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The Good And Bad Side Of The Services Provided By Some Security Personnel

Feature Article The Good And Bad Side Of The Services Provided By Some Security Personnel
AUG 16, 2017 LISTEN

The Ghana Police Service is an important arm of the Ministry of the Interior with responsibility to ensure peace within the country. Being peace officers’ members of the Police service have over the years lived up to expectation by embarking on night patrol duties while citizens are asleep. During the day they are seen roaming in vantage points of our cities, towns and villages to maintain law and order.

The police stations dotted across Ghana are always full of people who are there to lodge complaints and to get the police to push their cases to courts for settlement. They are called upon in times of emergencies to guide groups during demonstrations and also move out to maintain law and order during conflicts and rowdy behaviors of groups such as workers and students.

Without looking at the statistics it can be said that the crime situation has improved significantly indicating that the situation in the country would not have been relatively peaceful if the police had not been deploying a huge number of their men to work for the nation and its people. In spite of the beautiful picture painted about the police a few members of the service are engaged in activities that are dragging their reputation downhill. Most police men on patrol duties have their eyes fixed on drivers of private and commercial vehicles.

The police are right in checking unlicensed cars and motorbikes that are often used to commit crimes. They are right to find out whether or not the drivers possess licenses or the right papers on the vehicles. But the question begging for an answer is, do they have the right to demand cash payments from the drivers for the alleged wrongs done by them?. While harassing poor taxi and tro-tro drivers the police seem to be treating people in responsible positions courteously even when they commit road offences.

Some of our policemen manning our police stations have often ill-treated accused persons reported to them by complainants. The rule to them is that the complainants are always right and the accused persons wrong. These policemen seem to accept all reports lodged without confronting the complainants about the truth of the matters concerned. After locking suspects in custody some police officers are said to have demanded payments from accused persons before granting them bail.

The question is under which regulation of the police should they demand payment before granting police bail to accused persons? The police in some parts of the country have become debt collectors on behalf of some complainants whose complaints might be doubtful.

The Ghana Police Service have so far lived up to expectation. Therefore, the hierarchy of the service must accept this complaint to investigate these allegations just as done by the service to sanitize the Police service to stop a few members of the service from dragging it down.

Executive Director eanfoworld for sustainable development [email protected]/[email protected] 0244370345/0208844792/0274853710

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