Archibald Gordon

Police action is oftentimes taken for police efficiency not only by members of the public but also by some members of the force who readily highlight outputs but not outcomes. This mistake will be made because of the absence of factors and criteria relating to the test for police efficiency. In the absence of these factors and criteria which are needed to measure police efficiency, we will have to rely on the authority from credible sources as we would with Pythagoras and mathematics, Oxford and the English language, Newton and Physics, and Maslow and motivation. In the case of police efficiency, an extremely credible source on the subject comes to us from Sir Robert Peel a former Commissioner of police of the London Metropolitan Police Force. According to Peel, the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.

 Favour is found with Peel’s criteria for testing police efficiency as it is consistent with the objectives of any sensible police force which is to prevent crime and disorder and maintain peace. Where these objectives are not being achieved, both the police and the citizens will shift their attention from measurable outcomes to wishful thinking. It is through this wishful thinking that failure to achieve police efficiency is overlooked for visible policing actions, which have been tested time and time again without achieving desired outcomes. Placing a policeman at every intersection in the corporate area would look good, but it would not necessarily create police efficiency it may cause more chaos and congestion than if we allow the traffic lights to work on their own. Having joint operations with the military and the police without clear and achievable objectives will not achieve police efficiency. Establishing zones of special operations and states of public emergency just to satisfy the wishful thinking of the public will not achieve police efficiency. Police efficiency will only be achieved when crime and disorder are brought under control and not when visible evidence is seen of police action in trying to deal with it.

The police must now begin with the end in mind which is to remove crime and disorder from society. They will not be able to eradicate crime but at least, bring it to a manageable and tolerable level. The police must understand the difference between police action “inputs ” and police efficiency ” outcomes “. Based on our present circumstances we could begin with strategic leadership which is a type of leadership with a long-term vision for the organization but also have a short-term focus on the contemporary challenges of the country as it relates to crime and disorder.  This leadership should be prepared to identify, prioritize, and solve those challenges. This strategic leadership must be drilled down to the lower levels of the organization where managers and supervisors are given the requisite authority and responsibility and are held accountable for achieving the objectives of the force. They must hold those under their command similarly accountable. Strategic leadership must be built solidly on a foundation of performance management where failure and mediocrity are not options. If the force accepts failure for any reason, it will never achieve police efficiency based on the criteria set out by Sir Robert Peel.

This is the first of a two-part article. In part #2 we will look at how to achieve police efficiency in a changing and dynamic society.

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Assan Thompson is a retired Assistant Commissioner of Police who is the Head of Department for the Centre for Security, Counter Terrorism and Non-Proliferation at the Caribbean Maritime University.  He holds a Masters Degree in National Security and Strategic Studies from the University of the West Indies, Mona.  He lectures extensively in the area of Security Studies.

The Deputy President of the Caribbean Maritime University, Professor Ibrahim Ajagunna, is to be presented with the Prime Minister’s Medal of Appreciation for Service to Education.

The announcement came by way of a letter from the Office of the Prime Minister to Professor Ajagunna.

In the letter, Prime Minister Andrew Holness noted that the award is being made “in exercise of the powers vested in (him) by Rule 4 of the Prime Minister’s Education Awards Rules 2005.”

The Prime Minister asked that Professor Ajagunna “accept (his) warm personal congratulations” for what he termed “your well-deserved award.”

Responding to the announcement, Professor Ajagunna said he was “deeply humbled” by the recognition.

In the meantime, CMU President Professor Fritz Pinnock, himself a past recipient of the award said he was “overjoyed” to learn that his colleague was to be accorded with “this tremendous recognition” from the Office of the Prime Minister.

“Professor Ajagunna has a long and distinguished career in education,” said Professor Pinnock, adding that “Professor Ajagunna has played a critical role in the transformation of the Caribbean Maritime Institute to the Caribbean Maritime University and in seeking to fulfill the vision of cementing the CMU as the maritime university of choice for global leaders.” 

The letter notes that the award will take effect on June 23, 2019.

A notification of the award is scheduled to be published in the Jamaica Gazette.

The presentation will be made at a ceremony to be held on the Lawns of Jamaica House on Wednesday June 26, 2019.

