Power…and policing – Guyana Times

Your eyewitness knows he sounds like a broken record, but he can’t help but go back to the sorry state of our police; which, according to newspaper reports, is becoming more regrettable by the minute. Yes, minute!! In addition to the forgiving everyday use of force against citizens to supposedly maintain “law and order” as set forth by the British colonial order, we now have a series of crimes that go far beyond the old shakedown for a “fried rice” . But judging by the bulging bellies that have become the order of the police force, they haven’t given up on fried rice yet!!
So now we have regular assaults, shootings and suddenly ‘white collar crimes’ such as embezzlement and illegal incorporation and the use of corporations to build fortunes!! What he would like to discuss – as he always tries to do in these matters – is the contextuality of the broader issue in terms of our lived reality in Guyana. The police are the most ubiquitous branch of the state visible to ordinary citizens, and they are given a lot of power. This includes the ULTIMATE power of the state – to eradicate the lives of citizens when they, the police, determine that the “order” of society – including their own lives – is in danger. That’s a lot of power; and, like all power, we should not be surprised that it corrupts those in power!!
To counter the initial potential ‘threat’ of the masses, states have organized the police in a highly militarized manner from their inception in the 19th century. And while reforms have taken place since then, the militarized orientation stubbornly persists. In Guyana, there has been talk for decades about addressing this orientation by renaming the police institution ‘Police Service’ rather than ‘Police Force’ – and changing their Standard Operating Procedures (SOPS) to take the ‘kinder, gentler’ approach operationalize. But we haven’t gotten anywhere yet, right? In America, it has long been recognized that in a racially diverse society, part of the problem is that some groups are underrepresented in law enforcement. In Guyana this is ignored.
Police accountability is always an issue: with so much power, there is always abuse. Consider the violence used to subdue several suspects killed in “confrontations” in recent decades. It is common for police to report that the victims attacked them with a machete – as if Guyanese think a machete can deflect bullets!! But the police’s graduation into white-collar crime is as wrong as their brutality – they can use their position to settle on a level light years above fried rice!!
So will the police ‘corps’ ever become a police ‘service’?

…and institutional culture
Legendary management guru Peter Drucker once said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” He was of course talking about corporate culture and its impact on management strategies for achieving their goals and objectives. If you don’t change the company culture, you want to be successful, even if you come up with the best strategy in the world, it will fail.
And we return to our police force, where we would therefore have to spend a lot more time changing the culture to one of “service” if we ever expect to see fewer random police killings and other abuses here. We need to start recruiting – and this means higher salaries, as well as more education. The training should also include thorough inculcation of the basic courtesies that police should extend to citizens. Have you ever been stopped by the police on the road?
But ultimately, values ​​can only be conveyed through action – and in this case, through the actions of the police!

…and intellect
Pres Ali met with the head of USAID, Samantha Power. She’s an immigrant who made it right!! From Yale she became a journalist who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning book on genocide, and then served as the U.S. representative to the UN.