Senator Jeff Baron On Bermuda’s Police Service
“Despite a challenging budget, the Police Service has done a fantastic job with continuing their goals,” Junior Minister of National Security Senator Jeff Baron said.
Speaking outside the Senate yesterday, Senator Baron said, “In the last few years, both the year and three year strategic plans for the Police Service have been right, they’ve been very focused, and we see the results of that.
“We look at the crime rates right now – I know the 2015 stats will be coming out the year end, so we look forward to looking at the continuing of the downward trend in crime.
“The Commissioner and all of the staff have done a fantastic job, I include the men and women at the Constable level, the Cadet level as well. They work 24 hours a day, seven days a week on holidays.
“When we’re preparing for Christmas, they’re preparing to go to work on that day. We can’t forget the sacrifice that they make day in and day out and putting themselves in harm’s way.
“Despite a challenging budget, the Police Service has done a fantastic job with continuing what their goals are. That’s suppressing the violence, it’s addressing some of the antisocial behavior in our communities, responding to road fatalities and road traffic and how to advance safety on our roads.
“There’s a lot of challenging things in Bermuda that the police have to deal with day in and day out, and so addressing it and stating it in a plan, in a form such as that, is important for the public to be able to read that as well.
“I think it’s important that the public is aware of what the police’s intentions are day in and day out. What is their vision, what drives them, why are they out at all hours of the morning and what are they doing, what is their end goal?
“It’s not just to communicate to his Officers what the plan is for them to achieve, it’s for the Commissioner to express that in a report to the general community so that we not only buy into that and support him, but we support every Officer who shows up to assist everyone in Bermuda when they call upon, or when the Police stumble upon something that they need to take care of.”
Asked about road safety, Senator Baron said, “We’re very clear that we want to advance safety on our roads. If that is a step that we’re going to be taking, surely the Minister will be announcing each granular step that they are taking with regards to that. Ultimately, this is a very timely message here, because it’s before the holidays, and we have to remind the general public if you’re driving, don’t drink, if you drink, don’t drive.
Speaking about the recent airport emergency exercise, Senator Baron said, “There are going to be points that come out of that that we certainly need to improve. There are going to be points that we saw extremely effective coordination on, but ultimately it was done.
“When you’re gathering and collaborating with a lot of subject matter experts from across the table from health, from Customs – you have so many people in that room, and then you thrust them in a very uncomfortable situation, one that’s a tabletop exercise for Bermuda, but it is always a possibility and we have to be able to test that.
Slideshow showing the airport emergency exercise held on December 7th:
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“It’s about resilience, it’s about building capacity, it’s about testing our current capabilities, and that’s exactly what the exercise did. Today, there’s a long debrief on what the points were, what we need to do going forward.
“If we’re not testing these things – not just to get a qualification or certification from overseas to say that we’ve done this and we were able to operate a national airport – this is for Bermuda’s resiliency package, it is for our sustainability package, the security and defense of this island is important to us. When something does happen in Bermuda, we want to make sure that everyone knows, not just those in the public service and those who are in the Ministry of National Security, that we can respond effectively.
“The public should know that as well, because the public should feel confident that if something should happen or if we receive intelligence that suggests X, that we will be able to respond in an effective way, that Bermuda’s business will continue and Bermudians will be safe and out of harm’s way, and that we will be able to respond effectively to whatever does arise, whether that is a airplane crash here, an international incident, a terrorist threat, whatever the case is, day in and day out we have to be very clear about those global challenges, but also the challenges we face here in Bermuda.
“That exercise touched on various issues, whether it’s global, international – of course with the plane crashes, it’s going to be international. So how do we work effectively with outside agencies on this.
“There’s so many points and threads that you can pull after these exercises, and that’s the stages that the Government and all of the agencies were involved will be going through in the next couple of weeks.
“Of course, retesting that is going to be just as important to make sure that we’ve gone from strength to strength with regards to where we were today, yesterday, and where we’re going to be next month,” concluded Senator Baron.
lol. no one works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Yes there are police officers out there all the time, but no ONE person works that schedule.
Surely you aren’t that daft. “They” as in the collective service are on-call serving our community 24/4.
that’s not what was said tho.
some times the do work almost 24 hours a day.during the storms and hurricanes they do. they have to leave home early to be able to start their 12/16 hour shifts and most times cannot go home after because they are stuck. most officers are constantly working 12 hour shifts by default.
Aso many officers stay back hours after work completing paperwork. the horrible side of policing that no one knows. A five minute incident can mean at least half an hour updating.
Nah you are wrong , he is talking about the service as a whole giving coverage. A fool would imply otherwise. Oh it was watching’…no surprises there.
“The Commissioner and all of the staff have done a fantastic job, I include the men and women at the Constable level, the Cadet level as well. They work 24 hours a day, seven days a week on holidays.”
Read it
count
baaaaaaa
Would be nice to see diversity in the expired contracts.
Kind words Sen. Baron but if your government feels so highly about the job the BPS is doing why are you attacking their rank and file by trying to take away their hard fought conditions of service and placing officer safety at risk by forcing redundancies due to your draconian budgetary cuts. Talk is cheap, your actions speak far louder to the men and women of the Bermuda Police Service
You mean like the PLP’s Roban stating that the ‘police benefits should be reviewed?’
Here is his quote from July 6 2015:
“But is it wrong at this point to consider a thorough review to see where expenditure can be reduced, or perhaps the benefits enjoyed by Police, so that everyone is carrying their fair share? Other areas of public service endure cuts, and they continue to. These should be equally shared. We support what the Police do and appreciate what they have to confront on a regular basis. But they do not share in health insurance while other civil servants are enduring double-digit increases in health insurance.”
Well he should ensure that police are given the right to strike as every other employee in Bermuda can.
And what does Roban have to do with it? he’s just another empty suit with no power to effect policy. This decision is being driven by the minister of national security and his junior minister. Morale within the service is at an all time low. Friends and colleagues are being let go, with little or no concern to previous performance and this govt not the PLP are trying to slash police pay and conditions, because they know the police don’t have a union or ability to strike. It’s a disgrace.
About time they paid their own insurance!
He’s totally right. We do tend to take the work of the Police Service for granted. Very timely to highlight.
Really appreciate the Senator for reminding the community about our work and sacrifice.
The Senator’s 100% right.
good job Senator! i call him super senator man. he likes to try and save lives, unlike some other senators….
toodles!
The Senator is being told what to say.
Government spokesman.
The Commissioner is not.
Bollocks.
Jus conditioning your mind…introducing you to what’s yet to come…anything from a cat in a tree…to a terrorist psy-op…One tool does all…If you know what I mean.