New Law to Deal to Deal with Police Who Commit Extortion

Chester Williams

According to Commissioner Williams, incidents of extortion by police officers have increased recently. He says that the law is to be amended to fast track the process to get a conviction since currently the process is fairly lengthy.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“I have also discussed the matter with the Attorney General because I believe that there might be a lot out there but people are not coming forward. The way the law is currently structure is because we charge for extortion and that is a very lengthy process because it has to go to the Supreme Court. But I have suggested to the AG that what we can do is whenever we amend the SI again we can put a provisions in there that any member of the security forces who accepts money from any person to avoid prosecution under the regulation commits an offence and the penalty for that will be one year imprisonment. That will then give us the ability to be able to deal more swiftly with officers who have the propensity of using the SI to extort people. They will know that the repercussions will be swift and once they are convicted they will be out of a job. So we are hoping the recommendation will be accepted and we will be able to address this matter more swiftly.”