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| NEWS > 11 July 2007 |
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Victoria Police must embrace d
WORKPLACES across Victoria are rushing to introduce drug testing for employees. The transport, construction and mining industries were first and now other businesses are following suit. Employers want a clean, safe and productive work environment. The push has been accelerated by improved saliva testing and a community acceptance that drug use is widespread and should not be tolerated in the workplace. Victoria's world-first introduction of random roadside saliva drug testing, and the startling results, have shown the extent of the problem. But there is one notable employer yet to introduce dr... Read more
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Stabroek News - Georgetown,Guy
11 July 2007
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Guyana: Guarding the guards
The rhetorical poetical question - Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? [Who is to guard the guards themselves?] - posed by the Roman satirist Juvenal nearly two thousand years ago seems to be as applicable to modern Georgetown as it was to ancient Rome. Well might Guyanese wonder who would guard them from members of the Guyana Police Force , this country's principal public safety agency that was established to protect society.
Although the majority of policemen are honest, professional misconduct among a few rogues has been a chronic problem. The realisation that the police could not, or should not, police itself, is the reason why the Police Complaints Authority and the Office of Professional Responsibility were established. But it is impossible for these two understaffed agencies to staunch the torrent of complaints about police misconduct.
This newspaper has reported several cases of crimes involving policemen. Last May, for example, soon after a man dressed in a police uniform robbed a pawnshop at Vreed-en-Hoop on the West Coast Demerara, the police held one of their own subordinate officers on suspicion of giving the uniform to the robber. Across the country on the Corentyne Coast, another policeman was implicated in the disappearance of money recovered after bandits attacked and robbed a rice farmer. A few days ago, a jealous policeman murdered his girlfriend, a policewoman.
Aggrieved citizens have also written to this newspaper to complain about personal experiences in which policemen attempted to 'shake them down' for some financial favour in return for overlooking a misdemeanour such as a traffic violation. It might be desirable, but impossible, to eliminate workaday police pecadillos but recent egregious examples of serious crimes indicate that unless the administration takes special steps to punish offenders, the effectiveness of the force as a law enforcement agency will be impaired.
With the rise of the lucrative illict business enterprises of trafficking in narcotics, money laundering, trafficking in persons and gun running over the last two decades, corrupt businessmen have been able to engage in graft by making payouts which easily exceed the emoluments of police officers. Typically, those most susceptible to the suasion of criminals belong to the very departments charged with the detection and suppression of crime.
In 2004, for example, a police patrol surprised suspected `Phantom' gang members in Bel Air, uncovering not only a cache of ammunition, sub-machine guns, millions of dollars in cash and travellers cheques, communications equipment and female police uniforms, but also two of their colleagues who had been enjoying 'extended sick leave.' One of the policemen arrested at the scene was prizeman on his recruit training course!
It is widely believed that members of the feared the 'Phantom' gang were recruited from the police force to conduct the unlawful killing of certain suspects. The administration has done nothing to allay public disquiet by convening a credible commission of inquiry to investigate the all-too-frequent cases of killings involving members of the force.
In what is considered the largest corruption scandal in the United States Diplomatic Service, credible evidence indicated that at least one senior police officer was employed as an enforcer for the culpable consular officer. In 1993, also, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police smashed a people-smuggling ring masterminded by Shawn Baldeo and which involved a senior police officer. Again, nothing has been done to prosecute, punish or remove corrupt officers from their positions of authority in the force.
The fact that the United States Department of State finds it necessary to suspend the visas of venal senior police officers from time to time is a clear indication of the level and nature of the problem of professional misconduct in the force. The most recent scandal in which a senior police officer is said to have demanded payment from a businessman from the proceeds of an illicit narcotics transaction, therefore, comes as no surprise.
Public confidence can be enhanced by the existence of mechanisms to ensure effective oversight of the force and, unless the administration establishes such a mechanism, misbehaviour will continue. A national commission, responsible not to the Minister of Home Affairs but to the National Assembly is essential to ensure the detection of police misbehaviour, the punishment of culprits and the encouragement of good practice by all officers.
Abuses will not end of their own accord.
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