2

POST COLONIAL POLICE FORCES OF THE COMMONWEALTH CARIBBEAN AS

AGENTS OF STATE OPPRESSION, TO BE ABOLISHED AND REPLACED BY CITIZENCENTRED INSTITUTIONS

June 15, 2015

K. O. A. Hashim Hakizimana

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Abstract
Colonial and post-colonial police forces, by being, too deeply rooted instate-managed
oppression must be abolished and replaced as they are resistant to being reformed as
citizen-centred and insensitive to the human needs of the twenty-first century. It has
been found that the only difference between colonial and post-colonial police forces is
the degree to which the latter has been deliberately militarized more than the former.
This paper looks firstly, at the common origins of the police forces of the British
Commonwealth Caribbean and notes that repression and cruelty were sanctioned in as
much as it supported the State in achieving its goals of social control and economic
dominance. Secondly, it also looks at the essential characteristics of the post-colonial
police forces as paramilitary institutions as influenced by the British constabulary. A
third theme is the rationale for the calls for reforms since the 1920s was to examine the
power configuration of the State and its citizens, seen as an unjust, rights-disregarding,
partisan security policing, pervasively corrupt, and incompetent characteristics of the
police force. Finally, it looks at how police forces have become militarized despite the
calls for reforms. This paper finds that the argument for abolition is most potent in light
of the modern concept of liberal democracy that characterizes the twenty-fist century
despite the counter rhetoric that resist reforms citing numerous emerging threats to public
security which necessitates militarizing the constabulary to combat the threats.

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Table of Contents
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 5
The common origins of the police forces in the British Commonwealth Caribbean...................... 6
The essential characteristics of the post-colonial police forces ...................................................... 7
Citizen-centred policing .................................................................................................................. 8
The rationale for the calls for police force reforms in the 1920s .................................................... 9
Modern police forces are militarizedsupporting the case to abolish and replace ..................... 10
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 12

Introduction
Increasingly as societies become more complex in character and even more difficult to
govern, due to the complexities of interest groups and the nuances of the liberal democratic ideal,
governing by consent seems to become a more muzzled concept which has been replaced by
police special squads mandated to use lethal force in scaring citizens into submission. Colonial
society was one such situation that lent itself a system of policing that was barbaric and
repressive. The post-colonial period was no different in character but might have been more
repressive in the level of innovative coercive violence meted out upon the under-privileged
populace in order to keep them in the social place prescribed for them. One of the facts that we
must keep constantly before our minds is that all the police forces in the post-colonial
Commonwealth Caribbean had similar origins, influenced by the realities of slavery that
privileged the colonial powers and peoples. As Salter (2014) has indicated the concept of
police in the early modern period was far removed from our present understanding that was
meant to manage good order or relationships among citizens not to encourage state managed
oppression. In discussing the argument that post-colonial police forces are beyond reform and
unable to function effectively in the Twenty-first Century as an institution sensitive to citizens
needs; it is necessary to look at: their common origins; their essential characteristics; the
rationale for the calls for reforms; and the case for their abolition being the militarized
imperatives of the contemporary period.

The common origins of the police forces in the British Commonwealth Caribbean
It has been noted that policing in the Caribbean has been Largely derived from a history
of slavery and indentured labor in the eighteenth century and mores in the nineteenth century
and has inherited, especially from the British, a very authoritarian and centralized colonial
policing structure borne out of the protective necessity of the planter class of British, some
French and Spanish. It also notes that due to the divergent economic and social interest at play
between the enslaved and the colonial rulersCaribbean policing was inevitably a rather
unfriendly, very coercive exercise across the colonial Caribbean [and] to some extent, it still is
even though most Caribbean states are now politically independent (What, When, How.com,
2015). The Open University (2015) bears this out thus: the idea of the British police was one
of Great Britains most distinctive contributions to the world of criminal justice

Police forces were being organized across the Caribbean region from as early as the
1790s, purportedly to manage the enslaved populations in the British colonies: Trinidad and
Tobago in1792, Jamaica in 1832, Royal Saint Lucia Police Force in 1834, Royal Barbados
Police Force in 1835, Guyana Police Force in 1839, Royal Bahamas Police Force in 1840, Royal
Grenada Police Force in 1853 and Royal Saint Kitts and Nevis Defence Force in 1896
(Caribbean Defence and Security, 2012 & Red de Seguridad y Defensa de Amrica Latina,
2010). The Jamaica Constabulary Force has similar beginnings as noted by its website, its
history and traditions are indeed coloured by centuries of British tutelage[where] Parish
Constable was organized by the early colonists soon after their conquest of the island from the
Spanish in 1655. It also notes the earliest instruction in the records to form a formal police
service was found in a communique from King Charles II of England in 1671. This developed

7
into the night watchman groupings by 1716 that covered Port Royal, Kingston, St. Andrew and
St. Catherine. It also notes that it was not until 1832 that the first attempt [was made] to
establish a permanent police that the 1865 uprising in Morant Bay gave impetus for
organization by 1867 (Jamaica Constabulary Force, 2015).

