Of the nine police divisions in T&T, Northern Division has topped the list three years running for complaints against officers lodged with the Police Complaints Authority (PCA). The division, which comprises 12 police stations and stretches from Cumuto to St Joseph, is also one of the most densely populated in the country.
For the last three years, two other police divisions also made it to the top of the list—Port-of-Spain and Central.
These three divisions have the highest numbers of complaints against officers and the highest numbers of recorded crime according to statistics from the T&T Police Service (TTPS).
In 2015, of the 321 complaints received by the PCA, Northern Division officers accounted for 49, Port-of-Spain Division accounted for 45, and Central Division accounted for 43. For that same period, Port-of-Spain had 2,117 reported crimes, Central Division recorded 1,545 and Northern Division recorded 1,401.
One year before, in 2014, there were 103 complaints against Northern Division officers, while there were 57 reports against officers of the Port-of-Spain Division, and 44 against Central.
In the 2013 annual report, Northern again topped the list of complaints with 83 reports, followed by Eastern with 70, Central with 64 and Port-of-Spain with 63. There were 235 complaints lodged against Northern for the past three years; 165 against Port-of-Spain; and 151 against Central.
Since the PCA was established on December 29 2010, the authority received a total of 2,139 complaints, of which 1,279 are being actively investigated and 254 are before the courts of law.
Of the total number of complaints, 15.38 per cent of the complaints came from the Northern Division.
There is no report yet for 2016.
Complaints ranged from disciplinary to criminal offences and included police corruption, police misconduct, fatal shooting, murder, harassment, money laundering and rape.
The PCA report does not point to any specific factor for the disparity of complaints in each division.
In an interview last week, head of the Northern Division, Senior Superintendent McDonald Jacob, who inherited the post last November, said the main problem was that some officers did not know how to speak to members of the public, and some members of the public did not understand the powers granted to police officers.
Jacob also said urban areas usually saw people more inclined to have a confrontation with the police. In rural areas you might find a better relationship with police and villagers.
‘Police need to be educated’
Speaking about the division under his control, Jacob said Northern Division was the largest division in terms of population density.
Other than Southern Division, he said it was the only division with 12 police stations and there were about 978 police officers attached to the division.
“When you look at complaints in proportion to the size of division and the size of the police force, you will realise that the numbers may not be that high.
“There is more interaction with the people so the chances of complaints being more will be there.”
He said even so, police were mindful of the need for a better relationship with the public.
In the past three months, officers from his division have been sent on customer service training at the Police Academy in St James to update their skills.
Instead of having one town meeting with residents in the division last year, Jacob said his division had four.
“The whole point is to escalate the interaction between the police and the people, letting the people have a better understanding of the police and what is required of them and the officers need to understand their role better.”
“The police need to be educated about their powers and how to utilise it and how to use their discretion. Police label and stereotype. They profile people. They will stop someone and let them go and they might stop someone who they feel looks suspicious based on a hairstyle and people wonder why a certain type of person is always stopped.
“There needs to be education on both sides.”
On Friday, PCA head David West said one way to improve the image of the Police Service was to encourage graduates of the University of the West Indies to enlist as members of the Police Service.
West said there should be some motivating programme to encourage these graduates to enrol for training as police officers by the Police Service Commission.
Police Commissioner Stephen Williams has repeatedly noted the need for a better relationship between police officers and public in order to better serve the public and better fight crime.
