There can be no doubt that good work deserves good pay and conditions.
And as is very obvious right now, to anyone just driving by, even, the state of various police stations is absolutely abysmal. No-one should be expected to work in such conditions as we see in some of these places.
Officially we understand that decisions have already been made for that situation to change. And the sooner the better.
Regarding pay and benefits, I honestly do not know how much more money would be fair and reasonable for an intelligent, diligent, honest and hard-working police office to make in T&T.
And THAT said, I don’t know just how easy it is to find many that fit that description.
Now I know from experience how readily some people are ready to leap to the defence of the “service”, (and what a misnomer that is!), and of course to individual officers in it.
And some of those so defended will deserve the kind words from their family and friends. But I know how equally valid my own experiences and those of many others I know, have been.
And that there are a large number that right now, (and for however long they remain in the pay of TTPS, i.e. the T&T taxpayers), are being paid far, far more than they are worth.
I refer for example to those that cannot be prevailed upon to do their job. Those that when you go to the nearby station, “cannot be bothered” to make note of the fact that an employer is getting death threats to him and his family, from a fired worker.
Those that “have no car, available” to respond to a call, those to be seen daily, dropping their children to school in police vehicles, dropping their wives to the supermarket, picking up family at the airport, or driving around with a weed wacker protruding from the car window.
I also refer to those that are widely known, or even photographed, whilst beating or otherwise torturing members of the public. And those that cannot show up after weeks to investigate the disappearance of a teenage girl, simple because she is a teenager, and may have gone in their opinion, of her own free will.
Or those that say they “cannot stop obvious and widespread looting of a church, because they do not know who owns it.”
And of course, the superiors of all these and others, that cannot get off their lazy, dumb arses to sanction or impose punishment on offending, subordinate officers.
This country has pathetically inadequate standards in so many aspects. And there is little or no visible progress in many of these “living standards”, towards what people want and are entitled to want, in many other countries, that are so much more advanced.
Like housework, it is always possible to find things that need doing, anywhere.
But born primarily out of a general societal ignorance, and correspondingly low expectations, there are many in this country that know no better and expect no better, in any appreciable way.
It is pathetic to consider what people generally do not get in this country.
And one of the fundamentals of what they do not have now, although they certainly did have more of in the days of colonialism, is law and order!
So let us measure the performance, collectively, and individually, of the TTPS, against the detection and arrest records of other country’s police forces, before anyone rushes to approve and accept the sloppy, shoddy and corrupt performance that we get all too often from these people.
Some would attribute far superior law enforcement levels elsewhere to anything BUT the individual officers.
But for the time being, we the public need to look no further than these officers to see more than enough that must be fixed, if we are to again feel safe to walk the streets, or even to stay home.
And if the level of hands-on leadership competence and integrity is so consistently lacking, then it is surely not illogical to bring in top level officers from countries with far more acceptable levels of law and order.
After all, “fish does start to stink from the head”, as the old saying has it.
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