EDITORIAL: On policing contemporary local society

“When constabulary duties to be done, to be done 
Taking one consideration with another 
A policeman’s lot is not a happy one…” - Gilbert & Sullivan: The Pirates of Penzance (1879)

The composer of these lyrics would have written at a time when the police officer was an individual to be respected certainly and even feared to an extent. In more recent times, however, the role of the policeman has changed significantly to an actuality where the officer is perceived by some as the epitome of the law and order in society to which most of us subscribe, while to others he or she is perceived as an enemy of that repressed minority that always cops the blame for criminal activity.

Thus, while the police will be considered as the first recourse when social unrest threatens or portends; note the recent response of Prime Minister Stuart to what he construed, arguably mistakenly, as a threat to civil order in a letter from the Chairman of the Private Sector Association preceding the protest march on July 24, when he asserted that “any “proposed” social unrest would be dealt with by the Royal Barbados Police Force (RBPF)”

Contrast this however with the bold threat of violence to members of the same force by some anonymous contributor(s) to social media who would happily foment such civil unrest to avenge perceived slights.

This duality of perception would seem to depend on the reason for contact with the Force. Clearly, for those whose principal mode of contact is as a suspect in a reported crime or as an arrestee, the police will be seen as an antagonist and there will be resistance to their methods of treatment; from claims of the absence of a warrant to those relating to their unlawful use of excessive force to physical resistance.

On the other hand, for those whom the police are assisting in the recovery of stolen property or in the detection of the crime, they will be perceived as instruments of the enforcement of the law and the attitude to them will be radically different.

This is not to suggest that the police force comprises a homogenous group of do-gooders only. Court records where officers have been charged with various offences of a criminal nature would belie any such assertion.

After all, police officers are selected from among ordinary members of our society and as with our lawyers, our doctors, our customs officers and even our politicians, they are not immune from ordinary human foibles and weaknesses. However, the society has established institutions and measures to cope with such misconduct and it is expected that these will operate precisely as they were intended to.

Indeed, the recent decision of the Caribbean Court of Justice on appeal from Barbados that reiterated the desirability for the technological corroboration of confessions may be viewed as a check on the capability of a rogue officer to fabricate or coerce a confession in disregard of the proper procedure.

At the same time, the police officer cannot be expected to be less than firm with a suspect; an attitude that might easily be construed as hostility and even aggression.

It is this requirement to be both the friendly protector and servant of civil society and the firm enforcer of the law that makes the officer’s job an exceedingly difficult one. How is one expected to approach a given individual of whose bona fides the officer is unsure ?

This further demonstrates the need for collaboration between the Force and the society, whether in the form of community policing, the familiar neighbourhood watch or the old police boys’ and girl clubs whereby the force is perceived more as a force for social good than distinct from the people.