Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter
THE UNITED States Agency for International Development (USAID), is tendering a new project to boost community policing in the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF).
The USAID has been involved in a similar project in the volatile Grants Pen community.
United States-based company National Center for State Courts (NCSC) placed an advertisement in the local press last week to recruit Jamaican community police for the project. The project could start as early as February, said USAID Head of Mission Karen Turner.
"We are at an early stage, having just tendered for a policing organisation to manage the project," said Mrs. Turner. "We want to partner with other donor organisations and the private sector on the project, which will ideally run in three or four different communities."
"We want to use as much local expertise as possible, which is why the advertisement would be looking for consultants from the JCF itself. Community policing by definition has to be as local as possible," she added.
Superintendent Norman Hayward who is responsible for community policing within the JCF's Corporate Strategy Unit welcomed the project. "I liked what they did in Grants Pen and I would like to see it replicated in other similar communities across the island. The concept is in line with the Corporate Strategy and as such I believe it will be cohesive with our aims."
'MODEL' POLICE STATION
The previous project in Grants Pen with which the USAID was involved, is still being developed. Construction is ongoing on the 'model' police station being built as a centre for community policing at a cost of $300 million. Initiated by the American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM), they partnered with the private sector to fund the project.
In that case AMCHAM had involved USAID to manage the project and they contracted the Washington D.C.-based policing consultancy firm Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), a similar organisation to NCSC.
Community policing is gaining ground in Jamaica according to PERF's Community Policing Adviser Robert K. Olsen. "We've been doing it for 20 years in the United States now and it's a rarity to find a police department that's not doing it. Initiatives like this are useful in providing a road map for community policing here in Jamaica," he said.
