The Commissioner of Police has justified sending four officers on a three-week recruiting trip to Barbados in August at a cost of $65,000, saying the exercise will help the service to reach its recommended staffing level.

Darrin Simons said that the established and agreed number of staff for the Bermuda Police Service was 420 and the present number on the books, as of October 9, was 358 — 62 short.

Mr Simons said it had been about ten years since the Bermuda Police Service had full capacity, which has raised issues around officer welfare.

The officers who went on the trip to find recruits from the Caribbean were Deputy Commissioner Na’imah Astwood, Acting Assistant Commissioner James Howard, Superintendent Sherwin Joseph and Charlene Regis, the commissioner’s staff officer and overseas recruiter for the cohort.

Mr Simons said they conducted 60 interviews during the trip from August 4 to 28, when they recruited 13 officers. Additionally, a pool of employees has been selected for future recruitment by the BPS.

“We have had a number of recruiting challenges over several years, and Covid made it difficult for us to meet our recruiting demands,” Mr Simons said.

“We are permitted to hire 24 officers a year but traditionally we have only been able to recruit about 15 Bermudians a year. Then [in October 2023], I received permission to recruit non-Bermudian residents and to recruit from overseas.

“All recruits need face-to-face interviews. There were 60 scheduled interviews in Barbados — we would not do that online; we have found that face-to-face interviews are the best way.

“When you look at the millions of dollars of investment, $65,000 for overseas recruiting is more than reasonable.

“You have no idea how impactful being this short of staff is. The only way out of the hole is to get more officers.”

Of the 13 recruited from overseas, nine will start the Recruit Foundation Course for brand new officers in December.

Four who are firearms officers in their jurisdictions will be given firearms training specific to Bermuda on a separate course.

More will be available from the pool identified in Barbados who will be able to join a second foundation course in February if the numbers are still unable to be filled locally.

A third course is scheduled for the last quarter of 2025, by which time Mr Simons hopes the BPS will be close to full capacity.

Asked whether he believed 420 was the right number of employees for the BPS, Mr Simons said: “I think 420 is sufficient to allow us to meet the community’s minimal expectations in terms of our response to crime and visibility.”

Mr Simons said it was the first time that a recruitment trip has sought to find a pool of employees for future roles. Usually, the services would be given a fixed number to recruit.

While this may have lengthened the time of the Barbados trip, he said, the cost remained about the same as previous recruiting trips.

Money was saved elsewhere, with parts of the recruiting process going digital.

Additionally, where the BPS used to travel to two or three Caribbean islands, this trip was limited to one, with candidates from the Caribbean region being invited to attend the in-person meetings in Barbados. Candidates interviewed were from islands including Barbados, St Lucia, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, and St Vincent.

Mr Simons said: “Being short of staff is very impactful, but I must stress that there is never any impact on our response to emergencies, as I have absolutely prioritised that.

“The biggest impact is on officer welfare. We see impacts on back-office functions, officers are carrying more cases than they should and our ability to surge [respond to an unusual event that requires extra policing] is a challenge.

“In those cases, we would have to shut down back-office functions and transfer them to the front line. There is not much to shut down as there is already a minimal staffing. This is the reality we have had for a considerable amount of time.

“When the community says we don’t see you … the feeling is real because we don’t have the numbers. We are not out there the way we used to be. Our capabilities are impacted.”

Mr Simons said that with courses in December, February and later next year, he expects that by mid-2026 the service will be fully staffed.

“I’m keen to provide some relief to the women and men who come in, day in and day out, and provide the level of service that the community used to experience decades ago in terms of visibility, our presence in schools and involvement with the community.”