Dr. Peter Phillips has named a panel of distinguished persons, chaired by Dr. Herbert Thompson, president of Northern Caribbean University, to conduct another review of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF).

We are fast losing track of the reviews, analyses, studies, or whatever they are called, done on the Jamaican police force in recent years. Not only has the constabulary been poked and pored over and talked about, there have been some specific actions taken, aimed at changing the organisation. Or, perhaps the better phrase is reforming it.

For instance, the law was changed to give the commissioner of police direct control of operational matters to ensure that his political boss, in this case Dr. Phillips, cannot meddle in the day-to-day running of the force. The minister is now consigned to policy issues and directives.

Then there was the agreement for bipartisan appointment of the Police Service Commission, as well as the creation of an oversight group to review the actions and behaviour of the police. This, of course, is in addition to having an independent body to which members of the public who believe that they have suffered police abuse can complain. All these overlay the internal divisions that are supposed to investigate corruption, shootings and abuse of power.

And if these were not enough, there have been the experts from Britain and the United States, such as the PERF group, giving their suggestions for reform. We have recruited officers from abroad, too, to fill a number of top posts in the constabulary.

Yet, for all the tinkering over a long time, as the latest appointment of a task force clearly concedes, little, or not nearly enough of real substance has been achieved. The perception of the JCF is that it remains a corrupt organisation; that its investigators are incompetents, whose clear-up rate for crimes at not much above 50 per cent is dubiously high; and that it is a jackbooted, paramilitary organisation whose members shoot at a whim.

As blue-riband as this committee undoubtedly is, we doubt that there is little new that it can discover about the constabulary that it can tell Dr. Phillips, which may explain why there has apparently been no lofty declarations about its terms of reference we are sure that Dr. Phillips is not just hoping for the best by putting together a slew of very bright and highly skilled people. The minister, we are sure, is sanguine that the group can, and will, deliver - something!

So do we, if they are determined to be radical. In which case, appointing the task force is not necessary, for this is an option that has in the past been on the table and can be executed by a government with the guts and will. The JCF should be dissolved and not reconstituted. A new civilian and professional constabulary should be created with normal policing powers. Existing members of the JCF should be allowed to apply for posts and treated as any other applicant.

Simultaneously, there should be a smaller 'elite' investigative body with some policing powers, manned primarily by people with law and other professional degrees, such as accountants, to handle certain kinds of crimes and misdemeanours, such as corrupt behaviour in public offices and high corporate fraud.