Sergeant Rovan Salmon and Constable Andre Whines both work out of the Mandeville Police Station. However, their decision to join the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) and their experiences since, contrast sharply.

In 1991, Salmon became a cop in recognition, he said, of the importance of the police to society. Plus, he wanted to serve his country.

“If I had to live my life over, I wouldn’t change anything,” Salmon said in his characteristically confident tone. “It’s because of us why some people wake up in the mornings.”

Whines, on the other had, admitted that he signed up out of a need to do something with his life.

“Something had to be done,” Whines said. “I was in St Thomas just wasting away.” This was 2002 and he was 25 years old.

That something meant taking the Constabulary’s entry test three times, failing the academic test the first time and failing the interview the second time.

He decided to try a third time, from a different parish, and was successful.

“I don’t know if it was the bad luck in St Thomas,” Whines joked.

Salmon, on the other hand, passed the test on his first try. In fact, on a section of the academic test, which required the applicants to spell 30 words, he scored 27.

“And [the officer] said to me, ‘Because you have done so well, we’re going to ask you to correct them’,” Salmon said.

Whines’ views of the JCF are grounded in pragmatism.

“To be perfectly honest, there is absolutely nothing out there to do,” he said. “It (the JCF) is permanent. It’s the steadiest work in Jamaica.”

The job, he admitted, is not easy, and can be stressful. However, he views it as a good launching pad to other professions.

Before joining the police force, Whines was involved in a number of youth clubs in his home parish of St Thomas. He was expelled from high school at fourth form, entered another high school for his final year and thereafter did anything he could to make a dollar.

His heart was in youth clubs. The last club he was in charge of, the Community Drug Free Youth Club in Seaforth, was aimed at counselling youngsters about drug use and was something he thought was making a change.

Then, the Constabulary called, and the club disintegrated.

“Some members started selling drugs,” Whines said. “The club is something I believed in. It enlightened members about the dangers of various hard drugs; we went on trips.”

His decision to leave the club is something he regrets.

“Every day. Every day. But at the same time, I had to find something to feed myself,” Whines told the Sunday Observer.

After leaving the police academy, Whines was stationed in Negril, where he was once interdicted and taken off front-line duty.

“Three of us went to speak with a young man re: his girlfriend. It got ugly and we reprimanded him,” Whines said, explaining that there was a struggle between the young man and the cops. The matter was brought before the Police Public Complaints Authority and was in mediation for about eight months. At the end of it, Whines decided he needed a new environment and asked to be transferred to Manchester, where he found out his absentee father was living.

Salmon’s experience since joining the police force has been the complete opposite. He was recently promoted to the rank of sergeant and is reading for a Bachelor’s degree.

“I have benefited tremendously from the force,” said Salmon, the Constabulary Communication network liaison officer for Manchester. “I am a tutor constable; when they come from training school, I take them under my wings. I love it, I serve with honour.”

On the matter of corruption in the force, Salmon believes that “no officer is corrupt on his own”. However, he pointed out that the problem exists in other professions. “Corrupt people are in the force, as with medicine, teaching, the media, they are in the church,” he said.

Whines believes that a cop’s best bet is to “bob and weave and stay out of corruption’s way”.

He believes that getting into the police force is not difficult.

“If your body is physically correct, it will happen. If you go through third or fourth form, I don’t see you having a problem. I wouldn’t say it’s hard, but the bar is raising now,” Whines said.

Salmon agreed that gone are the days when only ‘big foot man’ were eligible for entry into the force.

“Maybe before my father was a boy, the British were looking for big foot man, but you have to have big foot in your brain now. It can’t be big foot physically, but mentally,” Salmon said.