Minor car crashes ‘wasting police time’ – AG

The days of fender-benders occupying the time and personnel of the Royal Barbados Police Force are numbered, Attorney General Dale Marshall has announced, insisting that Government is determined to deal with the force’s manpower shortage.

“I can tell you that the acting Commissioner of Police is presenting to me a paper for the removal of police responders for every fender-bender that happens in Barbados, Marshall said.

“I think we all recognize that if there is a fender-bender between two people in Massy car park, the first thing they do is pull up brakes and block up the road and call the police.

“This occupies a tremendous amount of police resources when really the value added is not in terms of law and order but rather in terms of insurance companies.”

The Attorney General suggested there are other areas the police will be seeking to reallocate personnel in a bid to be more productive.

The AG also revealed the police certificate of character department is now fully automated, allowing applicants to receive their criminal record clearances in 24 hours instead of having to wait six weeks. He described the process of a shining example of how technology could be used to address the manpower shortage in law enforcement.

Marshall said: “One of those ways would be the introduction of technology and how we use this technology to better allow police officers to do policing.

“I am happy to say that one of the early harvest is the police certificates of character, which is currently manned by six officers and it takes about six weeks to get a police certificate of character.

“We have now brought that time down to 24 hours. To wait six weeks for a police certificate of character in a modern Barbados is absurd and I am even hoping to bring it down from 24 to 12 hours.

“More importantly because the system is going to be automated where you pay online, and the certificate is going to be emailed to you, those six police officers would now be able to occupy their time doing regular police work.”

The Attorney General acknowledged that the force was about 260 officers short of its full complement. But he suggested the shortfall stemmed from more than just natural attrition, but rather it was case of the police service no longer being attractive to young people. He revealed that efforts were being taken to remedy this.

He said: “We have to accept that we have manpower challenges within the force and it is more than just the natural ebb and flow of people coming in and people retiring.

“For some reason policing seems not to have the charm and appeal that it did years ago.

“I compliment the members of the force for their recent efforts to develop a new programme to make policing appealing to our young men and women and I believe that is beginning to bear some fruit.”

Marshall further noted: Our last class of individuals who graduated from the police training school was about 18 persons but the current class has about 30 persons but even though we continue to recruit, people continue to retire on a regular basis and we have to find ways to confront this challenge.

“The Prime Minister has also made it clear that it is now important for civilians to do some of the jobs that police are currently doing.”