by KARIN DEAR

POLYGRAPH TESTING to help weed out corrupt law enforcement men and women in Barbados and throughout the region is on its way.

If things go as planned, says Don Dupasquier, project manager with International Training Services for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the days of officers involved in crime-related activities such as the movement of illegal drugs throughout the region, may be numbered.

"We have already created four separate regional polygraph teams for intensive training," he told the MIDWEEK NATION during an exclusive interview yesterday.

Corruption in the police forces in the region is of such "grave concern that governments and the ministries of national security feel that it is of enough importance to have developed these truth verification teams", Dupasquier said.

Rigorous procedures

"One of the two-man teams will be located in Barbados, one in Jamaica, one in Trinidad and Tobago, and one in Antigua," said the RCMP spokesman.

All of the team members, who themselves have been subjected to rigorous lie detector procedures and other investigations to ensure their integrity as law enforcement officers, will attend an 11-week course at the Ottawa-based Canadian Police College.

"They will then be placed for an additional six weeks with our municipal or provincial police branches," he said, adding that similar polygraph testing was introduced in Canada two years ago in an attempt to flush out corrupt law enforcement officers there.

Upon returning to Barbados and its regional neighbours, the team members will be used as resource persons by customs and immigration, police, the coast guard, and other law enforcement agencies, to carry out investigations on suspected officers and for the screening of applicants, disclosed Dupasquier.

Ruthless business

Underscoring that organised crime is a "ruthless" business, the RCMP spokesman said security forces throughout the region would be carrying out their own "internal investigations" within their sovereign states.

"Regionally," he said, "one of the biggest problems leading to the corruption of some officers, is that those agencies are not paid very well and become fertile for the opportunity for organised crime to step in".

With reference to the low pay scales currently offered, Dupasquier observed that "a low-ranking officer of the RCMP takes home a higher salary than some police commissioners in the region".

"Until they [governments] start paying their law enforcement security officers for ensuring security in their islands, then corruption will arise," he said.