THE Jamaica Constabulary Force’s move towards a more consultative approach to crime fighting, by winning the public’s support and confidence, appears to be gaining ground, as even Keith “Trinity” Gardner, once known for his iron-hand approach to policing, has signed on.

The intrepid crime fighter and scourge of the underworld in his time on the streets, now turned Assistant Commissioner of Police and a qualified attorney, said the move towards community policing represented “a paradigm shift from the traditional way in which we conducted policing”.

He was addressing the audience at the opening of the new reception area at the Hunts Bay Police Station on Thursday.

ACP Gardner recounted that it was some 30 years ago, while stationed at the Hunts Bay Police Station, that his alter ego and nemesis “Trinity” was born.

“Sometime around now in the day, you would see me coming through that gate with around 30 or 40 men all in line walking obediently to the guard room, sometimes I’m not even accompanying them just mere instructions,” he reminisced.

He added, “it was a time, not only in Jamaica, but indeed internationally, when policing was identified with some degree of repressive behaviour. Today we are moving away from that paradigm of policing to one of consensus, where the police seek advice from the larger community which includes the residents and the business community, … to give them some sort of ownership in the way in which we police.”

Gardner said the police had decided, on the basis of research and advice, to “transform the so-called guard room into an area where interaction between the citizenry and the police is more conducive.”

This new guardroom, he said, was “one where the notion of alternative dispute resolution can be entertained, where people wanting to make a complaint can do so, people wanting advice, people wanting to negotiate, to mediate, can do so in an atmosphere of privacy.”

His comments come against the background of the recent reassignment of controversial crime fighter, Senior Superintendent Renato Adams, from frontline duties as head of the Crime Management Unit (CMU). Adams was relegated to an administrative job as coordinator of the National Crime Initiative, and the CMU, known and feared for its scorched-earth tactics, was scrapped.

Adams is currently seeking judicial review through the courts against that decision by the Commissioner of Police, Francis Forbes.

Meanwhile, the Hunts Bay Police Station’s new reception area, refurbished at a cost of some £160,000 through a grant from the British Department for International Development (DFID), is the fourth police station to be so equipped following grants to the Half Way Tree, Constant Spring, and Spanish Town stations. It has private interviewing rooms, reception areas, a waiting area, public sanitary conveniences and air conditioning.

Among the critiques of the former guard room is that it conflicted with quality service to the public, was impersonal, lacked confidentiality, and the waiting area was not organised.

In her keynote address at the opening, Elizabeth Cowriere, Head of DFID in Jamaica noted that Britain remained committed to supporting the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s modernisation programme. She emphasised that the assistance was “not Britain’s programme for the JCF, but the JCF’s programme which they have commissioned to help provide a better service for the people of Jamaica.”

She emphasised that the refurbishing “on its own, is not enough to improve community policing.”

“There is a responsibility on the officers who will be based, here to ensure that the public are made to feel welcome and are given a sympathetic ear,” she said.

“There is a responsibility on those who live and work in the area covered by this station to share information that they may have that may help the police to make communities safer areas in which to live or run a business,” she added.