FOUR new barracks have been added to the existing eight that house Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) recruits at Harman Barracks in Vineyard Town, St Andrew — the home of the constabulary’s Mobile Reserve.

The newly constructed buildings — which are able to host 16 recruits each, along with a bathroom block — were officially handed over by Minister of National Security Robert Montague on Thursday. The project cost $24 million.

While the buildings and bathroom block are already in use, the remaining building under the project — a small auditorium — is now being constructed.

In his remarks, Montague outlined that the JCF needs 3,000 members to meet its full establishment of 14,092, and is battling an attrition rate of 550 officers per year.

The increase in accommodations is therefore part of the security ministry’s thrust to stem the high attrition rate within the force by providing more training spaces to increase the incoming number of JCF recruits.

Montague explained that the Jamaica Police Academy at Twickenham Park, St Catherine, has a capacity of 500 but 200 spaces are lost due to the poor condition of the dormitories.

To address the overall space problem, the security minister explained that the ministry has started repairing the dormitories in addition to providing further accommodation at the newly constructed barracks along with 300 rooms being provided by The University of the West Indies, Mona under a recent memorandum of understanding.

“The increase in the amount of spaces of Harman Barracks is now up to 200. We are still going up another 84, because we have just acquired a prefabricated building which we are in the process of putting up, but that won’t be ready until the next batch of recruits,” the security minister stated.

He added that at Twickenham Park about 80 per cent of the repairs are complete, including the removal of asbestos, with the dorms expected to be ready in time for the next batch of recruits.

Montague said the dormitories at the Jamaica Police Academy will be further supplemented with three prefabricated buildings from China Harbour Engineering Company, which will also be used as classrooms and will assist the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency with polygraph testing.

Montague stressed that the efforts towards increasing training spaces are necessary as the full establishment of the force is needed to battle Jamaica’s two major problems — guns and gangs.

He reasoned that if there are not enough police officers, then the gangs cannot be confronted and the nation’s borders will remain unsecured, which will leave citizens feeling hopeless and helpless.

The minister said the effects of gangs are far-reaching and contribute to the stifling of the economy as well as hinder social development.

He noted, too, that the Ministry of Health is spending up to $400,000 per day on intensive care for one gunshot victim, and at the rate the country is going, that could mean three or more victims per night.

“By increasing the intake of youngsters, we are providing more police officers to go out into the community and do better policing, because what we are confronted with is a force that needs help. And the members of the JCF are working night and day; some are doing double shifts because we don’t have enough officers,” Montague said.

He explained that of the 11,000 officers currently in the force, fewer than 200 report to any shift at any time within any division, with some divisions having less than 50 people on duty, and so “we are woefully short of police officers”.

Highlighting that the attrition rate in the force is as a result of poor working conditions, Montague said the Government is addressing that by doing major repair work on 30 police stations islandwide.

“We have another project for minor repairs of approximately $250,000 for every other police station in the island… It’s not much, but it’s what we have. If we can treat with this, more money can be made available, and we are making do with the little we have,” the security minister said.