Jamaican Police.Com

Speaking yesterday at the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce’s meeting of its board of directors in Downtown Kingston yesterday, Minister of National Security, Senator Dwight Nelson, said that Jamaica needs at least 4,000 additional policemen and women in order to effectively control crime.

While noting that the country currently has approximately 8,000 police personnel he said … “We are expected to have a minimum of 12,000 members in the police force to effectively carry out their responsibilities.” But he pointed out that only 300 police recruits are trained annually at Twickenham Park in St. Catherine, and “… we lose 250 policemen and women every year through attrition, whether by retirement, migration, death or other reasons. We are netting out to about 50 additional policemen and women each year, so you can see how long this process is going to take.”

However, Senator Nelson pointed out that a new training facility has been brought on stream in Tranquility Bay, St. Elizabeth, and $15 million was spent in refurbishing it to bring it to acceptable standards. He said that this new facility is expected to provide another 140 new policemen annually.

Additionally, some ‘pencil-pushing’, ‘gate opening’ police may be moved and retrained for crime-fighting roles, and the ministry he said was recruiting 300 district constables to do those jobs, thus allowing police personnel to be put on the road.

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