Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

While thou­sands of peo­ple ap­ply to be po­lice of­fi­cers, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds says many ap­pli­cants are turned away as they don’t meet the ba­sic re­quire­ments.

Hinds made the re­marks as he ad­dressed 110 new­ly mint­ed po­lice of­fi­cers at a pass­ing out cer­e­mo­ny and pa­rade at the Po­lice Train­ing Acad­e­my, St James, yes­ter­day.

Re­fer­ring to a re­cent in­ter­ac­tion with po­lice of­fi­cers dur­ing a vis­it to St Kitts and Nevis, Hinds said law en­force­ment in oth­er parts of the Caribbean of­ten strug­gled to at­tract re­cruits in con­trast to T&T, where there was a rel­a­tive­ly large num­ber of in­ter­est­ed per­sons.

De­spite this, he said many ap­pli­cants are re­ject­ed, as they did not have the req­ui­site phys­i­cal or aca­d­e­m­ic re­quire­ments and there were oth­er grounds where they could be de­nied en­try in­to the TTPS.

“Whether it is the ba­sic qual­i­fi­ca­tions of five CSEC pass­es in­clu­sive of Math and Eng­lish, or whether it is the ba­sic phys­i­cal stan­dards of height, the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice re­cent­ly in­di­cat­ed that many who ap­proached, could not pass the nec­es­sary drug tests, psy­cho­me­t­ric and/or poly­graph tests that is nec­es­sary to cross the line,” Hinds said.

“Many fail to meet the stan­dards re­quired when back­ground checks and vet­ting of ne­ces­si­ty were done.”

Speak­ing with re­porters af­ter the an­nu­al TTPS in­ter-faith ser­vice at St Paul’s An­gli­can Church, San Fer­nan­do, ear­li­er this month, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher said she was aware of ap­pli­cants fail­ing poly­graph­ing (lie de­tec­tor) tests and oth­er vet­ting process­es.

“Al­though we were sup­posed to re­cruit 1,000 po­lice of­fi­cers in 2024 that was stymied sim­ply be­cause of the process­es. We had ap­pli­cants who failed the poly­graph, failed the psy­cho­me­t­ric tests and we have to en­sure that when we re­cruit, we re­cruit the best,” Hare­wood-Christo­pher said.

Yes­ter­day, Hinds said ques­tions over whether cer­tain re­quire­ments should be re­laxed through equiv­a­len­cy ex­ams or ig­nor­ing the rule against vis­i­ble tat­toos were raised but not­ed that stan­dards must be main­tained to pro­mote pro­fes­sion­al­ism with­in the TTPS.

“But what if these tat­toos show marks of some known crim­i­nal gang or the oth­er when, of course, fair­ness and neu­tral­i­ty are re­quired of the of­fi­cer?” he asked.

“While all of this is hap­pen­ing, the po­lice or­gan­i­sa­tion is ex­pect­ed by the pub­lic who you serve to be ad­e­quate­ly prop­er­ly trained, equipped, pro­fes­sion­al, dis­ci­plined and pos­sessed of a strong work eth­ic.”

He al­so called on the new of­fi­cers to main­tain the high­est stan­dards of in­tegri­ty and ethics with­in their lives by be­ing mind­ful of their ac­tions and the com­pa­ny they keep.

“Do not al­low fam­i­ly ties, kin­ship, friend­ship, brinkman­ship or gos­sip to in­flu­ence pro­fes­sion­al ac­tion and de­ci­sions. Be alert, be in­de­pen­dent-mind­ed, hon­est and fair,” he said.

Hinds there­fore called on se­nior of­fi­cers to nur­ture new­com­ers and “shield them” from bad in­flu­ences with­in the ser­vice.

He al­so warned the re­cruits that they would be con­fronting a for­mi­da­ble crim­i­nal el­e­ment but was op­ti­mistic in their abil­i­ty.

“The crim­i­nal el­e­ment in our so­ci­ety has proven to be re­silient, well-re­sourced, reck­less and ruth­less and will stop at noth­ing to have their crim­i­nal pres­ence felt or voic­es heard,” he said.

“The pub­lic has paid so far a heavy and bloody price for their self­ish­ness and reck­less­ness. If Trinidad and To­ba­go ever need­ed you, the TTPS, it is now.”

Of the 110 new of­fi­cers, 86 were men and 24 were women.

Sev­er­al of­fi­cers re­ceived awards for their per­for­mance in dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories of train­ing, in­clud­ing firearms tech­niques, phys­i­cal fit­ness and knowl­edge of crim­i­nal and traf­fic law.