SERGEANT Leisa Powell is a study in patience as she answers calls coming into the police 119 control centre in Kingston. “Go s… yu madda; All a unno up de go s… unno madda,” barks the gruff male caller.

Sergeant Powell offers no response. She swiftly hangs up and moves on to the next call, her concern being that someone with a real emergency is on the line and is being delayed by the abusive, idle caller.

This was 8:35 pm, Friday, January 6, 2012. For the next hour this reporter watched and listened as Sergeant Powell received just over 60 calls that are categorised as ‘silent calls’ — those in which the lines are clearly open but no one responds when the police answer.

During that time also, she received 18 calls from children obviously playing with the phones, some being coached by adults in the background.

One girl called five times asking for “help”. When Sergeant Powell asked her what the problem was, the little girl, who at first said she was 18 years old, then changed that to eight during the fourth call, couldn’t say.

“Put your mother or father on the phone,” Sergeant Powell instructed the little girl.

“They are not here,” she replied, then hung up.

Prank calls, the police revealed, are a major problem. Data provided by Deputy Superintendent Devon Field at the control centre show that of the 6.7 million calls answered by the police last year, just over 2.4 million were categorised as prank calls.

The prank calls don’t include those that are logged as ‘silent calls’, neither those in which the callers make lewd suggestions to the police and civilian women who answer the phones.

“More than half of the calls coming into the centre are not about emergencies,” said the constabulary’s director of communication Karl Angell.

It’s a problem that bothers Sergeant Powell. “People out there who are in dire need, they’re not able to access the 119 because of these callers who don’t really need the police,” lamented Powell, who has been working at the control centre for the past eight years.

She admits growing frustrated at times, but said, “as professionals we have to deal with each call appropriately and try and ascertain as best as possible whatever information we can get from these callers to assist in whatever way we can”.

Powell works an eight-hour shift daily with 15 colleagues, all of whom experience the same difficulties as her, especially on weekends when prank calls increase.

“You have to have a lot of patience to work here,” offers DSP Field before breaking mid-sentence to deal with what was obviously a real emergency call reporting gunshots being fired on Fleet Street in downtown Kingston. This was 9:08 pm.

Field quickly instructs his operator who received the call to relay the information to the police station nearest to the disturbance, even as two additional calls reporting the same incident come in.

“You can tell from the number of calls that that is a genuine emergency,” he points out.

As soon as they had dealt with that emergency, another call comes in, this time reporting a car with five “suspicious-looking men” travelling towards Portmore. The caller gives the police the licence number, model and colour of the vehicle. The ownership and status are checked quickly (to determine whether the car was reported stolen) and a police team dispatched to intercept and check.

All this time other calls are coming into the centre.

One woman calling from Westmoreland reports that her son is mentally disturbed and she needs help handling him as he is outside her house creating problems; another young woman reports a domestic dispute that is about to get violent; a man calls wanting to pass on information; another says a man was shot in Buff Bay, Portland; yet another claims that gunmen “just robbed the NCB branch in Buff Bay” — this was at 8:56 pm.

More calls come in, but the only sounds on the other end are either loud dancehall music or dogs barking.

A lady calls to thank the police for doing a good job of protecting the Jamaican people and extends happy new year wishes to the constabulary. Sergeant Powell accepts on behalf of her colleagues.

“We get others like that from time to time,” she tells the Sunday Observer.

Her pleasant moment is, however, interrupted by the next male caller begging for sex. She hangs up. The next three calls are from women wanting the phone numbers for police stations in different rural towns. Powell leafs through her internal directory quickly and provides them with the numbers.

The volume of calls is heavy. That is so, DSP Field says, because calls made on the Digicel network don’t go to the other three call centres in Montego Bay, Tower Isle in St Mary, and Mandeville in Manchester.

“The Digicel system doesn’t allow for the decentralisation of the service,” he says. “Anywhere in Jamaica you are and dial 119, your call is going to come here to Kingston, which, in addition to calls in the Corporate Area, already handles all calls from St Catherine. So the additional calls from across the island are creating a strain on us here.”

Until that is rectified, though, the police are appealing to Jamaicans to avoid abusing the service.

“As it relates to adults, because sometimes there are adults who have the children with them, dial the number and you can hear them in the background telling the children what to say. I would appeal to adults to desist from doing that because with them jamming the lines they’re preventing genuine calls from coming in,” says Sergeant Powell.

“Parents need to teach children that 119 is for emergency and emergency only, because the next call could help us to save a life if it comes in as quickly as possible.”