Recruitment process for police needs overhaul

NCD-Central Police commander Sylvester Kalaut raised an important issue at the Police Commissioner’s Conference recently regarding police recruitment.
He suggested for thorough personality testing through psychological tests as well the recruitment process to be contracted out to recruitment consultants.
The recruitment of young raw recruits directly into the force from Grade 12 is destroying the police force.
These recruits are trained for only six months and thrown to the stations with uniforms and guns.
The decaying moral and ethical values in our society should be of serious concern to which the recruitment processes of our disciplinary forces need to be reviewed and refined to reflect on the changing demographics.
There needs to be a balance or mixture whereby recruits with previous qualifications with few years of work experience can be brought into the police force.
This can be done by breaking up into age groups, whereby 18-23 years are allocated for direct Grade 12 leavers and the other age group between 24-30 years to be reserved for applicants wanting to change jobs and careers who may have added qualifications and experiences.
This group of recruits could be identified for peer group leads during training and post training when deployed to the provinces.
The present recruitment process is a death trap for the police force as it is too easy for bribery, nepotism and corrupt practices to be applied by the  recruitment teams.
There are many complaints in the media on the present recruitment exercise of corrupt practices that Police Commissioner Gari Baki should take heed of and review this recruitment exercise.

Concerned Citizen
Jiwaka