The Criminal Investigative Branch (CIB) of the police force is being doubled to 1,600, or 20 per cent of the constabulary’s establishment, as a short-term measure to deal with the current upsurge in crime, National Security Minister Peter Phillips told Parliament yesterday.

The measure, which takes effect immediately, comes hard on the heels of an announcement by police chief Lucius Thomas that the police were exploring the possibility of pulling out of retirement a number of outstanding detectives to beef up what are regarded as the constabulary’s deficient investigative skills.

Phillips, in his contribution to the budget debate, put the measure in the context of a range of initiatives aimed at enhancing the capacity of the police force to fight increasingly sophisticated and extreme crime, including the implementation of a modern Management Information System (MIS).

“Ultimately, we will aim to have every officer on the beat or in his/her patrol car able to access information in critical crime prevention and crime fighting areas – stolen motor vehicles, outstanding arrest warrants, illegal firearms, information on fugitives, and so on”, said Phillips.

With more than 1,000 murders committed annually in Jamaica, the police claim about a 58 per cent “clear up” rate, which means that someone is at least identified as a critical suspect in the case, although there might have been no conviction.

In fact, only a relative handful of murders ever lead all the way to arrest and conviction locally, which points to the lack of detectives who can utilise investigative skills to present courts with binding evidence to put away criminals on long sentences.

Expanding on the measures to improve the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s (JCF’s) investigative and technical capacity, Phillips said the Government had concluded arrangements for the supply of 154 computers and related software to link police stations in a wide area network to be used specifically for crime analysis.

“In the course of this year, as part of a Citizen Security and Social Justice Programme, jointly funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), we will be going to tender for proposals to install a full management information system for the police and the Department of Correctional Services, which will be linked to the courts,” Phillips said.

“This new system will give the JCF vastly increased and modern capacity to communicate, transfer information, manage and deploy resources and generally to be more effective in managing itself and in fighting crime,” he added.

He also reiterated a plan to beef up the Special Anti-Crime Task Force (SACTF) by an additional 150 cops, 50 of whom have already been placed, and announced that specialist training from overseas experts in hostage rescue and control of public disorder has been secured for the SACTF.

Phillips also said that the Government would be acquiring from the French supplier SAGEM SA next month, an Automated Palm and Fingerprint Identification System which had the capacity to convert existing fingerprints to digital formats to further optimise the benefits from the recently passed Fingerprint Act.

He also said that an Integrated Ballistic Identification System (IBIS) is expected to arrive in the island within the next three months to allow for automated cross-matching of ammunition and firearms.

There are also plans to upgrade the JCF’s radio communications system from analogue to digital within the next 12 months, which, Phillips said, would provide the platform for speedy and cost-efficient movement of data and video to support many of the new technologies being adopted by the police force.

– bellanfanted@jamaicaobserver.com