While the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) is losing approximately 400 members each year, the Police High Command is swiftly implementing strategies to ramp up the recruitment and training of new personnel.
Such strategies, according to Police Commissioner, Major General Antony Anderson, have led to increased numbers in the police force that are “heading rapidly towards 13,000 officers”.
He made the pronouncement while speaking at a town hall meeting at Cecil Charlton Park in Mandeville, Manchester on Thursday.
Anderson said the JCF loses officers on an annual basis, particularly due to retirement and migration.
However, he emphasised that the recruitment process has afforded the constabulary to narrow the gap that the situation has created.
“What we recruited and trained last year was 1,250 (persons), and similarly, this year. So, we have gone from 400 to 1,200 officers,” said Anderson.
“When you’re recruiting 400 (officers) and you’re losing roughly 400 (officers), nothing changes. So, we expect to lose about 400 officers a year to retirement, resignation, to migration… and a few other reasons,” the police commissioner continued.
“All it tells me is I have to recruit and train, to replace the 400 (officers), plus what I need to grow the force, hence with 1,200 (new officers), I am netting 800 a year,” he added.
“For the first time in forever, we have crossed the 1,200 (mark), and we’re heading rapidly to 1,300 officers,” said Anderson in relation to recruitment and training for a year in the constabulary.
While the recruitment process is functional and gaining “increased quantity”, the police commissioner said his objective is to also get “increased quality” relative to the recruits for the force.
These overall objectives, he explained, led to an elimination of some of the ideas relative to “how we grow” the force.
“I believe, certainly, that some of those methodologies (in the past) would have increased quantity without a commensurate increase in quality,” declared Anderson.
Meanwhile, he said the modernisation of the constabulary continues in earnest, especially in relation to the investment in technology and improvement in its human resources.
“In this process of transformation of the organisation, we have to leverage our men and women… with the appropriate equipment, technology, (along) with appropriate intelligence, especially emotional intelligence, to properly deal with the persons in the communities across the range and types of communities that we have in Jamaica,” stated Anderson.
