The police high command yesterday sought to walk back comments by the head of its Public Safety and Traffic Enforcement Branch (PSTEB) regarding how traffic offenders will be treated when caught.

According to the Corporate Communications Unit (CCU), there have been no changes to the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s (JCF) policy regarding the processing of individuals being ticketed for breaches of the Road Traffic Act.

“We will intervene as is necessary to keep the traffic flowing… keeping in mind the necessity for traffic management, especially at peak traffic times,” the CCU news release said.

“The JCF is in a continuous process of seeking to improve relationships and interactions with the public, out of which a number of alternative operational proposals have been suggested,” the police information arm added.

The release came a day after the recently appointed head of PSTEB, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Bishop Dr Gary Welsh, announced a number of measures relating to how motorists will be treated when they are found to have committed traffic offences.

Among the measures, ACP Welsh said, was that, effective September 1, the police will commence taking traffic offenders to customer service centres immediately after being caught.

“We are going to set up customer service centres, especially in Kingston, for our customers who run afoul of the Road Traffic Act. You will not be pulled over on the highway or in the narrow corridors; you’ll be taken off the road [and to the customer service centre],” ACP Welsh told guests at the inaugural International Symposium on Traffic Crash Investigation and Black Box Analysis held at Caribbean Maritime University on Monday.

“The first place we’ve identified is Police Officers’ Club… where you will go through the same procedure you go through when you go for a visa at the US Embassy, or when you go to the bank,” he explained.

ACP Welsh said a numeric customer service system has been ordered and will guide the order in which people taken to centres are served.

He pointed out that when people go to a customer service centre the authorities will run their driver’s licences to see if they have outstanding warrants.

“We’re going to check the ‘affiliation desk’ to see if you owe child support. We’re going to check to see if you are on our list, and to see if you’re part of a gang,” ACP Welsh said.

Additionally, he said the police will increase their efforts to take traffic violators with summonses to court.

“Since the numbers on the traffic ticketing system seem to be mounting up, we’re going to switch focus and start using the 18 summons. What’s an 18 summons? It removes the option for you to go and pay. You’ll go straight to court. And we are going to work with the courts to get the warrants out much faster,” ACP Welsh said.

“We are going to remove discretion, so that people understand that the law has teeth… When we work hard, and we find you, wherever we find you, you will come with us. We think that we will have time to do this on Friday afternoons; court is usually Tuesday,” he said, a suggestion that individuals will be held in jail over the weekend.

ACP Welsh said there are currently about 40,000 outstanding warrants for traffic offenders and appealed to them to go in to the police.

“If you suspect that you have a warrant outstanding we have opened a desk at Lower Elletson Road, where we are. You may come in and negotiate when it is you want to be arrested. You have that opportunity to do it now. Come September 1, that will not exist,” he said.

According to Welsh, this new method will help with reducing offenders who commit multiple offences and fail to either pay or go to court.

Yesterday, in its news release, the CCU also said: “Despite some of the suggestions being erroneously aired in the public domain, the JCF’s policy remains unchanged and continues to be guided by [the] rule of law in a respectful manner, always seeking to be a force for good.”

ACP Welsh took a lot of flak last week after he opted not to prosecute a man who identified himself as the driver who pulled off a dangerous stunt in a Mercedes-Benz at a busy intersection in St Andrew.

The stunt — 360-degree turns more popularly known as doughnuts — was captured on video which went viral.

In response, Welsh hosted a news conference at the intersection and allowed the man, Dennis Dietrih, to apologise.

When the Jamaica Observer asked Dietrih if he wasn’t aware that he should have exercised caution on the road, he said: “Well, when you are around the steering [wheel] sometimes enuh, it kind of get you a little bit aggressive, because the car is an aggressive car — it make you do things weh yuh nuh really think, it just happen, then yuh just go with the flow. But, as I said, it won’t happen again.”