Following management reforms the Police Force now is different from the one in which Conway served

Dear Editor,

The Guyana Police Force is responding to a letter in Stabroek News of February 9 under the caption ‘The possibility of “ghosting” police stats exists’.

The Force feels obligated to respond to the letter for two reasons. One is that members of the public are more likely to believe information provided by a former senior member of the Force than by an average member of the public, and secondly, even though Mr Conway has access to members of the Force through which he can receive factual information, he chose not to do that but instead to be highly speculative in his cut-and-paste letters that are frequently published by editors.

1. Mr Conway indicated that the Force is short of over one thousand ranks in relation to 1976 authorized strength. The current situation is;

a. The authorized strength of the Force was reviewed in 2014 when it received an increase of 1,546 members.

b. In 2012, Mr Conway’s last year of service, the Force was in deficit of 15% of its established strength. At that time Mr Conway was responsible for recruitment and training.

The current strength of the Force is 4199 which represents a deficit of 757 and not 1000 as Mr Conway said. In addition, the Force has already processed 120 applicants to fill the vacancies for recruits who will be graduating in March. There are also 467 applicants who are on the waiting list.

The reason the Force is not at full strength is that the recruit course is a residential course so the amount that can be trained per year is limited to available accommodation.

2. Mr Conway indicated that the Guyana Police Force has serious communication issues and concerns at the apex of management.

The fact is that the Force in contemporary times underwent a lot of management reform that makes it completely different from the one when Mr Conway served. The Commissioner currently chairs a Performance Group Meeting that meets fortnightly with all the senior officers, divisional and branch commanders at headquarters. The agenda which includes routine and non-routine matters as well as any other business any of the Performance Group members desires to discuss, is set by the Assistant Commissioner ‘Administration’, in consultation with the Commissioner of Police. Commanders are required to submit written performance reports which are also discussed at the meeting. Mr Conway may therefore need to explain his perceived communication issues.

3. Mr Conway indicated that the

Police Force has training instructors who do not understand and appreciate the basic concept of andragogy and have a phobia for an eclectic approach towards training.

The fact is that ranks who have had experience managing police stations go through a selection process, after which those selected benefit from Train-the Trainer training before they are appointed Instructors of the recruit courses.

The Train-the-Trainer courses include facilitators from the Cyril Potter College of Education. This pro-active approach certainly differs from when Mr Conway was heading training in the Force, when many six-month recruit courses took fourteen months to complete.

During the year 2016, one hundred and eighty-six members of the Force received training overseas, another four hundred and five benefited from international training conducted locally and two thousand two hundred and seventy-two received training at the Felix Austin Police Colleges.

4. Mr Conway indicated that since Senior Superintendent Stephen Mansell proceeded on extended vacation leave, very little or nothing has been done in relation to community intervention in the division he commanded.

The Force acknowledges that Senior Superintendent Stephen Mansell indeed had an active Social Crime Prevention Programme and worked well with community leaders in the division. Assistant Commissioner Leslie James who took over from Mansell continued those projects.

5. Mr Conway indicated that since Senior Superintendent Stephen Mansell proceeded on leave the crime rate in the division had increased.

The facts are that when Mr Mansell proceeded on leave on September 1, 2016 serious crime rates were up by 11% relative to 2015; however, at the end of the year they were down by 6% relative to 2015. Mr Conway’s speculation is very distasteful to the ranks who have worked very hard to achieve that.

6. While the Force cannot dispute Mr Conway’s experience while he was serving, to say that “ghosting” was done in a large division when Mr Greene was Commissioner of Police, is to malign the dead. Had that occurred, certainly there would have been investigations by the Office of Professional Responsibility and Police Complaints Authority. Of the more than 800 complaints made to the Police Complaints Authority for 2016, those relating to reported crimes not being recorded were non-existent or negligible.

7. Mr Conway indicated that the current Mission Statement of the Guyana Police Force was designed and implemented by the Strategic Management Unit.

The fact is the Mission Statement was crafted by consultants from the United Kingdom who were contracted to prepare the Guyana Police Force Strategic Plan 2011-2015, long before the existence of the Strategic Management Unit which was formed in 2013. Additionally, the Strategic Management Department (SMD) had zero line command and therefore could not have implemented anything in the Force.

The SMD function was to facilitate the implementation of the reforms in the Strategic Plan and not to implement them.

8. Mr Conway indicated that Wayne Bennett and Karen Hess (2004) posited that one way to access citizen approval or disapproval is through citizens’ surveys which can measure trends and provide positive and negative feedback on the public’s impression of law enforcement.

The Force agrees with Mr Conway that community surveys can help to determine citizens’ approval or disapproval of the Force and wishes to suggest to Mr Conway that instead of attempting to mislead members of the public on the activities of and issues within the Guyana Police Force, he could positively expend his energies in conducting some of those surveys.

Mr Conway could also tell members of the public to what extent studies of crimes in developed countries that he quoted in his letter, are relevant to Guyana, and to what extent the culture of people in those countries is similar and different from the culture of Guyanese.

Yours faithfully, Jairam Ramlakhan Superintendent Public Relations and Press Officer