Prime Minister Andrew Holness says the retirement of Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Fitz Bailey is an event that persons across the nation have not been taking well, given his ability to apply control over gangs and crime in communities they are a part of.
“I have never gotten so many petitions for anyone to remain in their position. I’ve gotten calls from members of civil society, members of the private sector, just average persons. You have developed a great deal of goodwill in the country,” Holness told Bailey as he addressed the long-serving law-enforcement officer’s retirement dinner on Friday evening.
“There are other policemen who have made their names, and you would consider them brand-name policemen. They have made their names over and above the institution. Some of them, not based on the institutional policies and principles, but they have made their names. Fitz, however, has made his name because he exemplifies the policies and the principles that we would all want to see in the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF),” he said.
The retirement dinner, held in honour of Bailey, took place at the AC Hotel in St Andrew a day before the police officer’s retirement took effect on his 60th birthday.
The prime minister said he understood and sympathised with those persons who want Bailey to remain with the JCF but that the Force has changed and can stand on its own without the retired deputy commissioner of police.
“There is a sense that the public, and in particular, those persons in elite positions, have not yet gotten the memo that this is a different JCF. We’re living in a different Jamaica. First of all, for the JCF to produce a Fitz Bailey is a credit to the JCF,” Holness said to applause.
“Second of all, for the JCF to feel that Fitz, having served his time, [and] he’s going to retire, that is a signal to say that the JCF is not short of talent like Fitz Bailey. The JCF has institutionalised the principles that DCP Bailey exemplifies.”
Holness also gave the reassurance that the nation is not losing Bailey but merely creating space for those he has trained and who look up to him to emerge and keep the JCF refreshed, renewed, and producing the talent needed to make it successful in tackling areas requiring their skills.
He said that in previous years, there was the view that the JCF could not reform itself, could not produce officers like Bailey from within, and that officers had to be imported into the high ranks. Now, however, things have changed.
Holness noted that the JCF is an institution that is growing, recruiting more persons than those leaving, and that the size of the Force has grown in the last eight years. There are also new technologies, policies, and procedures and that the change in uniform is just an outward expression of the internal improvements to the human resources and talent pool of the Force.
He reassured persons worried about the departure of Bailey that he would be replaced with someone competent.
“The JCF will produce many more Fitz Baileys, thereby lifting the standards of the organisation in the eyes of the institution,” he said.
Holness emphasised that there was a time when the JCF was viewed as Babylon, but with the hard work and dedication of persons such as Bailey, and sticking with the principles, the JCF has been transformed into being viewed as a ‘Force for Good’.