Minister of National Security Marvin Dames announced that the Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF) is undergoing a manpower audit, which is a part of revising and reforming the underperforming anti-crime initiatives.
In his address on crime in the House of Assembly on Wednesday, Dames said the success of any crime plan must include as one of its principal drivers, the men and women on the frontline.
“There is an urgent need for us to determine if there is an actual shortage of manpower or whether the issue is one of deployment,” Dames said.
He said his department has begun a comprehensive manpower audit that will verify what human resources are required to effectively operate police stations and other policing divisions.
“Every member of the Royal Bahamas Police Force will be provided with the requisite training and retraining,” Dames said.
He added that the training is essential to officers carrying out their duty.
Dames said there is a need for training at every level and in every law enforcement agency.
“Training has been inconsistent and lacks a true focus. We will ensure that our law enforcement officers at all levels are properly trained in line with international law enforcement standards,” Dames said.
He said no longer will a pass be given to persons based on relationships, but they will ensure that all officers are well prepared to more than effectively carry out the duties required of them.
He added that the overly centralized approach to policing was negatively impacting the delivery of critical policing services.
“We fully understand that in certain situations it may be appropriate to pull large groups of officers together and to carry out large selective police operations. However, these operations should not weaken police divisions to the point where normal delivery of policing services is disrupted,” Dames said.
He added that there should never be a situation where only two police officers are on duty during a given shift at a police station expecting them to provide quality service to the community.
“The police command is well on the way to addressing these problems as soon as our establishment review is completed we will introduce a permanent fix to this problem,” Dames said.
As a part of the plan to fix those issues, he said a detective unit will be re-established in every police division to ensure that every community is provided with swifter response times to serious offenses.
“I believe a decentralized approach to tackling crime issues at the divisional level, with the appropriate levels of accountability in place, will assist both the police and the community in addressing crime and other quality of life issues,” Dames said.
He added that over the years, successive governments have continued recruitment activities to address the manpower needs of the police force and despite these efforts it appears that sufficient officers are still not available during key times to adequately provide the police presence necessary to prevent and detect crime on a sustained basis.
“The time has come for us to determine once and for all what human resources we require to detect and adequately provide policing services to the communities throughout the Commonwealth of The Bahamas,” Dames said.
