Dear Editor,

Our police force really doesn’t need me to defend them but sometimes the delicacy of a particular subject calls for outside intervention to “set the record straight”. I have never been a member of the police force but as a former member of the JDF Reserves with almost 30 years of service, I’ve often had to work alongside the police and I am pleased to say that I formed some strong friendships along the way.

My concern is the frequency with which my fellow Jamaicans keep referring to the police (en masse) as dishonest, corrupt, incompetent, etc. One regularly hears this in day-to-day conversations as well as in letters to the press, and just for the record, the negatives far outnumber the few positives which sometimes manage to surface. This is an unfortunate, unjustified, unfair and demoralising situation which needs some immediate reflection by each of us.

Only an idiot (none in my immediate family so far) would try to convince the public that there is no corruption in the JCF. If that were the case, it would probably be the only large organisation in the world without some level of corruption. Such perfection doesn’t exist anywhere, not even in our wildest dreams, but I am convinced that the majority of our JCF is made up of honest, dedicated men and women who truly want to see the Force succeed in bringing crime, especially murders, under control. We demoralise the good members of the force (the majority) when we paint them all with our “brush of corruption” and should bear in mind the old saying:”Give a dog a bad name and hang him.”

We need to show the proper respect for the many members of the JCF who go out to duty each day to earn a rate of pay which can never compensate them for the risk to their lives in trying to carry out their tasks. We should offer encouragement to the good ones by providing any information we have which could bring the corrupt ones to justice. Yes, I am aware of the risk, but there are ways to deal with that such as setting up a “corruption hot-line” where citizens can report any illegal activity of our police without having to identify ourselves.. That would give the anti-corruption unit more positive leads as to which officers they should be watching closely.

Meanwhile, the current habit of “tarring them all with the same brush” must end if we ever expect them to break loose from their present demoralised state in order to begin to really “serve and protect”. Stop destroying the morale of those who are fully committed to ethical behaviour.

Derryck M Penso

pensowrite@yahoo.com