The essential characteristics of the post-colonial police forces

King (2009) has made some important observation about post-colonial police
arrangement: Paramilitarism as a policing tactic is a common feature in post-colonial societies
consequential to the imperialist motives of the, then colonial masters. He also indicated the
influential role of the Royal Irish Constabulary in framing the model of policing in postcolonial societies. Thomas (2008) makes some scathing allegation against the colonial police
system and advances the argument that colonizers threatened or used violence to compel
indigenous subjects into acceptance of social, economic, or cultural changes alien to their way of
life[they used] draconian police powers [or] resorted to exemplary communal punishment to
cripple with fear the masses that had no such access to the monopoly of violence. He notes too
that hereafter, the psychological violence of threatened punishment and the physical violence of
coercive policing became habitual as imperial authorities upheld iniquitous social structures that
privileged Europeans over colonial subjects. (Thomas, 2008). He argues that attitudinal
formation was the dominant paradigm for the interest of the European who monopolized
coercion and control over the lives of millions (p. 2) and saw exemplary repression of violence
as the quickest way to restore the states inviolable right to control and regulate so that it
privileges the British imperialists where the basic prerequisite of British colonial order was the
denial of any rightto indigenous subjects. He points to three approaches of colonial violence:
distinctively colonial forms of state repression; colonial state violence influenced innovation

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among the indigenous and colonial state violence was no unique but rather were all, to varying
extents, imported, whether from the European imperial mother country or from other colonial
dependencies (Thomas, 2008). Blanchard (2014) has observed similarities among the French
Colonial Police that there was only a notion of colonial policing because policing tasks were
handled by multiple organizations and agents, many of whom were not, technically, actual
police which indicated that colonial authorities had their own set of policing practice
Blanchard (2014, p. 1836).
According to (The Rebel Press, 2012) there is a reason behind the repressive modus
operandi of police forces, simply put the police are not the allies of the people [neither is] the
plicepart of the so-called 99%. They note that the pledge to protecting and serving does
not include to protect and serve the community members or individuals of the city, but rather the
ambiguous idea of the city as whole, which is run by the 1%. This 1% is the economically
privileged which seemed to indicate the main argument in the calls for reforms.

Citizen-centred policing
Dominguez (1993) seems to suggest that the conditions conducive to citizen-centred
policing is a Liberal Democratic environment where there are regularly held free and fair
electionsguaranteed civil and political rights, responsible governmentpolitical inclusion
where rights are guaranteed and embodied in the convention of constitutionalism (p. 2).
This is a far cry from the violently coercive, repressive, rights denying systems that existed in
colonial and post-colonial times.
The Organization of American States comments on citizen security that Citizen security
is one of the dimensions of human security and therefore of human developmentand the
implementation of policies focused on the protection of the individual instead of those focused

9
on the security of the State or of any particular political system (OAS, 2009, p. iv). It defines
citizen security as the right to life, the right to physical integrity, the right to freedom, the right
to due process and the right to the use and enjoyment of ones property. The historical
foundation of the absence of citizen security is seen in light of the negative impact of past
decades of authoritarian and military dictatorships, among other things have disseminated the
influence of traditional institutions of socialization[and has shaped] the individuals habits and
behavior. and have tended favorably towards violence and crime (Organization of American
States, December 31, 2009, p. 18).
The UNDP (2012) report has given some indications of the need for change in policing.
Among the recommendations to support reform was executive style [and] participatory
management, quality control and accountability of the service delivery, and external bodies to
be established to investigate corruption and police abuses (United Nations Development
Programme, 2012, pp. 24-25). These seems like a good list of possibilities that have been
frustrated over the years because the police across the Caribbean is still being seen as military
institutions that are inimical to human safety and freedom in the modern era.

The rationale for the calls for police force reforms in the 1920s
In discussing the reasons for reforms Harriott (1998) and Harriott (2000b) indicate that
The essence of police work is the management of coercive force to ensure the social and legal
compliance of the population.the legitimacy of police forces as agencies of social and political
control, and that there must be serious examination of the configuration of power in
societybetween citizen and State and the political values which inform collective police
behaviourthe style that needed to change was unjust, rights-disregarding, partisan security
policing, pervasive corruption, and incompetence displayed according to Harriott (2000a, p.

