end of police excesses. Sadly, in the 21st century this assault on the poor by the police continues.
In October 2009, a 14 year old suspect had methylated spirits poured on his genital area and set on fire by the police at Leonora Police Station. While more recently we read Tilawattie Singh account of an experience she had with the police in Berbice. Ms Singh told a most disturbing story, some of which went like this: (a) “From the minute meh step out the vehicle the man (Nairine) dealt meh cuff to meh neck, temple and head. Me hold me head and me ah beg dem, ‘ow officer, wha meh do? Wah me do?” and (b) “was bleeding when these people put me in the lock-up and these people even refused to give me sanitary pads even though I told them I was bleeding.” If true, do these incidents not stir our humanity?
With this as our reality and our seeming inability to stamp out this tendency, this willingness of our police force (no wonder it is called ‘force’ and not ‘police service’) to brutalize citizens, those of us students of criminal justice have a pressing duty. First, to seeking to help the nation understand why this type of police behavior continues. Secondly offer advice to our poor brothers and sisters (the brutality is almost always directed at them) on what they can do to reduce the likelihood of being brutalized during encounters with the police. First let us examine why this behaviour continues.
The police force has an inability to attract bright young citizens to join its fold. So, the force is obliged to employ persons who have not done well academically. Now the problem of police abuse will suggest that instructions on ethics should make-up a significant portion of police training. But since the recruits are not academically inclined what percentage of their training time would be enough for reaching them intellectually?
Further, the fact these recruits are usually from high crime communities, the question becomes; what influence their behavior most, the few months of police training or the values they bring from their home environment? Is it an environment in which they are accustomed to seeing violence used for gaining compliance to an instruction? Is our present police training program structured with such concerns in mind? And even if one is able to structure such a training program and satisfy the needs of a majority, isn’t it reasonable to suspect those ones not able to meet will comprise a sizable minority? A concluding letter will follow
Claudius Prince
THEM PIMPING OUT GUYANA.
May 03, 2024
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