THE inability of the police service to perform at its optimum at this time has little to do with the ability of its officers or management of the service, but more with external factors beyond its control.
Acting Commissioner of Police Mc Donald Jacob said the police service is performing at approximately 75 per cent of its capacity, identifying covid19 as well as the failure to update the technological aspect of the service among the reasons.
He was responding to comments by National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds about the overall performance of the law enforcement agencies, which Hinds said were performing at an average of 40 per cent against the criminal elements.
Concerned by the crime wave, Hinds held a high-level security meeting last week, with the aim of getting the services to perform at 100 per cent capacity, so criminals would find no space to operate.
Jacobs, in an interview with Newsday, said the figure Hinds gave could be interpreted to mean the police service was operating at this low level.
But he asserted it was reflective of the average of the sum total of the performance of not only the police, but the prison and fire services, Defence Force, Immigration and Customs.
“I do not ascribe that 40 per cent he spoke about as being only the police service. I view it across the board.
"There are a lot of agencies not performing up to par and he is saying if we could up our game and carry it higher we will perform much better."
Hinds, he said, now recognises that "the police cannot do it alone, that there are a lot of agencies which maybe taking a background role in doing what they have to do.
“This affects us, because the police deals with the outcome, and then everybody would look at the police. He recognises that these other agencies have to come on board and work with us so we can achieve that goal. Some of them are not upping their game.”
Jacob who is acting in the absence of acting CoP Gary Griffith, who is on leave, said the service is operating at 65 and 75 per cent.
One of the factors preventing the service from reaching its optimum level at this point, Jacobs said, is the pandemic.
“Covid19 has affected the police tremendously. We have to change the way we work. Just yesterday we had to change the way people work in Barrackpore (police station) because we had four persons positive and nine had to go into quarantine.
“Where we have to pull people here and there, that has affected our performance level a bit.
“Also our inability at this stage to be fully computerised, to be technologically driven, where we still have to operate 50-60 per cent manually – that is also affecting our performance.”
He said manpower could be used more effectively if relieved of these manual processes.
While there may be some malingering in the service, he asserted, “There are external factors beyond our control, but we are doing things in spite of covid19. We have persons coming out to work, (and are) trying to motivate them."
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