ST JAMES, Jamaica — Superintendent of Police (SP) Eron Samuels has announced plans to revive police youth clubs across St James.

The senior cop, who recently took over command of the St James Police Division from SSP Vernon Ellis, revealed last Tuesday that a drone training programme was launched in schools which will result in members of the police youth clubs being trained as drone pilots.

Ellis was recently transferred to the Area Two Police headquarters,

Cadet programmes in seven schools within St James will also benefit from the endeavour.

“The aim of that programme is to increase the membership of the police youth club in schools and in the Cadets and also to provide them with opportunities for entrepreneurship and employment. We are seeking to recruit some of them for us (Jamaica Constabulary Force) as well,” said Samuels.

“But it will also segue into building out the youth clubs in schools because these same youth clubites in schools go back to the communities and help to build the clubs in the communities.”

The St James Police head also expressed that the division also plans to utilize online platforms such as Zoom to assist with the programme’s renaissance.

“We have to face it, we may have a lot of Zoom clubs as well. But we also want to enable the physical element so that when we build a lot of these police stations, there are spaces that can be the home for a lot of these clubs,” he shared.

Samuels was speaking at a Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce meeting in the tourism resort city last week where he also revealed plans to boost neighbourhood watch groups across the parish.

“So we plan to not only build the youth clubs in schools but build the neighbourhood watch groups, and introduce technology to aid in the build-out of these clubs,” he said.