10
xvi). He notes that despite the transformations in the society, the basic patterns of policing
have, in essence, remained unchanged since the reforms of the 1950s that were designed to
prepare the Force for Independencesince the formation of the Jamaica Constabulary Force
(JCF) in 1867. He also argued that this was not unique to Jamaica and cited scholars indication
of other Commonwealth Caribbean police forces with similar problems such as: Bahamas,
Trinidad & Tobago, Antigua, Guyana, St. Kitts & Nevis and Barbados (Harriott, 2000a, p. xvi).
He notes that particularly in Jamaica, reforms have been piecemeal, truncated inconsistent
too often exercises in symbolic manipulation and image reconstruction rather than
substantive (xvi). This seems to have influenced the thinking that since the inherited or
imposed policing system cannot be reformed then it needs to be thrown out and replaced by a
system sympathetic to the needs of the people as described in 1829 by Sir Richard Mayne as
having core responsibility for prevention of crimedetection and punishment of
offendersprotection of life and property, the preservation of public tranquility.(Metropolitan
Police (Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime), 2015). Bittner (1970) notes that a half a century
after the discussion of reforms were in earnest there remains numerous elements of the colonial
period in the modern police institutions. Particularly there is the notion of the war on crime as
conceptualized by its quasi-military organization[al] structure which seems to give justification
for the need of a militarized force with its monopoly on the use of force and its entrenched code
of secrecy (pp. 36, 48, 63) all of which are inimical to a citizen-centred police service.

Modern police forces are militarizedsupporting the case to abolish and replace
The point has been made that as an instrument of oppression and control, modern police
departments are deeply rooted in some of the most racist and repressive colonial institutions a
professional concept of the police force was copied from Londons Metropolitan Police

11
Department which had been established in 1829 (Nirhani, 2012). Besides, Nirhani (2012)
indicates that the esssential characteristics envisioned by Robert Peel was supposed to be a
professional body that would prevent crime and disorder, friendly to the society, use limited
force to carry out their duties, and to uphold the law not the state, and should not be seen as a
military entity, but alas, these noble ideals were derailed because they were hijacked by political
forces in the United States modern cultural imperialist from which later reformers have tried to
purged the anamolies from the police system during the 1920s and 30s. Balko (2013) has also
documented how the distinction of police and soldier has been stealthily wiped out over the
years and how tyranny has been imposed upon citizens how politicians ill-considered policies
and relentless declarations of war against vague enemies like crime, drugs, and terror have
blurred the police/soldier distinction.

Lamenting the absence of trustworthy guardians of citizen security, Blackwell (2015) has
pointed to the low level of trust for the police that has influenced the spike in private security, the
very ones who should be charged with making it possible because the police needs to become a
legitimate institution in the eyes of the public (p. 2). Jauhari (2011), discussing Nigeria also
notes the essential characteristics of colonial and post-colonial police, that there is no difference
between colonial and post-colonial violations of Human Rights, because to consolidate and
expand their powerBritish colonial masters grossly violated the rights[and that] even 50
years after independencecitizens continue to face constant violations of their basic rights
under military governments after independenceand civilian rule that have both became a
symbol of complete authoritarianism under which constitutions were suspended and
accountability towards its people were absolved and civilian rule also came to be
characterized by the institutional failure in observing peoples rights under which civilian

12
leaders denied freedom of expression, practiced unlawful and extra-judicial killings and rigged
elections.
In line with the foregoing, Friesendorf & Krempel (2011) have put forward a poignant
argument that supports incorrigibility and potent reason for retention not abolition of postcolonial police forces that there is the need to separate the military and the police yet
everyday reality frustrates this ideal type because The police must adopt a robust stance in
order to close security gaps against well organized armed criminals which means that the
police must be as civilian as possible and as military as necessary with regard to their
equipment, approach, structure and duties (Friesendorf & Krempel, 2011, p. 3). The calls for
reforms of impartiality, corruption, incompetence, rights-disregarding and unjust policing,
mainly due to the enormous powers given to the police and convenient political manipulations,
was not met, therefore, the calls for their abolition and replacement by an institution that will
represent the interests of the citizens seemed justified.

Conclusion
It has been shown that the concept of a police system was born out of the common
imperatives of colonialism and slavery with its brands of coercion and repression upon the
enslaved under the leadership of Great Britain whose empire was global in scope and influence
based upon its empire upon which the sun never sets. The argument has also been put forward
that all colonial and post-colonial police arrangements followed some basic principles of
oppression, coercion and repression that were either borrowed from different regions or adopted
due to the necessities of the time: in order to keep a subject people in check. By the 1920s there
were numerous calls for reforms to the policing idea due to the continued state of repressive and
violent human rights denying practices, with calls for a more citizen-centred type of policing that

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eliminates corruption, human rights abuses and add professionalism to the police forces. The
reforms have continued to lag a distant place behind the calls. The case has been made to abolish
and replace the present police forces in light of the fact that, despite the calls for reform it has
been shown that the modern or at least post-colonial police forces have become more militarized,
which indicates the intention to make them more representative of state interests, repressive and
violent against civil populations.

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