No police officer should superintend over degrading treatment – IGP

Inspector General of Police Mr David Asante-Apeatu has ordered that “No” Police Officer should superintend over any inhuman and degrading treatment of suspects or members of the public.

He said unlawful arrest and search of premises should be the thing of the past and avoid the use of force in their dealings.

“The police will enhance their partnership with all stakeholders in the communities to help identify their local security needs and together help to address them as expected, “he assured the public.

This was contained in an address read on his behalf by Commissioner of Police (COP) Mr Ken Yeboah Director-General Technical at the closing ceremony of Junior Command Course 9/2018 who were Superintendents drawn from  various stations across the country, at the Ghana Police Command and Staff College, Winneba.

The Course is to build the capacity of the officers to add up to their knowledge and improve their skills in law enforcement practice, to adequately prepare and empower them to take up higher command positions, he stated.

The IGP said the objectives of the Junior Command Course was to build the confidence of graduates of the College and enhance their administrative, managerial, leadership role, inculcate in them the spirit of teamwork, good networking and standardisation of writing in the service.

He said there was the need for all personnel of the service to be reminded of the objectives of the service which include; protection of life and property, prevention and detection of crime, apprehension and prosecution of offenders, maintenance of peace and order and the due enforcement of all laws.

The IGP said regular organisation of such courses would help the service to revise its methods, tactics and strategies to provide services to its clients and also rebrand itself regarding the provision of police services to the entire people of the country.

“It is only when officers appreciate the objectives of the College and of the Service that to gather, police can gain the trust and confidence of our clients and be able to elicit the needed information from them to assist them effort in crime reduction”.

He said Police Service was more concerned about quality service delivery to the citizenry, and they ought to protect and serve with honour and integrity, and called for effective leadership and commitment from all personnel of the service, particularly the senior officers.

He urged the officers of service to re-institute their monthly welfare meetings to allow for grievance’s to be shared and added that, bottled-up grievances can lead to low morale.

“I entreat you to act with civility, tact and humanness so that you can be shining examples to their subordinates of which will eventually help reduce the tension between the general public and police which often results in police-public clashes”.

He congratulated the graduates for successful completion of the five-week intensive learning and added that they should ensure that whatever they had learnt at the college would impact positively in their work and lead to greater police-public relations and cooperation.

Source: GNA