No Increments for Police Officers Who Fail to Train

According to the handbook, all police officers must engage in forty hours of training per year. If they do not comply, they will not receive their annual increment. This was confirmed by Commissioner of Police Chester Williams during an interview with the media this morning, where he spoke of the need for officers to be constantly training to improve their service.

Chester Williams

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“We do a number of training. As a matter of fact, under our new policy, every police officer must undergo forty hours of training per year. Failure to complete the forty-hour of training as required by our policy, then you will be denied your annual increment. And so, training is always ongoing and we now have in each of the region what we refer to as a regional training officer. And the regional training officer works with the lead training officer in those regions and formations ensuring that the trainings that are supposed to be done are done. They put together the training package, it is sent to the Director of Training Office in Belmopan and then the Director of Training ensures there is follow-up in terms of the training. The regional or the formation commanders are the ones who are tasked to identify the area of training that they believe that their people may need. And once the area is identified, then the lead training officer and the regional training officer would then put together the training package and ensure that the training takes place. If they lack the capacity to do the training, then they will seek expertise from elsewhere to come in and do the training for them.”