PHILIPSBURG:--- On Monday March 31st, 2014, the Minister of Justice the Honorable Dennis Richardson met with the Council of Law Enforcement and was presented a recent report.
The following is:
Police education in Sint Maarten
In spite of tight budgeting, at the dismantling of the Netherlands Antilles, the Police Force Sint Maarten took up the training of the personnel vigorously by offering the personnel a great number of short term trainings, courses and workshops in different areas. Also twelve police trainees successfully completed the basic police training in 2013.
However, where it concerns the more structural police training, the Police Force Sint Maarten has a challenge. The new employees need to follow the basic police training within a short period and also more experienced employees must be given the possibility to catch up with the years of backlog in the training for management and secondary police-functions.
The extra ordinary police officers (bavpollers) working for the Police Force manifestly has led to more police-officers on the streets. However, the Council stresses that the tasks of the bavpollers are intended to be limited to specific police tasks. Even though the bavpollers had a very short training and the legal selection standards were not always met, these bavpollers placed in de Police Force Sint Maarten are not limited in their tasks and authorizations. The Council considers it undesirable when this group de facto gets tasks and authorities for which they have not sufficiently been trained. The Council thinks that clear selection, education and training requirements must be formulated for the training for 'buitengewone agenten van politie'.
The Council notes that on the budget of the country Sint Maarten for 2014 only NAF 150.000 has been reserved for training of the police. The Council wonders whether this amount is sufficient. The Council evokes the Police Force to design a long-term training plan and the minister of Justice to (financially) support the police-training plans. Seen the limited resources, cooperation with other countries, for example Curaçao and the BES-islands is the most achievable option to provide new and existing personnel of the force with training.
In Sint Maarten the training possibilities for the police are not sufficient. There is no police school in Sint Maarten that offers for example the basic police training. The Council recommends that soon a decision must be taken concerning the desire of a Police school.
Furthermore a part of the legislation applicable for the police training must urgently be implemented and modernized, so that it is clear for everyone which requirements the training must comply with.
With this report the Council envisages to provide an overview of the state of affairs with respect to police education in Sint Maarten and to contribute to the quality and quality improvement of police education and by extension of this the professionalism of police education in Sint Maarten. Pursuant to the Kingdom Act on the Law Enforcement Council, the Minister will be given the opportunity to send the advice of the Council to Parliament within six weeks, along with his policy response. After six weeks the report will be available for publication and downloading at www.raadrechtshandhaving.com.
The Council on Law Enforcement was established by Kingdom Act in 2011. It is an inter-insular independent body, responsible for the inspection of the various organizations within the justice system. The ultimate objective is to provide recommendations to the Ministers of Justice of the three countries of the Dutch Kingdom to correct shortcomings. The Council consists of three members who are appointed by Royal Decree and represent respectively Curaçao, St. Maarten and the Netherlands for the islands Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba. The Council has a secretariat with offices in St. Maarten, Curaçao and Bonaire.
