The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr. Paul Tawiah Quaye, has announced that the Police Administration had put in place a five-year policing plan that will help rejuvenate activities to regain the confidence and trust of the general public. He said as part of the plan, retraining and equipping personnel of the service would be on top of the agenda, noting that it was unfortunate that some police officers had not received any form of training years after their basic training, which was making them adopt only the traditional methods of policing, to the detriment of the service and the public. The IGP, who was addressing officers and men in the Volta Region at Sokode-Lokoe to familiarize himself with the problems and challenges confronting the police in the region, said the police administration was at the crossroads of bringing change into the service. Mr. Quaye, at this point, charged on the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Police Service, observing that personnel of the CID had been showing a blatant disrespect for criminal investigation procedures and practices, as well as the detectives code of practice, which left large number of inmates in prisons and police cells, whose cases were not heard in the courts. He continued that CID personnel arrest innocent suspects, and callously abandon them in police cells without taking statements from them, or being told the offences they had committed, adding that adults and juveniles were kept in the same cell, in total disregard for police cell rules and regulations. Mr. Quaye disclosed that some crime officers, in collusion with their counterpart prosecutors, arranged with some judges to remand suspects in prison custody, over what he described as trivial cases, a practice the IGP said continued to erode the gains made in dealing with serious crimes like armed robbery in the country. He said the most serious aspects of the inhuman treatment, and gross abuse of human rights and dignity of the victims, was that some of the detectives, either negligently misplaced the case dockets, or at times, deliberately hide them, thus condemning the suspects to perpetual incarceration as remand prisoners. The negative practice, he stressed, needed to be stopped, warning that henceforth, any detective who would be found to have abandoned any suspect in cells, would be charged and tried under the police rules and regulations, noting that any officer who failed to properly supervise or pursue such dockets, would be prosecuted as part of a new policy aimed at injecting efficiency into the service. Mr. Quaye, at this point, was worried about developments in the service, and pointed out that even though the service could boast of an appreciable number of highly-learned personnel in various fields, their skills and professionalism was not reflecting on their qualifications, which he noted, was a deliberate attempt by such individuals to achieve their selfish interests. The IGP emphasized that the police administration was gradually preparing to ensure that personnel meet international policing standards, saying that since crime had assumed a complex dimension, CID personnel and other personnel ought to be computer literate, in order to deal effectively with international crime, particularly cyber crime, which had assumed alarming proportions, even on the local front. Mr. Quaye added that the police administration was preparing to take charge of security issues that were likely to arise as a result of the oil find, such as hijacking, piracy, fraud, and other criminal activities in the oil industry, noting that the hopes and aspirations of the public should be met, in order to provide what he called, "world class policing" in the country. The Volta Regional Police Commander, DCOP David Ampah Bennin commended police officers in the region for their commitment and dedication to duty, and stressed on the need to help the police administration to bring reforms into the police service. DCOP Ampah Bennin continued that some divisions in the region had no vehicle to aid their activities and pleaded with the administration to help provide vehicles for personnel in those areas of the region to facilitate their work noting that the police administration should also help in providing new police stations to designated places in the region, for effective policing. Source: The Chronicle on Saturday