Asiamah tells police personnel Don`t use your uniform to extort money from the public

The Director General responsible for Legal and Special Duties of the Ghana Police Service, Commissioner of Police (C.O.P) Mr. George Asiamah has warned police personnel against the use of their uniform to harass and extort money from members of the public.

Mr. Asiamah stressed that police officers should be law abiding and always perform their policing duties with pride and distinction. To him, there was the need for the police to be proactive in their fight against crime.

He noted that it has become common to find police officers engaged in criminal activities, which soils the image of the service. He pointed out that the misfits in the service might have been ill motivated by evil desires to join the police service to enrich themselves.

Mr. Asiamah, the Reviewing officer at the passing out ceremony of one hundred and fifty–one newly trained police personnel at the Ho Police Training School said the dimension of crime which was more of international in character, such as computer fraud, credit card fraud and child trafficking as well as a number of scientifically and technologically oriented crimes, posed challenges to modern policing in the country.

The Reviewing Officer mentioned armed robbery, car-hijacking, mobile-phone snatching and visa fraud as some of the criminal practices that continued to engage the attention of the police and urged the newly trained police constables to contribute their quota in the fight to control crime in the society.

Mr. Asiamah reminded police personnel that they could only become useful and add value to the police organization if they are imbued with professional zeal, commitment to duty, loyal, as well as respect the human rights of all manner of persons and learnt best practices of modern policing.

He disclosed that the Police administration has embarked on a strategy dubbed -”a root and branch approach,” to deal with indiscipline and misconduct, as well as any other act of malfeasance that served as a stumbling block in the police effort to provide quality social service that would satisfy the public.

“The public must be seen as active partners in the business of crime prevention and that they should be involved in all our crime prevention initiatives. I must emphasize that all our efforts to promote community policing as a policing strategy and organizational philosophy will not yield the desired results, if we do not take serious steps to redeem our sunken and poor image, and embark on a policing strategy that will increase the citizen's satisfaction with services that we provide”.

Mr. Asiamah asked police personnel to be courteous to members of the public who visit police stations and that they should do away with what he described as time wasting ploys and tactics but rather make police stations people- friendly and a safe haven for justice and security.

The newly trained police personnel were taken through seven months training in criminal law, criminal procedure, criminal investigations, law of evidence, police studies as well as social psychology, criminology and police ethics.  General Recruit Clement Prah-Mensah was adjudged the best recruit.