Drastic changes within the Bermuda Police Service (BPS) have reduced the narcotics and criminal investigations departments to half their size and removed community officers from its roster completely, the Mid-Ocean News has learned.

The move is said to have had a demoralising effect on staff, with claims that the decision was made in the absence of an overall strategy for policing the island and in direct response to recruiting problems encountered as the BPS attempted to establish its new Community Action Team (CAT).

According to insiders, officers were moved from several areas in order to make up the numbers needed to enforce the new initiative. And it is believed that the decision, together with operations issues, is causing talented Bermudians to leave for new opportunities and making it more difficult to recruit both locally and overseas.

Former policemen spoke with this newspaper about a number of problems they believe are hindering officers from performing at optimum level. High on the list of criticisms was the recent realignment within the BPS.

"The realignment has transformed the Service back to where it was when (former Police Commissioner from Britain, Colin) Coxall left," said one. "(The current Commissioner George Jackson has) stripped (the) Narcotics (Department) of half its officers and he stripped half the people in CID because he's having problems recruiting in the UK. (British officers) go back and word gets around about what it's like to work here and so now he has to go to the (Caribbean) islands to recruit."

Added another: "There's no longer a street narcotics team or community beat officers. There is a Community Action Team (CAT) which was an experiment back in 2006 which took officers that were off duty and paid them extra to serve as additional units and deal with people in certain areas who were sitting in groups.

"The idea was to show a police presence to make them feel uncomfortable. It was decided to keep that. It's now a regular thing. But to get the manpower, the Service closed the street narcotics team and got rid of the community beat officers and the schools' resource officer."

Police were yesterday unable to comment on the accusations by press time but a statement on the realignment was issued by Acting Police Commissioner Roseanda Young this week. She said that the changes were introduced after public consultation and that they placed greater emphasis on community policing - more patrol officers in several areas and a new shift system with staggered start times.

"It's actually pulling officers away from the Bermuda public," said a former officer whose expectations for the scheme's success are low.

"We no longer have a schools' resource officer. We no longer have a community beat officer ¿ the person who would establish relationships within the community. What we have instead, is one civilian who is expected to co-ordinate Neighbourhood Watch meetings, for nine parishes and I don't know how many neighbourhoods.

"Policing is a dynamic, ongoing science that requires constant review and a clear picture of how you want to do the job and it appears there is no clear picture. I'm not just referring to the Commissioner but Bermuda as a society ¿ we don't know how we want to be policed."

According to the former officers, additional problems have arisen because not enough is being done to retain talented Bermudians. They claimed that although excellent instruction is offered through the training school, success is undermined as the teachers selected for their specialist skills are often required to leave the classroom to do police work.

"There is a Continuation Course which is always run while other courses are going on so the staff at the training school is stretched," said one man.

"They have to deal with all the courses and (the people being trained) quite often spend hours without supervision waiting for someone who may or may not show up because they may be called to teach another course.

"Also, most of the instructors are specialists so if there's a really bad accident or something that takes priority, they're pulled from the training school and told to go and deal so the Continuation Course is left in the lurch."

An earlier incident this year, where seven Bermudians were fired after failing one aspect of training, highlighted the lack of commitment the BPS has to local officers, the men said. And they questioned why one of those who had their contract terminated received letters of commendation for his work only two months later.

"They had worked in the Service coming up to three years. They failed an exam and were told to come back and resit. They failed again and were sent back to the Division to work until the Deputy Commissioner returned from leave. They were all Bermudians. You would think, with the hiring problems the Service is having and their public pleas to get locals to join, they would come up with some sort of plan to get them up to speed.

"I know one of the officers involved. Yes, he messed up on his exam, but he had been there for three years. The Service asks all sergeant supervisors to give an appraisal (of staff) every three months and I know he had excellent appraisals. Worse, he was fired in January and received letters of commentation in March ¿ where's the sense in that?

"I don't understand the mentality. It's quite possible that the BPS secretly feels that Bermudians aren't good at policing themselves and Bermudians are getting discarded, discouraged or leaving the profession as such."

He stated that the fired officer had failed in a relatively minor aspect of training ¿ a step along the way to court prosecution that is always reviewed by a supervisor, an inspector, police prosecutors and representatives from the Department of Public Prosections (DPP).

"Why fail someone for a file that's always critiqued?" he asked. "Why fire him? There are good people at the training school but they're locked into a bad system.The training school should be a place where you don't pull people out to test and fail, but to train in certain areas that supervisors have identified as weaknesses. It's one way to build the service."

The solution lies in a complete overhaul of the Service, one former officer feels.

"There is a colonial legacy in the Bermuda Police Service that has to be overcome," he said.

"It is an extension of the remnants of the old type of Service ¿ the Bermuda Police Force where the senior officer of a training says, 'I will cut you just as soon as keep you'. What does that say about the desire of the Service to have Bermudians working there?

"It's losing candidates right from the start because the system is not helping itself. There's a large number of talented Bermudian officers at the rank of Inspector who are leaving the Service.

"These are officers who can make it here, they can make it in Britian, anywhere. These are good officers the Service can't afford to lose. If the Service is trying to encourage people, it must have some organisational flexibility."