By Spokesman Newsroom
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts (Thursday 15th February 2024) – The latest batch of police graduates of the Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force has seen a higher number of female officers compared to their male counterparts which is believed to be a historic gender ratio at 16 females and 10 males.
Such information was revealed by Commander of the Training School, Inspector Marvin Thompson when he gave the course report at the 43rd graduation ceremony for the #46 police recruit course held on Tuesday 13th February 2024, at the Police Training Complex in Basseterre. “Course 46 commenced like most other courses did when we started on July 24, 2023.
Initially, the course began with 25 recruits. A few days later, the number increased to 29. The proportion of male to female recruits was, however, significant. After 29 trainees, 17 were female and 12 were male,” Inspector Thompson expressed.
He added: “Consequently, a shift in the usual accommodation was necessitated. I stand to be corrected but I have found no evidence to rebut the fact that Course 46 is historic. In this regard, I have found no evidence to suggest that any prior course had a female proportion that was larger than the male counterpart, and certainly not to this extent.” According to him, during the course, the number of recruits dwindled to 26.
“The current composition is 16 females and 10 males. These 26 officers are here participating in the graduation ceremony today. The course lasted approximately six months, and was conducted in accordance with our course training standards,” he shared.
Inspector Thomson informed that Recruits were trained in police subjects, such as criminal law, evidence and procedure, and general duties. Training also included weapons training, defensive tactics, self-defense, and physical training.
Within the border heading, lessons taught comprised a lot of evidence, first officer on the scene, statement writing, case file preparation, active listening skills, use of force, firearm training, and human rights, just to name a few. He also highlighted that the recruits were assessed in three phases in those subject matter areas and that such assessments in those areas were aggregated to achieve a maximum score of 100%.
“The first six weeks of training constituted phase one. These first or elementary tests included the police subject mentioned earlier, that is, self-defense, both theoretical and practical, physical training, and military drills.
These initial assessments accounted for 15% of the overall marks. The next six weeks, weeks seven
through 11, comprised the second phase. At this intermediate juncture, the areas of assessment were identical to the first. But of course, at this stage, the level of difficulty and the amount of content was increased. These secondary assessments accounted for 25% of the overall weight,” Inspector Thompson said.
“The third and final phase of the training, not only added the additional content and difficulty, but it encapsulated the sum of knowledge and experiences recruits had gained thus far. The areas of focus and assessment in this final stage, in addition to the drills, the PT, or physical training, and self-defense included the firearm.
That is, the firearm training was done in the last phase. Also at this stage, the police subjects were broken up into the evidence and procedure, criminal law, and the general duties. This third and final stage accounted for 60% of the total aggregate.
To successfully pass the training course, recruits were required to obtain an overall aggregate score, minimum aggregate score of 60%,” he highlighted. That is, when the aggregate score of a recruit of all three phases were combined, the recruit must have obtained a minimum score of 60% to be considered to have successfully passed the course.
Additionally, recruits were required to obtain a minimum 60% in the individual aspects of the training, that is, 60% in self-defense, PT [physical training], military drills, and the police subjects. According to Inspector Thompson: “The training tested both recruits and instructors but we as instructors understood that diamonds are formed under pressure, and we were intent on producing diamonds.” This media house wishes to express congratulations to all of the new police officers including Ms.
Leocadia Hamilton, a former junior clerk at Newspaper office.
space… a child psychologist who we will have on board soon, and in addition, I spoke to PS and we are moving [to get] the estimates… to get our mental health space so that people can get improved care as a result,” he stated. Dr.
Drew recalled his push for mental health education before taking government office. “I was speaking about mental health since about 2020… I think people… can remember, even before the government then started a COVID update, I organized a COVID update with myself, Dr.
Patrick Martin, Dr. Lawrence, and Dr. Sharon Archibald, who is now the PS of Health. And Dr. Archibald was introduced to that panel to speak specifically to mental health because as a practicing doctor, I saw what was coming.
And so if you were to look at the data, the United States is reporting that about 50% of the adult population was referring some sort of mental health issue after COVID. That is a significant impact that it had on them, and it also had on the Caribbean, and even here in St.
Kitts and Nevis, and so we have started some work on that.” Dr. Drew added: “And I said, we have to see how we can get in front of it so that we can at least, even though we would not be able to totally prevent it, let us see how we can mitigate it, at least by starting to sensitize people about the issues and matters of mental health.” According to him: “We were proactive with dealing with violence from a public health perspective, which is being led by a psychiatrist, Dr.
Isabel. And I’ve spoken about this multiple times. So we [the government] are not waiting for something to happen to act. We look at the data and we seek to get ahead. However, even if you can’t prevent it 100%, you’ll always seek to mitigate the situation.” € Front Page Image: Image used for illustration purposes only shows a doctor holding a ‘Mental Health’ sign (Credit: humanfocus. co. uk)
