EDITORIAL – Jamaica’s move against cops’ abuse

QUITE OFTEN calls are made why Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member states should avoid the crime and violence syndrome with which Jamaica is identified. Even that is as CARICOM partner states, such as Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and The Bahamas, continue to be afflicted with their own epidemic of criminality and once pastoral Barbados now laments the challenges posed by criminal gangs with rising incidence of criminality.Well, amid the criminal rampage plaguing the CARICOM region has also emerged increasingly bitter complaints against police brutality in too many jurisdictions.Perhaps, therefore, some official attention should also be given to new initiatives by Jamaica to arrest the regular complaints of police killings and brutality in a bid to help restore public confidence in the law-enforcing agencies and win cooperation for an improved rule of law environment.Under new legislation, the Jamaica Government has now established an Independent Commission of Investigations (ICI) that is mandated to probe allegations/complaints of abuses against citizens and/or other “agents” of the state.    The commission, soon to become functional, following a period of skills training, will replace the Bureau of Special Investigations (BSI) that has focused on cases of police shootings and claims of corruption, as well as physical violence against citizens.The fundamental difference between the outgoing BSI and the incoming ICI is that the new body is intended to bring an end to the practice so well known in this and other CARICOM states of the police investigating themselves, much to the disappointment of aggrieved citizens.In moving away from this practice against which there have been strong complaints by citizens as well as lawyers and human rights organisations, an experienced attorney at law, Terrence Williams, has been appointed as the first commissioner of the ICI.  Williams, whose appointment took effect with a swearing-in ceremony this past weekend, is a former chief prosecutor of the British Virgin Islands of ten years and has also served as an assistant director in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in Jamaica.Attorneys general, ministers of justice and home affairs as well as national police commissioners and the Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police may find it useful to inform themselves about Jamaica’s initiative in the establishment of the independent commission to probe cases of claimed police abuses, partly as a new approach also to improve police-public relations.