THE excessive abuse of the 119 police emergency service by prank callers has pushed Police Commissioner Owen Ellington to appeal for the introduction of reverse directory technology in order to free the lines for people reporting genuine emergencies.

Ellington made the call after allowing the Sunday Observer access to the Police Control Centre a few weeks ago, which resulted in the newspaper reporting that more than half of the 6.7 million calls received by the centre last year had nothing to do with emergencies.

In fact, a substantial number of the calls were what are termed ‘silent calls’ — those in which the line remains open but the caller says nothing. Others are from children obviously playing with the phones, while some are from men making lewd suggestions to the police and civilian women who answer the phones.

Ellington believes that the reverse directory technology — which is used by law enforcement and other emergency services worldwide — will help to reduce the wanton abuse of the service.

“It’s a fairly old technology that is used in call centres around the world, and it really has the capability to show the operator inside a call centre or the control room the number from which an individual is making a call, and other details such as name and address,” said Ellington.

“It is very helpful because in many instances the caller only has enough time to ring the emergency service. Sometimes the person rings the emergency number but can’t speak because the attacker or aggressor is within close quarters, so all they have to do is put the phone down, leave it open and the dispatcher in (police) control can hear what is happening,” he added.

“It is also helpful in that dispatchers can go to a map and locate the caller or victim in circumstances where the victims can’t say where they are. For example, somebody is feeling ill and all they can do is take up the phone and make a call and then they collapse, the dispatcher can locate where they are and send help,” he added.

Ellington, however, is aware that the issue of trust will be a factor in whether Jamaica adopts the system.

“In Jamaica we have resisted the attempt to introduce that in our 119 call centre because there was this lack of confidence in the police; people were always fearful that if the police were able to trace calls, then information that they pass to the police would get back into criminal hands, and that’s still a concern. But I think that concern is being gradually resolved as we improve professionalism, as we improve on our integrity and gain greater respect from the public,” Ellington argued.

“I think the big issue is, have we crossed that hurdle of public confidence sufficient to reassure our publics that if we have this capability it will not be abused by law enforcement? I think we have,” the commissioner added.

He also built his case for the introduction of the reverse directory at 119 on the fact that the police have other numbers that provide anonymity to callers.

“We now have secure, toll-free lines such as 311, 811, 1-800-CORRUPT, which people can call in confidence and there is no way of tracing those calls, because at least one of those numbers is answered overseas anyway, and so the people who call no longer need to worry about the possibility of the police being able to identify where the call is coming from,” the police commissioner said.

He admitted that the non-emergency calls to 119 are creating serious challenges for the constabulary as they tie up resources, undermine operational efficiency, traumatise the workers and deny legitimate callers access to the police.

“We can’t trace the calls, we can’t prosecute, we can’t even send messages back to them to advise them, caution them against doing it, and I’m thinking it is timely… [that] we should have the capability to prevent abuse of the system,” said Ellington.

He suggested that in addition to giving the police the reverse directory capability, the law could be amended to make it an offence to abuse the 119 service.

The police, he said, could be given a range of measures to implement, the first of which would be a text message sent to the abusers as a caution, then a written warning served on the individuals if they continue.

“Where it is done by children we could serve a warning on the parents or guardians and then, ultimately, we could do prosecutions,” Ellington proposed.

“The investment that has been made in the police control centre is taxpayers’ money, it must be used for the purpose for which it was intended and should not be abused,” he insisted.

Bishop Gary Welsh, the police force chaplain, corroborated Ellington’s statement of the traumatic effect that abusive callers were having on the control centre staff.

According to Bishop Welsh, who is an assistant commissioner of police, the trauma gets “to the point where these workers fear reporting for duty”.

Welsh said that he and members of his team provide counselling as part of the Chaplaincy Services Branch’s standard delivery. “However, the chaplain is called in regularly as the signs of trauma become evident,” he added.