Dear Editor,

The Jamaica Constabulary Force takes too long to call prospective members. Does the process have to be so prolonged? Is it that there are insufficient funds that are contradicting the normal processes? Do people with more qualifications get preference over, say, people who have six subjects with college education to people who have five with no college education? These are some of the questions I’ve asked myself and others to little or no avail. We need clarification.

Clearly, it is incomprehensible to know that you did the entry test – having the necessary qualifications which would have enabled enlistment – you went through all the different stages with colleagues, and they have become enlisted two or three years before you while your process lagged and became drawn out.

It is well known that painstakingly careful evaluations have to be done to determine eligibility for enlistment in a force that is deemed riddled with corruption. In spite of that, does the process have to be so lengthy and monotonous in its continuity to acquire new members? There are many persons who get into the force with such lightning speed, persons whose qualifications do differ from many of us, but still they get in so quickly and easily, you have to wonder if favouritism is the trampoline that constructed their expeditious entry.

There are people who wholeheartedly want to serve their country with little or no monetary incentives as the major drive or stimulus. People who want to help in the country’s fight to subdue criminal elements with their persistence to wreak havoc on Jamaica. People like me who saw it necessary to take up the initiative and do the test. We are people who really want to help in the continued effort to make it known that there are demonstrable professionals in the Jamaica Constabulary Force, in an apparently opposing society.

Professionals have waited and are waiting long to serve, many of whom want to help in the commissioner’s effort and his seismic shift that is rattling the law enforcement landscape. It is inevitable that with these professionals combined with the others, his shift could merit change on a profound level.

O Sappleton

Odeane_sappleton@yahoo.com