Cop oversight body to meet for first time
(CNS): The new body which is being billed as an independent oversight authority for the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service will meet for the first time on Friday, under the chairmanship of Governor Martyn Roper. The Police Service Commission was created under the recent constitutional amendments and officials said it will be responsible for the appointment of the most senior officers and holding the RCIPS to account.
Expected to meet at least twice a year, with additional meetings when necessary, the membership includes two people who were nominated by the premier and one by the opposition leader. The rest of the membership is meant to be apolitical. The police commissioner is not a member but is expected to attend particular sessions on invitation.
Roper welcomed the establishment of the commission, which will support the police commissioner and the senior management team’s strategic direction, he said.
“It will have an important role on senior appointments and strengthen good governance, accountability and transparency. By doing so it will support and ensure public confidence is maintained in the RCIPS,” he said. “Our Police Commissioner continues to do an excellent job for our Islands. This Commission will provide additional support and hold him accountable for delivery of RCIPS’s strategic plan.”
In addition to the governor, those attending the Police Service Commission meetings will be five members — Richard Coles, Richard Barton, Lindsey Cacho, Graham Hampson and Andrew Munday, the UK Overseas Territories Police Adviser — as well as Gloria McField-Nixon as Human Resources Adviser and Nancy Barnard from the Commission Secretariat.
Derek Byrne, the current police commissioner, who is tasked with the succession plan for a Caymanian to become the next commissioner, said he was looking forward to the independent oversight of the RCIPS and the opportunity to address the commission on the vision and planned strategic direction for the service.
“The RCIPS is moving through a cycle of transformation as it seeks to modernise and professionalise to meet the global and national crime threat and harm risk profiles and the rising expectations of the diverse and growing communities across the Cayman Islands,” he added.
Category: Government oversight, Police, Politics
Diverse and growing communities? What about the Caymanian community? WTF was wrong with just equally, fairly and robustly enforcing the laws, against EVERYONE! The last 20 years have been a joke, and the decline is accelerating.
Oh dear, at first I was thinking the big bluebird egg was Prince Andrew with some extra covid/lockdown weight!!! LOL!
My mistake.
Surely Mr Governor, Mr Roper Sir, – surely you could create another Commission for the ‘Oversight of MP’s – just sub in ‘Govt Officials’ for ‘RCIPS’ against the rest of the framework and perfect, job done. Do that and no spine needed to deal with nuisance minded assault assailants 👍
Who break the conditions of their non-custodial criminal sentence!
How is this different? Roper was already in charge of police. Looks like an opportunity for more government salaries to do the same work. Also confuses the chain of command so no one has to be responsible for the continuing screwups we all expect.
What has happened to that old time “respect” to the gentleman and his position. He is “Mr. Roper” or “Governor Roper” , for goodness sake. Give him the respect he is due and not refer to him solely by his surname. Cha man!
The irony of Anonymous telling me to use honorifics.
Give us the three best things that you have accomplished for the Cayman Islands, governor.
It seems to me that all of our Governors have suffered from a lack of ACTION ! Who are they afraid of…………. or what is their problem?
So Roper who is responsible for the Police is also the Chairman of the Oversight committee…does anybody see the problem with this..
Fox in the hen house…
no, no problem at all – ‘chicken in the hen house’ puts it back in equilibrium
Who is on the new committee..?
CNS: It’s in the article.
Thanks CNS, missed that.
And the Service is made up mainly of Jamaicans and majority on this oversight group are Jamaicans by birth and heritage…. Barton, Bernanrd,
Cacho (Bajan)
So majority are not Generational Caymanians, once again.
Bah. I respect Mr. Roper, but I don’t see this as an efficient use of time. It’s just more political posturing.
What I want to see is more of the RCIP community meetings, where the people who aren’t numb attend and tell the RCIPS their grievances, and seek a working relationship with them. It has worked in the past.
These are the police force that we have. We ALL need to step up and work with them to address the problems on all three islands. If we aren’t willing to work with them, then we sure as hell don’t have much of a right to chastise their progress or the crimes that occur. Crime fighting is augmented via a relationship between the community and the police.
I don’t want to watch our island go down gradually and lament with my friends how things used to be with a sad shake of the head. I want to work with those who have the ability to affect change, and I want them to know that I support their efforts. Everyone gets numb in a job sometimes, especially if it is repetitive and thankless. Lets get out there an get involved. All of us.
How many unscrupulous employers have literally stolen employee pension monies?
How often have these crimes been brought to the attention of the police?
How easy is it for the police to identify and investigate these widespread and serious crimes?
How many have they so much as raised a finger with regard to?
And don’t even get me started on window tint, and connected person’s drug habits…
The police have lost the law abiding public’s respect because the law abiding public does not believe they deserve it.
I hear you. I see t hose things also. I think much of the time the police hands are tied.
We have a community standard in the Towns and Communities Law regarding how much noise a person or entity can make. It references a decibel measurement, but fails to declare that threshold decibel. Much of our laws are smushy like this.
Police can enforce that which is clearly measurable. We need to tweak our laws such that they can make a call and enforce it.
The theft of pension monies is clearly measurable. In my experience the police not only fail to prosecute the thefts, they refuse to even investigate!
Of course, they refused to investigate certain status grants too. Perhaps because who some of the recipients were? Not really a legitimate reason, eh RCIPS?
My pension was also “errantly invested”. I consider it theft. However, what is my recourse? How do I prove the thousands of my small potato dollars were stolen. This is exactly what I meant.
Do I go to the police with my theory and expect them to arrest someone? You tell me how “clearly measurable” it is.
Beaumont- you disappoint me. You usually display insight and understanding.
When an employer deducts monies from employee salaries, does not then deposit those pension monies into any investment account, and uses the employee pension monies to buy themselves a new car, that is the fraud and theft. Nothing to do with poor investment.
I misunderstood. My pensions weren’t stolen in that manner. My pension account “lost” several thousand dollars due to alleged poor investments.
What you are talking about is very measurable; if an employee keeps a record and those monies aren’t put into their account, then yes! those employers should be charged, arrested and prosecuted.
‘This Commission will provide additional support and hold CoP accountable for delivery of RCIPS’s strategic plan.’
I wish them well cos we been looking for that strategic plan for years now and we cant find it… lol. RCIP don’t have one anymore…. best of luck
https://www.rcips.ky/upimages/OrganizationalDepartment/RCIPS_Strategic_3_Year_Plan1607463660.pdf
I will believe it when I see it happening!
Sadly, this is not the Internal Affairs Division the RCIPS really needs, but a policy approval Committee to rubber stamp the Commissioner’s budgets and programs.
Let’s not forget that $25mln in narcotics walked out of a secured evidence locker within a staffed police compound, with CCTV monitoring, and nobody saw anything, and the CCTV decided not to work that day. No reasonable inquiry or explanation followed. We have the same CCTV contractor, a recipient of millions of public purse money, working “cameras” at every roundabout, certain neighbourhoods, HM Prisons, etc…they never seem to see anything. Seems like a common denominator to me.