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A key partner of the Caribbean Maritime University – the President and Executive Director of the American Caribbean Maritime Foundation, ACMF, Dr. Geneive Brown Metzger has won a major award for maritime leadership.

Dr. Brown Metzger has been awarded the James Jay Dudley Luce Foundation Rear Admiral Stephen Bleecker Luce Award for Maritime Leadership.

The ACMF raises funds to support scholarships as well as infrastructure projects at the CMU.

The surprise announcement was made at the J Luce Foundation Awards gala on Thursday February 28, 2019.

Responding to the award, Dr. Brown Metzger said “The James Dudley Luce Foundation is a champion for the neediest of the needy, and I am grateful and humbled by the extraordinary acknowledgment.”

The J Luce Foundation citation presented to Dr. Brown Metzger notes that under her leadership “the AMCF has become an outstanding and effective organization dedicated to the reduction of poverty in the Caribbean in support of the Caribbean Maritime University and has resulted in visibility of the CMU in the United States, providing scholarships to deserving students.”

The citation also asserts that Dr. Brown Metzger “embodies the characteristics of honour, intelligence, benevolence and integrity.”

The award is named in honour of the late Commodore Luce, an American naval education reformer and modernizer who rose through the ranks of the US Navy during the American Civil War to establish a Naval College at Newport, Rhode Island in 1884 and the US Naval Institute in 1887, and played a vital role in establishing what is today known as SUNY Maritime College.

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Caribbean Maritime University, CMU, President Professor Fritz Pinnock has been recognized with the 2019 James Jay Dudley Luce Foundation Humanitarian award.

Professor Pinnock was one of three recipients of the award at a ceremony held at the Princeton Club in New York City in the United States on Thursday February 28, 2019.

In accepting the award Professor Pinnock said he was humbled by the recognition and remains driven to serve Jamaica.

The citation from the J Luce Foundation highlights that Professor Pinnock has “dedicated his life to uplifting Jamaican youth, transitioning from several years in the shipping industry to first lecturer then Executive Director of the Caribbean Maritime Institute to today serving as President of what he has grown into the world-renown Caribbean Maritime University.”

It also notes that the CMU has grown from 30 students in 1980, to 300 in 2007 to over 6,000.

The award comes in the wake of a partnership between the J Luce Foundation and the CMU which has seen the creation of the The Luce Leadership Centre at the CMU.

The two co-directors of the Luce Leadership Centre at the CMU – Romaine Wallace and Roberto Bennett – were also recognized for their work along with Dr. Abigail Pinnock who was among recipients of the 2018/2019 Luce Leadership awards.

The Centre has been developed to support the students on campus in Kingston, as well as for Young Global Leaders (YGLs) online around the world, with emphasis on Honor, Intelligence, Integrity, Benevolence, and Stewardship.

Professor Pinnock holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Sustainable Cruise Tourism from the University of the West, Mona Campus; an MSc. in International Shipping and Logistics from the University of Plymouth, United Kingdom, and a BSc. (Hons.) in Economics and Accounting (Management Studies) from the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus.

He is an International Maritime Consultant who has worked on numerous projects for a range of governments and international agencies and organizations.

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Implications of the US Withdrawal from the INF Treaty:  Is Arms Control Dead?

The February 1 announcement by United Sates’ Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, that the U.S. would suspend its compliance with its obligations under the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) because of Russian violations brought echoes of a similar announcement almost twelve years ago.  On July 14, 2007, it was the Government of the Russian Federation that declared its intention to suspend its participation in the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE), citing violations by the U.S. and its NATO partners and their refusal to ratify the Adapted CFE.  One month before, at an Extraordinary Conference on the CFE at the Hofburg Imperial Palace in Vienna, Austria, the meeting place of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), then, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Alexander Grushko had warned the gathered diplomats that the CFE Treaty was growing increasingly out of step with military-political realities which threatened its demise.  Six months later, Russia halted its compliance with the CFE, and, in 2015, permanently ceased participation in the landmark arms control agreement.

The fate of these two Treaties, which was preceded by U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Nuclear Treaty in 2002, does not bode well for the future of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), signed in 2010, and which limits strategic nuclear weapons.  Nor does it offer any optimism for the future of arms control in general. Rather, arms control seems to be on a precipitous trajectory that is being driven as much by geopolitical developments as technological advancements that have blurred the lines between conventional and nuclear weapons, threatening the start of a new arms race.

