Officers fleeing JCF
published: Saturday | May 28, 2005

Tyrone Reid, Staff Reporter

MORE THAN three hundred police officers have resigned from the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) in less than three years.

Superintendent Alvena Ewan, who is in charge of the personnel department in the Office of the Commissioner, revealed to The Gleaner that 147 officers resigned in 2003, while another 140 officers called it quits last year.

RESIGNED

So far, 29 officers have resigned from the JCF since the start of the year, pushing the total to 316 in just under two-and-a-half years.

Superintendent Ewan was reluctant to comment on whether the figures were a cause for concern.

However, she was able to furnish The Gleaner with some of the more popular reasons stated for the decision to resign from the force.

"Some migrate, others seek employment elsewhere while others left to further their studies," she said.

Already, nine police officers have been murdered since the start of the year.

SAFER GROUND

Attempts to get a comment on the notion that personnel were fleeing the force for safer ground were parried by Supt. Ewan.

"If it is (so), most of them don't state it," she said.

In 2003, Sergeant Michael Clarke, then president of the Jamaica Police Federation told The Gleaner that "there have been resignations on an almost daily basis. On average, there are about six resignations per week, and there was one week when there were 10 in all."

However, Supt. Ewan rebuffed Sergeant Clarke's statement as false. She further stated that the resignation rate was not a cause for concern.

"The numbers of resignations are not exorbitant to the point where we could see a problem. It's not true that there are on average six resignations per week. There aren't that many unless they haven't reached us yet," she said.

WAGE IMPASSE

The Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file members of the JCF up to the level of Inspector, is presently deadlocked in a wage impasse with the Government.

Efforts to get a comment on the rate of resignation from Corporal Raymond Wilson, current chairman of the Police Federation, proved futile.