In my previous article, I touched on the recruitment and vetting in the Royal St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force and what I deemed to be some fundamental flaws related to the enlistment of undesirable individuals.
This piece will focus on phase three of this process — before an individual can take the oath and become a full-fledged police constable and, the most critical part, the training a recruit receives at the Old Montrose Police Training School.
I was 19 years old when I enlisted in the police service. I moved from being a civilian at 4 p.m. to a police officer at 4:30 p.m. that Friday. It felt strange because within a matter of minutes, all this responsibility and authority had been placed on me just after saying a few words — the oath. How does an individual handle this transition?
A few years ago, the government decided to change this and I supported that decision fully. This now means that an individual takes an oath to become a police recruit then goes to the Police Training School, where they receive six months of training during which time they will be evaluated. If they pass the training course, then they take the oath to become a police officer.
On paper, it sounds good, but in reality, just like everything else, this process is poorly implemented. It might just be the time for the Police Training School to publicise their examination results, just like every other educational institution in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. I believe this is the only institution that gets a 100% pass rate on every course. Maybe the other institutions can learn something from the Police Training School.
During training, the instructors are responsible not only for monitoring the grades of recruits but also for monitoring behaviour, attitude and discipline and advising the commissioner on whether a recruit is fit to become a police officer. This is an effort to pick out the bad apples before they take the oath to become a police officer.
Again, how effective is this process when dealing with an individual recommended by politicians or senior police officers? I am very much aware that even during training, there were some recruits who instructors were mortally afraid of disciplining or even speaking to with regard to their ill-discipline because of the recruits’ parents or those who sent them to be enrolled.
Now to the syllabus of the Police Training School. I’ve listened to Hot97 religiously on mornings, and with each case of alleged police brutality, they ask the question, “Why don’t they just restrain the suspect?”
Let me shock you. At no point during my six months of training was there even one hour of practical teaching on how to restrain a suspect physically. We were taught that we should not handcuff children and females, we should not handcuff a prisoner on a boat, and we should not handcuff someone behind their back. However, not once did an instructor teach us how to restrain a prisoner physically if he or she is resisting or violent. I can also inform you that not even a demonstration was done to educate us as recruits.
Simply put, police officers cannot execute what they were never taught. It may shock you to know that there was no lessons on conflict resolution or de-escalation of situations. On the contrary, a karate expert taught self-defence and this may be why you see videos of officers kicking and boxing suspects while the said suspect appears to be restrained by the neck.
However, I cannot and will not blame the instructors because they cannot teach what they do not know or what does not form part of the police training manual. For our training to be more efficient and effective, we must first equip our instructors with the relevant knowledge and training to impart to our recruits. I believe that the teaching syllabus at the Police Training School is outdated and needs to be revamped.
If an individual passes through all these stages with all the necessary safeguards, becomes a police officer, then shortly after begins showing signs of gangsterism and “badmanism”, clearly, we have a more serious problem. It is said that efforts are being made to renovate the Police Training School. I welcome the late but necessary intervention. However, I hope that the authorities also use the opportunity to look at the training school manual and bring it up to modern-day standards.
Ex-Officer!!
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