Signed during the waning years of the Cold War—the INF, in 1987 and the CFE, in 1990—the two Treaties have been referred to as the “Cornerstone of European Security”, reflecting the contributions of both instruments to security and stability in the Euro-Atlantic sphere.   Both Treaties, in effect, limit military armaments on the European continent, thus, reducing the possibility of large-scale military conflicts.  While the INF Treaty constrains the deployment of short and intermediate-range, nuclear and conventional ballistic and cruise missiles that are land-based,[1]the CFE Treaty addresses conventional armed forces.

The INF Treaty was agreed upon in 1987 by then U.S. President Ronald Reagan and the then President of the former Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev.  It prohibits the deployment of “land-based” missiles of 500 and 5,500 kilometres in Europe, (but not air and sea-based missiles) on the parts of the Russian Federation and the United States.  Since coming into force, it has seen the reduction of 2,692 short and intermediate range ballistic missiles that are ground based. [2]

Signed between the former Warsaw Pact countries and members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the original CFE Treaty came into force in 1990.  The Treaty reduced conventional armed forces, both personnel and certain categories of military weapons on the European Continent.  In effect, the Treaty and saw the destruction of more than 70,000 pieces of Treaty-limited equipment, eliminated excess war-making capacity in Europe, and established a military parity between the two blocks.  By restricting the movement of arms and personnel in specific geographic locations, the CFE prevented destabilizing build ups that could lead to surprise, military attacks in Europe.

When Russia announced its withdrawal from the CFE in 2007, NATO’s membership had expanded from the sixteen that signed the original CFE to include several states from the former Soviet Block “East of Vienna”. In announcing its withdrawal from the CFE, Russia protested that: NATO member States had not ratified the Adapted-CFE(Russia had); the Baltic States, as new NATO members, had neither ratified the original CFE nor the Adapted-CFE, thus,  NATO’s force ceilings exceeded the levels agreed under the CFE; and NATO’s refusal to ratify the Adapted-CFE until Russia withdrew its military presence from Georgia and Moldova represented an artificial linkage to the CFE.  Russia also argued that the planned U.S. missile defense systems in Central Europe and an early warning radar for Southeastern Europe violated regional arms control norms and posed a threat to Russian security.  The U.S. demurred, justifying the need for the missile defense capabilities in Europe on Iran’s advancement in developing ballistic missile capabilities.

In Russia’s present-day assessment, the increasing vulnerabilities engendered by NATO’s eastward expansion have devalued the security benefits of both the INF and the CFE given geopolitical and technological developments.  Similarly, NATO’s decision to base missile defense components in Europe has been cited by Russia in its charges of Treaty violations with regards to both the CFE and the INF.  While the U.S. and its NATO partners are numerically advantaged vis a vis Russia in the air and sea-based intermediate-range missiles, not barred by the INF, China, a key U.S. adversary, is not a party to the INF Treaty and has already amassed longer-range stockpiles of the missiles prohibited by the INF that have been judged to possess both nuclear and conventional capabilities.  U.S. withdrawal from the INF, therefore, provides cover for Russia to scale up production and deployment of the 9M729 cruise missile, which the U.S believes to be capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear warheads and of traveling over the 500 kilometres limit set by the INF.  Russia denies this is so.

Should the U.S. follow up on its withdrawal from the INF and place the treaty-prohibited weapons in Europe, Russia could reciprocate by installing such missiles at geographic proximities that would leave U.S. allies on the Continent more discomforted.  Russia, could, for example use Kaliningrad, on NATO’s doorsteps, as one of its bases in response for the use of Polish territory for basing NATO missile defense components.  With the Trump Administration showing no interest in further negotiations on confidence-building and verifications, and China unrestrained by the Treaty, arms control seems destined for expiration as Europe does little more than hand-wringing in response.

[1]Arms Control Association, February 2, 2019

[2]Arms Control Association, Issue Brief, Volume 11, Issue 4, February 1, 2019

Winsome Packer presently serves as Coordinator for Counter Terrorism and Nonproliferation Studies at the Caribbean Maritime University in Kingston, Jamaica.