A senior member of the Royal Grenada Police Force (RGPF) has called for a return to the days of extra duties as a form of punishment handed out to police officers who failed to perform their duties satisfactorily.
Speaking to THE NEW TODAY on Wednesday, the officer who has spent in excess of 25 years as a member of the police force expressed concern with the lack of discipline among the rank and file members of RGPF.
He said that there is a law for defaulters to do extra duties and the Police Commissioner Edvin Martin needs to bring it back in order to deal with those officers who do not live up to expectation.
According to the top cop, he has come to realise over the years that “these things were really thought out” as a form of punishment by the colonial masters who helped to create the police force.
“If a police officer is a defaulter – he doesn’t come to work … it is extra duties that he should be doing as a form of punishment,” he said.
He charged that those defaulters in the force are only putting pressure on other officers who are on duty and need to complete their assigned working hours.
The officer noted that one form of punishment employed against defaulters in the past by some Commissioners was to put them to do construction work as well as repair doors.
“The rules are there, the foundation (is) there….. for those things to be implemented (extra duties),” he said.
“If police are engaged in a project construction the defaulter will have to go and work there,” he added.
The senior police officer stated that the protocol on enforcing extra duties on delinquent members of the force is no longer occurring within RGPF anymore and might be contributing to a drop in the level of discipline among its rank and file members.
He said the police regulation gives the Commissioner of Police the authority to implement these punitive measures against defaulters and is also empowered with the necessary teeth “to make rules and regulation to govern” the operations of the police force.
In recent years, a number of police officers have been charged and brought before the court to answer several criminal charges especially of a sexual nature.