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The level of criminality in The Bahamas has gotten out of hand says former Bahamas Commissioner of Police - B. K. Bonamy
Related to country: Bahamas

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Case Backlog Frustrates Police:
By Candia Dames -
Nassau, Bahamas:



Many police officers are frustrated by the inability of the powers that be to deal with the tremendous backlog of cases that exist, according to former Commissioner of Police B. K. Bonamy. Mr. Bonamy said as a result some police officers are losing the will to perform their jobs effectively.

The former commissioner, who was a guest on the Love 97/JCN TV programme "Jones and Company" on Sunday, said the courts appear overwhelmed by the numbers of cases they have to deal with.

"The police see that nothing is happening with that, so they turn a blind eye to things they are supposed to be dealing with," Mr. Bonamy said.

"You put people before the courts and you don’t hear about them any longer, then they (the police) step back."

Mr. Bonamy also said the level of criminality in The Bahamas has gotten out of hand. One reason for this state of affairs is that many police officers are not enforcing the laws as they relate to minor offences, he said.

"The lawlessness in the society as a whole…has disturbed me and has disturbed many of my counterparts, former retired police officers. We talk about it all the time," he said.

"We have to get back to basics. We have to get back to that point in time when minor offences meant something and police would deal with minor offences throughout society. As a consequence, the larger offences, they wouldn’t be as prevalent as they are now, but everybody forgets what is happening and there we are."

Mr. Bonamy added that the police commissioner does not appear to have as tight a grip on the command of the force as he should have.

"It appears to me there might have been some slippages in terms of the command of the force," he said. "It seems to me it was more centralized when I was there. After I left, I think they gave more autonomy to the divisional commanders to do things without the commissioner getting a firm grip on what is going on in society."

Asked about whether he felt the police commissioner was influenced by politicians in making certain changes to the hierarchy of the force last year, Mr. Bonamy said former Commissioner Paul Farquharson might have been, but he said he had no evidence of this.

"The day to day running of the police department is in the hands of the commissioner and the commissioner alone and the commissioner is answerable to parliament and the courts," he pointed out.

Noting that the lack of discipline is a serious problem on the police force, Mr. Bonamy said the Police Staff Association is sometimes out of order in the pronouncements that it makes.

Last year, Staff Association members defied Mr. Farquharson who had issued a directive that police officers were not to wear any party-affiliated colours during the advanced general election poll.

Many of the officers wore their red Staff Association T-shirts despite the commissioner’s directive.

Executive Chairman of the Association Bradley Sands had said the red T-shirts did not mean that the officers were FNMs.

Mr. Bonamy said the commissioner ought to have taken strong action against the officers who wore the red T-shirts. He said some of them ought to have been demoted.

What the officers did - sent a strong message that the commissioner had lost control of the force, Mr. Bonamy said.

"The Staff Association is not a union," he noted. "There are certain guidelines they must follow and if they don’t follow [them] then the commissioner needs to deal with it. These public utterances they’re making all over the place, threatening here and threatening there the commissioner really should not tolerate that.

"What happens when they’re making all these statements is that it undermines, it undercuts his authority to control his force."

Mr. Bonamy also said the police force needs a stronger intelligence unit, and also needs to re-establish a gun unit.

"You need a specialized unit [because guns are] now in the hands of all sorts of people," he said.


11 February 2008

February 11, 2008 | 5:23 PM Comments  0 comments

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