Overseas experts coming to train local police

Expert trainers from overseas will be in Barbados this year to provide round-the-clock training for members of the Barbados Police Force, Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Dale Marshall has disclosed.
Admitting that there is a training deficit within the police service, he announced that the government is taking steps to correct that.
Marshall, speaking from the well of Parliament on Friday as the Estimates debate continued, said that while 11 officers had benefited from the immersion programme with the Durham Constabulary in the United Kingdom over the past two years, more needed to be done.
“Sending six police every year out of a total police population of just around 1 200, it’ll take us forever. So, one of the initiatives that we’re taking in the coming financial year is bringing in expert trainers from Canada, from the US and from England, so that our officers don’t have to leave Barbados but our officers can receive training non-stop, around the clock, and we can do larger numbers,” he said.
“We need to have the finest police force in the region but we can only do so if all of our people are trained.”
Marshall made the disclosure as he pointed out that vast majority of the $197 million budgeted for the Attorney General’s Office for the 2023-2024 financial year, will go to the Barbados Police Service.
He noted the overall amount set aside for his department is $44 million more than the figure approved for 2022-2023 and said this was due in large part to the introduction of the crime prevention branch and a bump in resources for the police.
“That is a government that is staying true to the central tenets that law and order would be able to have the first stake in our national resources. Part of that significant increase is due to the creation of a special new arm of the ministry which relates to crime prevention, and that particular sector will receive $12.5 million…,” Marshall said.
“In the Office of the Attorney General’s budget, the Barbados Police Service lays claim to the single largest amount of that $197 million – the police service will be claiming $131 million. I want to make the point that this represents a significant increase over what was budgeted in the current financial year. In the current financial year (2022-2023), the police service is receiving $114 million. In the coming financial year, the police service will be receiving $131 million. Again, demonstrating our tangible commitment to law and order,” the Attorney General added.
Marshall stressed that the Government will be employing a two-pronged approach to maintaining stability – “law enforcement on the one hand and crime prevention on the other”.
“It stands to reason that if you reduce the incidence of people getting into crime, if you prevent our young men and women from going down that difficult road, then it will certainly make things easier on the arm of the Barbados Police Service,” he said.
Marshall said while more technological resources will be given to the police, emphasis will also be placed on making its processes more efficient.
“In that regard, I’m able to say that the Office of the Attorney General has engaged the services of a now retired deputy commissioner, Mr Oral Williams, to come back to analyse all of the procedures in the police service. There are some very archaic processes, a lot of steps that perhaps are not necessary, and we are trying to get that analysis done,” the AG said.
(JB)