Former deputy commissioner calls for full revamp of Police Force

by Emmanuel Joseph

A former top-ranking administrator in the Royal Barbados Police Force (RBPF) is calling for a thorough investigation into the functioning of the force.

Retired Deputy Commissioner of Police Bertie Hinds said there is need for the force to take fresh guard, do some soul-searching and undergo a “rummaging” of the organisation to determine why it is not managing the current wave of violent crime, particularly transnational organised crime.

Hinds, who holds a Master’s Degree in Criminology and a Bachelor’s in History and Law, said in an extensive interview with Barbados TODAY that something has to be wrong within the local police force for this 166-square-mile island to be experiencing persistent violent crime while the constabulary continues to focus on detection rather than prevention.

The former deputy, who retired in January 2013 under then Commissioner Darwin Dottin, spoke against the backdrop of a wave of gun-related deaths, an apparent proliferation of arms and ammunition and illegal drugs in the hands of criminals.

“You are dealing with a special situation and you have to treat it specially. Illegal guns obviously revolve around the drug trade and transnational organised crime. You have to look at it strategically.  You have to make a strategic intervention. You have to have a philosophy and a policy for dealing with these things,” suggested the ex-police administrator.

“You cannot deal with these things like you deal with the ordinary, conventional little robbery down the road or things like that. We are on a higher plain now that we are dealing with transnational organised crime because drugs and guns are all part of the transnational organised crime. So it needs a specially-tailored strategic focus,” he added.

“It is not the ordinary run-of-the-mill thing that you go to work every day and do . . . I gine investigate this and I gine investigate that and I going to put this person before the court. No, it is bigger than that, it is higher than that. So you really got to get in the organisation and rummage it, rummage it . . .’what are we doing that we are not controlling this new phenomena in criminal activity and not only what are we not doing, but what must we be doing?”
Hinds declared.

The former senior police official is therefore urging the local leadership of the force to look outside and draw lessons from the bedeviling impact which these types of crimes, including cybercrime are having on societies in the region and extra-regionally.

He contended that transnational organised crime is the “biggest concern on the horizon of our shores now” and along with cybercrime will make or break law enforcement in the foreseeable future.

Hinds is therefore recommending the establishment of a special unit within the RBPF to focus on transnational organised crime and cybercrime.

“I am advocating for a separate division within law enforcement community for dealing with transnational organised crime and you cannot move forward with transnational organised crime on one limb managing transnational organised crime without bringing in the component of cybercrime because both of them are interrelated and to a large extent, interdependent,” Hinds told Barbados TODAY.

He said the personnel who would comprise this division must undergo specialist training including the leadership.

“That is a specialist area. You have to have a well-trained leadership. Let me give you an example. You cannot be a divisional commander in charge of traffic and then come and head a transnational organised and cybercrime division. You are wasting time. You spinning top in mud,” argued the former senior police commander.

Hinds, who recently launched a book entitled Policing A Dynamic Barbados said the training modules should be a mixture of homegrown and foreign.

“There is no run-of-the-mill going up to the training school and sitting down and doing three or four weeks and tell you how to record statements and investigate if somebody rape somebody or wounded somebody or rob somebody . . . no, over and above that,” said the former Deputy Executive Director at the Regional Security System (RSS).

Declaring that the police force has traditionally been a reactionary agency, Hinds suggested that much more can be achieved in getting to the bottom of crime if the constabulary were to adopt an equally proactive approach at the community and individual levels.

“If you don’t try to prevent [crime], well then you are running behind . . . let’s say, you are after the fact. So you would place a lot of emphasis on detection, not that I am relegating detection, because people want to know that crime has been solved, but at the same time, the society has suffered grievously. Not only society, but individuals,” he added.

“So my approach would be persistent and concerted intervention for prevention of serious crime. The best way to do that is to be in your communities, scan the environment in your communities, you are trying to get into the minds of your communities and the criminals…individuals, those who have a tendency to commit crime and those who are affiliated with them. You got to be able to harness those people and extrapolate from them why these things are happening,”
he told Barbados TODAY.

While acknowledging a lack of adequate manpower in the RBPF, Hinds however contends that the law enforcement agency must stick to its first principle of prevention by ensuring officers are on the beat either in uniform, undercover, general patrol or in the community.

He also suggested that the force form synergies with all types of civil society organisations and organisations of class including sporting associations in order
to find out what is happening in their “neck of the woods” considering that everybody is affected by crime.

emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb