GPF enhancing investigative capacity through focused approach

–accredited police training academy soon

Senior Superintendent of the Guyana Police Force (GPF), Mr. Calvin Brutus says the organisation is taking all the necessary steps to enhance its investigative capacity.

This includes widespread training in critical areas and the soon to be established accredited police training academy.

Speaking to DPI recently, the Senior Superintendent said all training will be guided by the Force’s strategic objective of ‘development of our people.’

Mr. Brutus said the approach to training in the past was haphazard. However, with guidance from the University of Guyana (UG), it is now more focused.

The GPF signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with UG to facilitate training of officers in various areas. One such exercise will enable ranks to be effective in the court room.

“We are looking to roll out our prosecutors programme which is the one-year substantive prosecutors programme because we recognise that there is a deficiency in terms of prosecutors, because with staff turnover and retirement, we have become depleted and in the absence of training in the past we are now faced with replenishing that stock of prosecutors,” he stated.

The first batch of 30 officers will begin training in September. Mr. Brutus said the programme will be continuous and will provide the Force with a cadre of ranks qualified for the job.

The Force is also engaging police training academies in the United Kingdom and India to further advance its investigative capacity.

“At the moment, we are looking at a slew of training programmes that deals with the criminal investigation department in forensics that ranges from ballistics, fingerprint, crime scene, cybercrime and a whole list of more than 30 programmes and this is being footed by the public service ministry. We have already done our part of shortlisting candidates to supply them because they are diploma and post-grad diploma programmes, accredited internationally,” he said.

Mr. Brutus said in the end, the Force will have personnel equipped with skills to deal with any aspect of crime solving and investigations like first world countries. However, he noted that steps are being taken by the GPF to have its own accredited training academy.

“There is a range of requirements that we have to satisfy. We are working assiduously to satisfy those,” he said.

“With regards to the instructors, we are fortunate enough to have a number of ranks who took it upon themselves and paid their own monies, of course the Force granted them the time off to do the studies and they are now equipped with degrees in various disciplines. So, we are going to top up the foundation they have already achieved to suit the needs of becoming instructors at that level,” Mr. Brutus stated.

He said once all the requirements are fulfilled, the academy will be able to offer programmes that are accredited anywhere in the Commonwealth.

The Guyana Police Force is also seeking to resuscitate the Safety and Security Management Programme, which Mr. Brutus hopes, could be on stream by September.

“We are pushing hard for it to become a substantive diploma and by the time we complete the diploma, we will be able to move on to the degree. It will be offered to officers from the rank of Assistant Superintendent up and be open to the security services so that we standardise training. So, we equip the security services as well as police officers, so that in situations where we function together, that common understanding on how we operate and how they operate is meshed seamlessly into one.”

His Excellency, Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali at the recent GPF Annual Conference called for the restructuring, repositioning, rebranding, reorganising, retooling, reengineering, and the repairing of the Force’s image and service delivery.