Recently I was asked to give a presentation to a criminology
class at the University of the Southern Caribbean on the Criminal
Justice System—was it was failing?
At the outset it was clear that most of the 40 students were
of the opinion that the system was failing and that the police
were largely responsible.
That this was in sync with public opinion was made clear by
the response of some members of the public to the report that
police prosecutors were being professionally trained: Service
needs an attitude change.
We first set out to define what was meant by criminal justice
system. The component that everyone identified was the police.
Then it was clarified that other institutions such as the
courts, the prosecution and the prisons comprised our criminal
justice system.
It is important to realise the roles of these four institutions
in the CJ system. The police are supposed to maintain order,
investigate crime and detect offences. The prosecutor then
presents the case before the court. The court, which may at
the Assize level, includes a jury, hears the evidence and
determines guilt or otherwise.
The court is also responsible for sentencing a guilty offender.
The prison in its many facets is responsible for holding offenders.
It is only recently that there has been a clear perception
that part of that role is to seek to rehabilitate offenders,
or as the motto says to treat offenders.
None of these groups is perfect. From time to time we hear
criticism of the courts, whether it be lack of uniformity
in sentencing or the delay in having matters heard promptly.
In the recent past the problems in these regard have become
less acute, in that there have been measures put in place
to address some concerns. Every so often one hears of some
improvement done or proposed so the public perception is that
some effort is being made to make things work.
Poor work
As far as the prosecution is concerned, I have not heard it
said that in general prosecutors are unfair or abused their
powers. There may not be a large pool of experienced prosecutors
or enough of them, but it is generally accepted by defence
counsel and the courts that they do a good job with the available
resources.
It has also been said the job of these prosecutors is often
made more difficult by poor work done by the police in the
investigation of given cases.
The vagaries of witnesses in recent times are also recognised
as constituting a hindrance to effective prosecution.
In short then these arms of the criminal justice system (including
the prisons), other than the police, are not blamed for the
perceived failings of the system. The police are blamed.
Now members of the Police Service are members of the society
just like all of us, as are prosecutors, judges and magistrates
are. Yet the latter are not held accountable for the increase
in crime. The police are. Citizens do not uniformly talk of
the attitude problem of the other arms of the system as they
do in respect of the police.
Why is everyone beating up on the police, one may ask?
The police have powers that the rest of us usually do not
have. The police as an institution was created to maintain
order.
To enable them to properly do this for the benefit of the
wider society they were given powers of arrest, search, entry
and the right to carry arms, at least in the course of their
investigation.
In contrast, individual prosecutors and judges do not have
such wide powers.
Having handed over to the powers to the police, the public
expects to see results,that may be measured by a secure society.
Recently we have not had this.
Most visible
In my view the general complaint about police attitude stems
from the fact that the police constitute the one group that
the average member of the public is likely to come in contact
with and not in a pleasant way.
In so far as the courts and the prosecution are concerned
it is only if one is charged with an offence that one comes
face to face with the realities in the system.
Many people like to boast that they have never been in a court
their entire life. Yet every day in traffic one is likely
to see a police officer directing traffic or passing with
a siren on. At public functions too they are very much present
to maintain order.
The police therefore as a group are possibly the most visible
in the society and, apart from when they are delivering babies
and such, are invariably engaged in some confrontation with
members of the public.
The police in such an encounter are the ones with the power
and some have been known to abuse it.
Is it no wonder that the public complains of police “attitude”
and there is a pervasive mistrust of them? Just one bad experience
and that is it.
The media
We have the most media ever. Thus every misdeed of a police
officer will be reported several times over. Even when the
police charge one of their own this will not be attributed
to a desire on their part to clean up the service.
There are more police officers before the courts than there
ever have been, but the public sees this as more corruption
ever and not that the police are working and are more unbiased
that they ever were.
It is clear that the Police Service has no effective public
relations because they are failing in this regard. They are
also failing in community policing which is something that
should have spawned trust between the public and the police.
Such a programme was initiated some ten years ago but later
effectively abandoned.
Perhaps as part of its crime prevention initiatives the State
should immediately rectify these matters.
