DISCUSSIONS?ARE?UNDERWAY?between the Regional?Security?System (RSS) and the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) to have certified police training courses.
Director of operations and training commander of the RSS?training institute, Tyrone James, said they were looking for a standardized system for all regional police officers.
“We are in discussions with CXC to help in developing our testing mechanisms and certify our training. Right now, CXC is dealing with training and certifying nursing courses and we are seeking that same thing,” he said, adding their role was not to take over the training courses of other institutions (such as the Regional Police Training Centre).
James was speaking yesterday after the opening ceremony for Phase 2 of the RSS Staff and Command Course, sponsored by the Canadian?high Commission at the Savannah Hotel, Hastings, Christ Church.
As for the institute, James said its framework was formulated this year with the idea of providing continual training for officers at each level of their development.
However, he said there was a problem with the transportability of courses.
As such, he said the RSS training institute was not any one building but worked from the various training schools around the region, using each as a virtual campus.
James also outlined some of the problems in regional police forces which the institute would help address.
“There is a significant limitation in capacity skills and significant weaknesses among mid-management. We also have people in the various forces for 20 years who have received no training other than basic training and we have officers that have no psychological connection with their institutions, so do not subscribe to their [institutions’] ethos,” he said.
James said Phase 1 of the current course began in August and the current phase would end in December, adding that 19 of the initial 24 participants had made it past Phase 1.
Barbados’ Commissioner of Police Darwin Dottin, who gave the feature address, said law enforcement came down to three main areas: certainty – whether criminals would be arrested; celerity – whether criminals would be processed through court quickly and severity – the level of punishment criminals would face.
“We all have common problems. The very notion of being West Indian is one of oneness as the Caribbean Sea laps the shores of us all but this can act as a barrier as we try to assert our sovereignty.”
