Cops tapping west to triple trainee intake
Published:Friday | October 25, 2019 | 12:06 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Police Commissioner Major Antony Anderson says western Jamaica is to figure significantly in the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) plans to increase its training capacity as part of a drive to triple the number of officers serving the organisation.
According to Anderson, starting this calendar year, the JCF’s plan is to add approximately 1,600 police personnel annually from the two new training facilities in St James and St Elizabeth.
“In western Jamaica, we are looking at Teamwork, and in southern Jamaica, we are looking at Tranquility Bay … . We used to train people there, and again, we are going back there,” Anderson told The Gleaner in an interview in Falmouth, Trelawny, on Wednesday night.
Teamwork is located in Torada Heights in Coral Gardens, St James, while Tranquility Bay is in St Elizabeth.
“We are still negotiating that with the owners (Tranquility Bay), but we are way down the road with it, and so, hopefully, we will have some good outcome pretty soon,” said Anderson, who was attending the first in the JCF’s Commissioner Talk series, which is set to go islandwide.
“The truth of the matter is, although you (the west) have some problems, we have more violent places in Jamaica, and they do pull a lot of resources. We have to first ensure people’s right to life. We cannot have our citizens dying and we do nothing about it,” the commissioner added.
The JCF currently trains between 750 and 900 police officers per year. With an annual attrition rate of about 500 personnel, net recruitment stands at a maximum of approximately 400.
There are around 12,000 current members of the constabulary. The police force intends to increase its complement to 18,000 members by 2024. That would translate to around 643 police officers for every 100,000 citizens as against under 430:100,000 at present.
But Jamaica’s per-capita ratio is lower than most Caribbean countries, such as 820:100,000 in Grenada and 850:100,000 in The Bahamas.
However, Anderson is upbeat that the recruitment push will boost deployment to Trelawny townships such as Albert Town.