Seven years after the Jamaica Constabulary Force made community policing an integral part of crime-fighting, the idea appears to be finally catching on. More than 5,000 cops have been trained for the programme and residents in once violence-riddled communities like Grants Pen and 100 Lane have noticed the difference.

But even with the gains made, the general consensus appears to be that more work needs to be done for lawmen to completely win the battle for the confidence of those who have been weaned on the premise that the police cannot be trusted.

“If we can get residents to come forward and stand up with each other, most of these gunmen running up and down in the communities would be in prison and can’t come out,” says Deputy Superintendent of Police Norman Heywood, who heads the implementation effort for community-policing across the island.

“We need the communities to understand that this whole ‘informer’ syndrome is only leading to more death and destruction in the communities. We need them to understand that the gunman who they know and shield today is going to be the same one who results in their demise tomorrow,” Heywood adds.

Dr Carolyn Gomes, the paediatrician turned executive director of the rights group, Jamaicans For Justice (JFJ), is also firmly convinced that community policing is the best option.

“Community-based policing, where police and communities work together to identify problems, and to solve them, is the only thing that is going to work at this stage. It is absolutely the answer to our problems. Everywhere that it has been implemented it has reaped success,” she insists.

But she believes that crime-fighting approach has not been successfully implemented here.

“So far we have not done that in Jamaica and that is what we need to do now,” Gomes emphasises in an interview with the Sunday Observer.

Both Gomes and Heywood stress the urgency of implementing the concept, against the backdrop of the rapidly climbing murder rate.

Since the start of the year, over 600 persons have been killed, a figure which, at this rate, could surpass the record 1,469 murders last year.

Community policing was identified among seven priority areas outlined by former Police Commissioner Francis Forbes in his 1998 police corporate strategy.

The programme is geared at training all members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) in a range of areas, including intelligence gathering, problem solving and forging partnerships.

But after seven years, Gomes is convinced that not enough is being done to promote community-based policing.

“We have beginning mechanisms, like the community consultative committees (but) they don’t set targets (and) the area commanders are not answerable to those committees. We don’t implement it properly. Some of them (the consultative committees) are not even functioning,” she complains.

“We have to move beyond talking about community-based policing to implementing it, where we hold the area commanders responsible, where we work out monthly meetings, where minutes are taken, and hold each other accountable for moving forward (and) working together to prevent crime.”

But DSP Heywood counters that the police can’t do it alone and has to rely on the full commitment of the government and the private sector, particularly for the improvement of the social infrastructure of communities, in order to reap the success everyone was anticipating.

“Some of the things we say we would identify and do in terms of problem-solving are outside of our scope in terms of community decay and improving the quality of life for everyone,” Heywood argues. “Crime-fighting is not a police thing alone, it has to be done with other areas, other groupings within the society.”

But he points to some encouraging developments in 100 Lane, off Red Hills Road, remembered for a bloody massacre and in the crime-infested Grants Pen area of St Andrew.

Some 100 Lane residents were given the opportunity to engage the police in a trust-building relationship. The result has been a decline in the number of murders from seven in 2002 to zero in 2004, Heywood reports.

At the same time, a skills bank has been developed in the area and several residents were able to gain employment with the Price Smart megastore along Red Hills Road, which was built during that period.

A young woman from the area who spoke on condition of anonymity, says that she has received employment with Price Smart, having been trained in cashiering.

She is now a supporter of community-based policing, saying it was a step in the right direction for the area. “For me it has been good. The command post was good. You could go and come freely.

When the programme began, they spoke to us, asking us what we would like to do. They put some points, somebody volunteered and said the cashier thing would be nice… Now I am working,” she tells the Sunday Observer.

But she laments the absence of the police from the community following Hurricane Ivan last year. “The police post is now gone and it is a bit tense sometimes. I feel better when the police are there, and sometimes they used to do a little patrol. I don’t see that happening much again.”

Success in Grants Pen appears to have been more spectacular and the gains there frequently make the news. The high-point is a community clinic and police station being built by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) in tandem with the American Chamber of Commerce, through funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Robert “Bob” Olson, a retired police officer from the United States who took over the operations of PERF more than two months ago, says he is impressed with the progress being made.

“I feel really good. All of the things that we have been doing are starting to come together. We are really starting to see the tangible things. We intend to have the new community and police facility open for August. We have completed a lot of training of not only some JCF officers, but the community personnel as well, on things like safe encounters,” he says.

Community activist Donovan Corcho, who has responsibility for organising a corner league football competition in the area, is also pleased with the progress of the community-based policing efforts there.

“The (effort) has grown from strength to strength. Progress is being made. People know police officers by name and you will see the bicycle patrol. I think it is important that partnerships (between the police and community members) be established. Without it, the consequences would be severe,” he remarks.

But for this to work, the police will have to come with an open mind, he stresses. “Some police still believe that if you live in Grants Pen you are a criminal and that is not true,” he adds.

Corcho is concerned though about what will happen in the future when PERF leaves, since it is they who have been the driving force behind the community-based policing effort so far.

“I have seen many things start and look pretty (like) the Urban Development Corporations and the Social Development Commissions but when things get bad everybody gone,” he says.

He is proposing that local committees, like his recently-launched youth club committee, be empowered to be in a position to carry on the work.

“They need to empower the committee. They need to put us in a position to sustain ourselves,” he urges.

Brian Jackass (pronounced Hackass), a Justice of Peace and mediator with the Dispute Resolution Foundation, cautions that to help ensure success in the area, stakeholders must be sincere while building on the achievements of each other.

“There is still the mistrust. People see the police not as a friend but more as a foe… But these guys are yearning for jobs, for some direction from somebody who can give them some direction. Once they have the proper influence, (they will respond),” he says.

Inspector Michael Simpson, who is to assume control of the new facility inside Grants Pen is confident that the police, both inside and outside of Grants Pen, were working to chip away at the distrust with which they were often faced.

“Community-based policing is a beautiful endeavour. That is what we as police officers are buying into now where it will be a whole new approach to how we do policing,” says Simpson.

As for Heywood, he will know the programme is working when the communities “take a stand and know that it is not only when there is a flare-up of violence in their community that they must call the police”.