A female resident makes a report in the mobile police unit along Fields Road in Marverly, St Andrew Monday. (Photo: Karl McLarty)

POLICING in the South St Andrew Police Division was given a boost with the launch of the first mobile police station Monday.

The Jamaica Constabulary Force commenced the pilot project as part of a community safety initiative in the division.
Citizens, instead of making reports to police stations across the division, will now be able to file complaints in an air-conditioned minivan, used as a mobile police post.

"It is a new concept, the commissioner spoke about bringing the station to the people and that is what we are basically trying to do. We want to go for a week in the St Andrew South Division and see how things go before moving elsewhere," second in charge of the community safety branch, Senior Superintendent Iris McCalla-Gordon, told the Observer.
She said the St Andrew South division, based on its high crime rate, was the ideal division for the launch of the programme.

"We were actually going to send it to the rural areas but the St Andrew South Division has more murders than anywhere else in the Corporate Area, so we thought that if we can get it going in some of that division's hotspots, then it will be easier for persons to buy into the concept," said Gordon.

Gordon said that there was only one vehicle being used in the programme, but said that additional vehicles will be provided as soon as the programme picks up. The vehicle was sponsored by the British government
The unit is operated by four police officers from the division's community safety team.

The team, Gordon said, will work on a shift basis. She said based on its success, it will also be used to cushion the inconvenience likely to face residents when some stations are closed for renovation.

She, however, did not divulge an overall cost for the programme and said that further security features of the programme will be mapped out as it goes along.

On Monday the vehicle toured several troubled communities in the division - sections of Balcombe Drive, Waterhouse and Marverly.

According to Inspector Dennis Gardener, community relations officer for the St Andrew South Division, the programme has been receiving positive feedback from citizens.

"It is just the first day and we have already been getting a positive response from the residents. We have just been going around and introducing the concept to them so hopefully as the week progresses persons will buy into it," Gardener said.

The programme was met with smiles by a group of residents on Fields Road in Marverly.

"Yes we like it," one woman said. "It good because normally we would have to travel all the way to the police station, by that time the people them that we are reporting would have already run away. But we seriously need the police presence in Marverly though."

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