Police Force in need of major overhaul

Letters, Normal
Source:

The National, Monday November 9th, 2015

 AT the time when the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary’s 2015 recruitment drive is underway in the Highlands region, it would be in the best interest of the country for the police hierarchy to evaluate the department’s performance in the last 40 years, and review its recruitment process in light of the declining police reputation in recent times.

In the past, the department had failed to deliver stringent recruitment process, resulting on the system being manipulated and hijacked by few self-centered police officers to pursue personal interest as evidences of past recruitments remain tightlipped.  

The same is for other two disciplinary forces (Defence and CIS) where these departments were ranked as highly corrupt institutions when it comes to recruitment. 

There is evidence of sons, daughters and relatives of senior disciplinary forces recruited while others went through the bribery process with large amounts of money involved.

The repercussions of such recruitment had continued to destroy the reputation of the police force in all aspects of police operations including, police brutality, raping of women detainees, police shootings and killings, unauthorised searches and police raids, drunken brawls  in public pubs, unapproved escorts for business men and betel nut smugglers and the list goes on.

One other issue relates to the inability of police officers in not furnishing timely investigation reports before the national or district court. 

Consequently, the trial judge or jury finds it hard to establish the facts on the evidence before the court, causing difficulty in applying the rule of law on the perpetrators.  

This has gone for a while, resulting in many high profile cases being strike-out or subject to unnecessary adjournments due to police negligence. 

The judiciary system should even deal with the respective officers for breaching a duty of care, and this can be one area where police department or the judiciary system to seriously look into, in order to improve compliance and evade recurrence.

While genuine adjournments can only be assessed by the jury or a judge, the alarming increase of “no police investigation reports” in the media reveals the incompetency of our police personnel.

From an academic perspective, the poor quality of work only undermines the integrity and quality of training received at the Bomana Police Training College.

Therefore in order to increase police performance, it is highly recommended that the current police training modules be reviewed and incorporate new courses as per the job requires.

One of these courses must focus on investigation and report writing skills with other modules of importance. 

Other requirements may include the screening of educational qualification and competency of trainers, the duration of the training program, recruitment to be direct school leavers on merits and assess the trainees against the set standard criteria like all other universities and college in the country.

Finally, zero tolerance on alcohol and drug abuse within the duration of training and probationary period should become a mandatory requirement prior to be enlisted as certified police officer. 

 

Kende Kiripe, Via email