Basseterre, St. Kitts, August 23, 2013 (SKNIS): Matters pertaining to anti-corruption as well as the judicial system will be in focus in the coming weeks within the Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force.
Sergeant Donna Henderson of the Delta Squad, Sergeant Carla Wallace of the Tabernacle Police Station and Sergeant James Francis of the Basseterre Police Station will be carrying out this task as they share knowledge and experiences gained from an Anti-Corruption Policy Forum and Academic Criminal Justice Seminar.
The July 15 to August 09 sessions were organised by the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) and held in Roswell, New Mexico in the United States of America.
Topics covered included community policing, criminal justice concepts, integrity and ethics in the criminal justice system, public policy making, leadership application in the criminal justice system, criminal justice organization and administration personnel and others.
Sergeant Henderson told SKNIS that the community policing sessions were very useful.
“Community policing is the concept that the community is the police and police is the community,” she stated, noting that both parties work together to solve problems. “We can’t do it on our own as police officers and so it is necessary for [all] sections of the organization to learn about community policing and the impact it can have.”
The Delta Squad leader added that she also recently shared aspects of ethics in law enforcement during a lecture with colleagues and pledged to continue making similar contributions.
The four-week workshop was attended by persons from other CARICOM member states which allowed the strengthening of relations and networking opportunities.
“We had a good amount of exchanges with reference to how we do things in the different territories and what are the best practices to adopt in our territory,” Sergeant Henderson stated. “A lot of [the programmes] are a work in progress. Some of them have done things that we want to do in St. Kitts and Nevis and certain programmes that we want to implement they have implemented; so we took that away.”
Sergeant Henderson thanked the organizers noting that the course was quite beneficial.