AFTER undergoing a critical incident stress debriefing session, several members of the security forces who were involved in the recent deadly raid on Tivoli Gardens in Kingston said they had been shortchanged in the past.

Chief chaplain of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), Dr Vivian Panton, told the Observer that while several of the ‘large group’ indicated that it was the first time they were experiencing a critical incident stress debriefing session, persons who were exposed to trauma in the past, but were not debriefed, said they felt cheated.

“Persons among the group expressed concern that they had no idea that such a session could be as beneficial as they found it, so much so that they felt they were shortchanged in the past,” Dr Panton noted.

In the incident to which the chaplain referred, five men were shot dead by members of the security forces and a soldier and a policeman injured in what the police said was a firefight with gunmen in Tivoli Gardens two Mondays ago.

According to Dr Panton, increasingly the police – especially those in the more high-stress police divisions – were seeking out counselling and debriefing after such incidents.

“The importance of being debriefed after a crisis or critical incident is this: A critical incident tends to leave a print out on the individual’s mind and as long as the print out is there, the emotional trauma remains in place,” he noted.

He said critical incident stress debriefing sessions have been helpful in helping members process and clear the impact of the incident and has also

been helpful in helping to identify cases of post-traumatic stress disorder.

But while experts have advised that the recommended period for the maximum effectiveness of a debriefing would be 72 hours after the incident, more often than not Jamaican officers are debriefed later, Dr Panton said.

“More often than not we have the debriefing a little later than the 72 hours because the police are always on call and on engagement and to schedule a debriefing you really want to get all the persons who were on the operation.

It’s difficult to get everybody together within 72 hours after an engagement because of the demand that is on them,” he explained.

“The experts would advise that a debriefing even a year after an incident is of much more value than no debriefing at all, but the ideal time for debriefing after an incident is the first 72 hours. We try to do it as soon as it is possible to get everyone that was on an operation together.”

He, however, feels that the men and women of the JCF have been under-appreciated.

“They risk so much of their lives in the execution of their duties here and the kind of issues they have to deal with tends to be so high-risk and carries so much trauma; just the whole matter of dealing with so much dead bodies, the exposure to so much killings and shootings. I don’t think the society thinks of the impact of these experiences on the police,” he added.

“In terms of the level of shootings, killings and line-of-duty deaths among police personnel our police service rates quite a bit above the average on the international scene,” he continued.

Dr Panton said the extent to which the services were being demanded has resulted in jumps in the number of peer counsellors and chaplains.

“We now have seven assistant chaplains and one chaplain; a little over 50 full-time peer counsellors and over 150 station pastors islandwide so we have expanded the services into a branch rather than a unit,” Dr Panton said.

Based on figures for the January to November 2007 period, 3,201 clients were counselled in 3,528 formal counselling sessions. There were some 2,242 station visits and 371 critical incident stress briefing sessions for officers who were exposed to crisis over the period.

In the meantime, Dr Panton said the proposal by new Commissioner of Police Major Richard Reese to close some stations and place more officers on the road was likely to result in a higher demand for these services.

“I do not know the effect that is likely to have on their need for counselling but the more police personnel you have being exposed to trauma and crisis is the more the services will become necessary and it’s the more persons who will be accessing the services,” he speculated.

According to statistics, 19 police officers were killed last year while there were a total 1,441 shootings resulting from police/criminal and civilian confrontations.