MANDEVILLE, Manchester — The heads of Jamaica’s 19 police divisions have been encouraged to mentor new members of the force in an effort to fulfil and improve standards.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Clifford Blake last Friday urged the leaders of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) to constantly guide its younger members to meet the standards set by the Police Civilian Oversight Authority (PCOA).

“It is good to maintain standard and policy but it is equally important to mentor our young people, because from where I sit I am seeing that as a gap… We are recruiting at a fast pace anywhere between 1,200 and 1,400 members annually, so the mentorship process has really been pushed to us to get these members in terms of mentoring them and getting them up to standards that you [POCA] are now auditing,” said Blake at a ‘Transforming Our Police Service’ competition awards ceremony in Mandeville.

“Let us pay special attention to these young members who are coming in terms of guiding them along the proper pathway and the standard that PCOA is actually auditing… We expect you to mentor the new members who are coming to the organisation,” added Blake at the function to recognise the efforts of the police in the JCF’s Area Three which covers Clarendon, Manchester and St Elizabeth.

Blake underscored that as the JCF continues to embark on transforming its services, members will have to be retrained.

“We are now digitising all of our big copies and registers, then certainly we will have to retrain ourselves… We have rolled out the [electronic] programme at seven stations and certainly, we look forward to all the stations coming on board,” Blake said.

The Clarendon police copped the Top Customer Service and Top Division awards.

The Top Prisoners in Custody award was presented to the Mandeville Police Station. The Rock River police copped the Top Station award in Clarendon, the Pedro Plains police won that award for St Elizabeth, while the Asia police in Manchester received the Top Station award for Area Three.