The Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF) has a credibility problem

Concerning Police Credibility
The Bahama Journal Editorial


There is ample evidence coming in to support a tentative conclusion that, a crime onslaught that has become endemic now threatens to undermine all efforts aimed at building today’s Bahamas on a sounder, more decent and truly honest set of foundations.

The elementary fact of the matter, then, is that our nation’s location and configuration lend support to the thesis that the Bahamas is in truth and in fact a smugglers’ paradise.

And so, in a dreadful kind of way, our country might well be that kind of place where when all else fails, the drugs trade and other smuggling type operations kick in by default, so to speak.

In addition, there is also –as most business owners and operators know so very well – a culture of thievery that is today pervasive; a space where apparently hard-working men and women routinely rip-off their employers.

This culture –so we are told- also pervades some rotten elements in the Police Force, the Customs Service, Immigration, the Prison Service – and other areas of the public service.

And then, there remains all that bounty that accrues to the vast majority of both public and private sector workers who steal time; and who therefore get paid for work they have not done.

This also applies to some of our police officers.

Some of this quite neatly explains how it arises that some of our fellow-Bahamians seem to be doing so very well in what are said to be ‘hard times’.

Indeed, there is a smattering of evidence to suggest that some of these people are benefitting from pain and suffering being endured by their hard-working, decent and also law-abiding brothers and sisters.

Clearly, then, our country is today reeling under hammer blows inflicted by criminals who are currently engaged in an orgy of mayhem – some of which comes packaged in with all that information concerning the rate at which homicide now makes the news.

Notwithstanding some of the bad news coming in, this country of ours owes some of its hard-working police officers – particularly some who now work on the front-lines; those nasty spaces where violence is rampant and where death sometimes approaches in a blazing instance of gun-fire unleashed.

Clearly, some of these fine officers are doing all they can to live up to the challenge inherent in the pledge they made to uphold the law.

We have absolutely no problem with these fine men; and indeed, we wish them well.
Our problem with the Force is today otherwise.

Here we would respectfully suggest that, whether officials in the Ministry of National Security or some in the top brass of the Royal Bahamas Police Force realize it or not, they have on their hands a problem of credibility.

Simply put, there are very many Bahamians who are convinced that, some police officers are corrupt; that some others are grossly inefficient – and that some of the reports they bring in to their senior officers are artful fabrications.

In addition, there are some Bahamians [perhaps a hardy minority of them] who are prepared to suggest that these bad apples [as they are sometimes deemed] are salted throughout the ranks of the force.

We have no reason to believe otherwise.

And for sure, while we have no way of proving any of the allegations made by people who speak to us, we do believe that, there is cause for concern.

That concern is grounded in the fact that, corrupted officers do a mass of damage not only to those of their fellow-officers who are honest, decent and law-abiding – but also to all other right-thinking and behaving residents and citizens living and work in this country.

Here the Police Commissioner might be minded to suggest to each and every police officer under his command should come clean even if as the saying goes, they have to come ‘rough-dry’.

Put simply, zero tolerance for any and all police misbehavior –whether or not that behavior reaches the level of ‘criminal’ wrong-doing - must become the mantra of the police high command, moving forward.

Anything else would be tantamount to failure.

Curiously, we now live in a place and in a time when such slogans and other palaver routinely slides off the lips of this or that highly-placed official; with absolutely no real effect on behavior on the ground.

Here we can recite so very many stories –most of them coming from usually impeccable sources – that speak of instances where police on routine patrol just as routinely shake down Haitian nationals and some equally unlucky others.

Indeed, we are hearing say that some Haitians in our midst are being bilked of some of their money by police officers on the take.

Today that beat continues; and as it does, the credibility of the Force is being further undermined.

January 20, 2011

The Bahama Journal Editorial

Bahamas Blog International

Illegal Immigrant Policy Shift Confirmed by Minister of Immigration - Brent Symonette

By Candia Dames ~ Guardian News Editor ~ candia@nasguard.com:


After initially declining to provide an explanation on the government's decision to resume repatriations to Haiti, Minister of Immigration Brent Symonette confirmed in a statement last night that the long-standing policy as it regards undocumented Haitian nationals is now back in effect.

The government had shifted the policy following the powerful earthquake that hit Port-au-Prince on January 12.

"The procedures that obtained before the earthquake have been resumed," said Symonette, who is also deputy prime minister. "That is, Haitian illegals will be held at the Detention Centre and repatriated as soon as arrangements can be made."

His statement came several days after The Nassau Guardian revealed exclusively that a group of undocumented Haitian nationals was repatriated to Haiti after being picked up in Long Island.

Symonette also confirmed that the group of Haitians charged in late January with illegal landing has been repatriated.

The repatriation came two months after Chief Magistrate Roger Gomez ordered the illegal immigrants be held for six months at Her Majesty's Prison.

The decision to charge them in court was part of the government's stated policy on immigration following the earthquake.

On Thursday, Director of Immigration Jack Thompson confirmed that the Haitians were sent to Cap Haitien, about 100 miles north of Port-au-Prince.

Symonette advised last night, "Any new illegal immigrants are being apprehended and repatriated as promptly as possible."

He also said that while the policy of apprehension, regularization and repatriation remains constant, changing circumstances may dictate that the government respond to those circumstances in the country's broad national interests at home and abroad.

In his statement last night, Symonette also hit out at the Official Opposition, saying it continues to make irresponsible and incoherent comments pertaining to the repatriation of illegal immigrants from Haiti.

Symonette pointed to Opposition Leader Perry Christie's refusal to say what decision he would have made regarding undocumented Haitian nationals had he been in power when the earthquake struck Haiti.

The deputy prime minister also hit out at former PLP Minister of Immigration Vincent Peet over recent criticisms of the government after the recent repatriations took place without any announcements being made.

"As the government of the day, the FNM is obliged to make decisions in real-time, not late again," Symonette said. "The government is obliged to act, rather than posture."

Following the earthquake, Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham announced that the government was releasing 102 undocumented Haitian immigrants who were at the Detention Centre at the time of the earthquake.

In total, 15 women, three children, and 84 men were released from the holding facility.

Speaking at a news conference in January on his government's decision to release the Haitian immigrants, Ingraham pointed to a New York Times editorial that said, "Burdening a collapsed country with destitute deportees would be a true crime."

"No one knows how long it will be before Haiti is restored to some semblance of normalcy and when repatriation flights from The Bahamas and other places will again be able to land and be processed in Port-au-Prince," the prime minister said at the time. "So it makes sense and it is compassionate not to keep them incarcerated indefinitely."

Thompson said that group released from the Detention Centre after the earthquake is still free on temporary status.

Following an emergency meeting in the Dominican Republic several days after the earthquake, Ingraham announced that as part of the temporary immigration policy, undocumented Haitian nationals apprehended in The Bahamas after the disaster would be charged in court so they could be detained for longer periods.

Symonette said conditions in Haiti now allow for the resumption of repatriation exercises.

April 06, 2010

thenassauguardian

Bahamas Blog International