If the story outlined by Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin on Friday is true, the Jamaican police force is perhaps far more corrupt than hitherto suspected and the situation demands greater urgency at rectifying, including immediately giving the police chief the same authority to discipline as would be expected by the CEO of a major enterprise.

Maybe the constabulary, in its current form, is too far gone bad to be fixed. We may just have to disband and reconstitute the force.

This newspaper, like many people, felt that there was something fishy about the case of the Montego Bay fake cop, which, at the very least, as we noted in these columns, highlighted a monumental failure in management, requiring of sanctions.

We have now been told by Rear Admiral Lewin, the police commissioner, that Courtney Grayson was not just some smart 23-year-old, enamoured with the police for six months who was able to pass himself off as a cop among the seasoned personnel at the Mount Salem station. Rather, he was part of a criminal enterprise connected to an Internet gambling scam, for which Jamaica is growing notorious.

Smokescreen

On Commissioner Lewin's account, Grayson was used to shake down people and his arrest by the official Mount Salem police was a "smokescreen" to cloud the issue when one of their confederates in the Internet lottery scam was held. How the two issues connect is unclear. If Grayson was not working undercover for the authorities, the decision not to prosecute suggests he is providing valuable information to investigators about his collaborators.

Indeed, Commissioner Lewin reported that he has interdicted 18 policemen, including four sergeants, and is awaiting the action of the Police Service Commission (PSC) to follow through on the suspension of an inspector. If all of these persons are from Mount Salem, this would be, we suspect, a substantial proportion of those at the station and the scam is/was near to the top of the chain.

It is a further indication, if not of unassailable evidence, of just how bent the Jamaican constabulary has become and of the difficulties confronted by the authorities in trying to fix it. It is no longer feasible to argue, we believe, that the corruption exists among a small minority of the force and what, essentially, is required is for the vast majority of decent police personnel to speak out. Such an argument is mere sop to consciences for the corrupt officers have accumulated critical mass.

Still nibbling at the edges

It is clear that the efforts of recent years have had some success in identifying and removing criminals from the police force and that some headway has been made in improving operational procedures and the crime detection capabilities of the constabulary. But it still appears that we are nibbling at the edges.

But problems often demand radical interventions. And fixing the JCF may be one of them - assuming that it can be fixed. The police chief, like the boss of a major corporation, must have the right to discipline or remove any of his operational executives and face the consequences of the law when he behaves unfairly.

If disbandment of the JCF is not an immediate option, Jamaica might want to consider creating a new, elite investigative agency, staffed largely by young lawyers who have been graduating in recent years, many without the prospects of jobs.

The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.