Editorial | PCOA’s opportunity

Jamaica’s Police Civilian Oversight Authority (PCOA) hasn’t said what, if anything, will be its concrete next step after the forum it hosted last week on police accountability and oversight in honour of one of its former chairmen, the late Oliver Clarke.

However, the PCOA can count at least one significant success and a potentially great opportunity from the gathering.

First, it was attended by a significant number of mid-level to senior officers of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), a group whose buy-in is critical, as one of the presenters noted, (and) is generally crucial to transmitting organisational and cultural change. They heard firsthand the arguments in favour of community engagement and civilian oversight from the two American discussants, but also empathy with the concerns and fears of police officers, universally, when faced with calls to do things differently.

More importantly, The Gleaner believes, the lectures and discussion provided the PCOA a platform from which to attempt to reshape the conversation between the JCF and the public about police transparency and accountability, the validity of oversight, and why the constabulary appears to believe that too much of the scrutiny to which it is subjected is unfair, or too intrusive.

The PCOA is an acceptable body to attempt this. First, it is within its mandate. But importantly, while part of its job is to ensure that the JCF’s policies are in keeping with “internationally acceptable standards of policing”, its low-key efforts haven’t caused the same friction with the constabulary as the Independent Commission of Investigation (INDECOM), the front-facing agency that investigates complaints of abuse by the security forces, especially police homicides. There is little doubt that there is outright resentment towards INDECOM by large swathes of the constabulary. Norr does the PCOA have the contentious relationship with the police as human rights groups, who the police and government officials often accuse of siding with criminals.

TRENCHANT TO CRITICISM

Indeed, Jamaica’s police force has long struggled with a perception that it is corrupt; a reputation for abuse of power, including extrajudicial killings; and of being resistant to change and transparency. The force’s leadership insists that these notions are unfair to the current JCF, which they say has undergone a major transformation over the past decade.

This change, officials say, is reflected in improved crime detection and prevention that last year translated to a 19-per-cent reduction in homicides, to 1,339 murders. The decline continued into 2025, with a 36-per-cent drop in murders up to April 5, compared to the same period in 2024.

At the same time, however, killings by the police have recently rocketed. After a sharp dip in police homicides in the years after INDECOM’s creation in 2010, the numbers have spiralled over the last five years, reaching 180 in 2024, a 27-per-cent increase on the previous year. Moreover, police homicides were 78 per cent higher in 2024 than in 2020.

INDECOM tracking data suggest there were 93 fatal shootings by all branches of the security forces between January and April 8, compared to 35 for the entire first quarter of 2024.

In February, with the rights group, Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) issuing a rebuke, Police Commissioner Kevin Blake shot back sharply.

“I strongly support the view that the number of fatal shootings is too high,” he said. “However, the call is wrongly directed and should be aiming at those who make the decision to challenge a far-more-superior force.”

Indeed, the constabulary and the government also say that police homicides have to be viewed in the context of Jamaica’s high crime rate (over 1,000 murders a year) and a willingness of armed criminals to confront the police. The constabulary is similarly trenchant to criticism at the slow pace with which it has rolled out body-worn cameras.

CONTEXT OF TRUST

Crime statistics notwithstanding, complaints persist in poor communities of the use of excessive force by the police, including accusations that they sometimes plant guns on victims of alleged shoot-outs.

In last week’s lecture, Shon Barnes, the police chief of the American city of Seattle, noted that police forces in the US are often likened to impenetrable black boxes, which contributes to the disconnect between them and the communities they serve.

“An independent investigative agency, or oversight agency, can be your mouthpiece, for ensuring what you do and what you don’t do,” he said. “That is what you want to tell these officers (who might be resistant to change) as you talk to them.”

However, that voice can only be empowered in a context of trust, which starts with charting a mission of accountability, and both sides – police and citizens – appreciating that “everybody has been traumatised, that everybody has been through something”.

This was how Marcia Thompson, an assistant professor in critical justice at Aurora University (USA), put it.

The large question, as framed by Ms Thompson, who has worked on government-mandated police reform across America, was “how do you address the illusion that (it) is coming in to take over, to tell them what to do”. Or as Chief Barnes framed the fear of police organisations: “People are not afraid of change, they are afraid of (losing) what they have (authority and legitimacy).”

The PCOA’s next, and urgent step, should be figuring out a formula for having these difficult conversations.