An initiative of the National Academy of Public Administration, and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice, Princeton University Oral History Program Series: Policing Interview no.: S6 Interviewee: Janice Jackson Interviewer: Daniel Scher Date of Interview: 17 May 2009 Location: Georgetown Guyana Innovations for Successful Societies, Bobst Center for Peace and Justice Princeton University, 83 Prospect Avenue, Princeton, New Jersey, 08544, USA www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties SCHER: My name is Daniel Scher; I'm the Associate Director of the Innovations for Successful Societies project, and I'm here with Ms. Janice Jackson on the 15th of May, 2009 in Georgetown, Guyana. Ms. Jackson, Dr. Jackson, thank you very much for agreeing to meet with me and taking time out from your own schedule. Before we begin talking about your work with the Guyana Police Force (GPF), I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about your own personal background and your career history. JACKSON: All right. I started my employment as a teacher as soon as I finished high school, which is one of the current practices here. Actually, I didn't want to go into full-time work, so I took an occupation that would give me vacation. I taught for a year and a half, and then I went to the United States, to Columbus, Ohio where I did a course in computer programming, and worked at that for a year, and then went to Ohio State University, where I did a degree in psychology. After that, I returned to Guyana and worked at the Ministry of Education, first in test development as a test development officer, then I worked with the nursery education program. It was actually a project within that program, that trained nursery education leaders who were supervisors and who worked in the field. I moved on to the University of Guyana then and worked in adult education, and I did that for three years before going off to Mt. St. Vincent University in Nova Scotia, where I did a master's in Educational Psychology and Measurement. I finished that program in a year and a half, and I had two years leave, so I decided to use the time to start a Ph.D. program. I went to the University of Alberta where I started a Ph.D. program in Educational Psychology, Measurement and Evaluation specialization. My research was on the self-study component of a program review process, which was being done at the University of Alberta and I worked with the Faculty of Nursing, which was very fascinating because I was interested in gender, women's studies and gender analysis. So I was able to apply that within the Faculty of Nursing. When I returned to the University of Guyana, I worked within the Women's Studies Unit which is a new unit, as the program officer first and then as the coordinator. I've been involved with a number of non-governmental organizations. I was the national representative for the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action from 1990 to 1993. I was also a founding member of the Guyana Volunteer Consultancy. That is an organization which engaged volunteers to work with the private sector as well as community groups to help in their development. I've also helped other organizations, doing workshops for them. I'm at the stage now where I really don't want to be involved in organizations; I want to support organizations. I really can't stand meetings anymore. I think too much time is spent talking about things and not getting things done. SCHER: Could you tell us a little bit about how you came to be involved with the Guyana Police Force? JACKSON: I was concerned about what I saw on the street, how the police functioned. Particularly, I think that the first intervention was after I saw what happened with the traffic wardens. They were not highly trained, and because they were trying to control traffic, the mini-bus drivers and conductors were very hostile to them. When I saw how they responded, I said something needs to be done. So I spoke to the Commissioner of Police and asked whether I could meet with them. I think that was the beginning. So I started doing-I did sessions with them; I met with the traffic officers, and that's where I learned some of the challenges that they faced. So it is not always that the police are not doing anything; they encounter a lot of obstacles. One of the examples that they gave was when they had a campaign against music boxes in the vehicles, and they would pull in a vehicle, then they would get a call from somebody saying to release that vehicle. So that made it very frustrating for them. In 1992, while I was coordinator of CAFRA, the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action, the organization regionally decided that it wanted to encourage the individual member countries to introduce women's rights campaigns, focusing on domestic violence. So we launched that on November 25, 1992, and organized workshops, four workshops. One of the workshops was actually within the police force. So we did that, that first workshop, it was a one-day workshop on domestic violence. The police force did join the campaign, which meant that we had an entry into the organization. The other workshops as well had representatives from the police participating in three other parts of the country. So really, it was because of a concern of what was happening. I felt that we complain a lot about things, but we don't do anything about it and I wanted to do something about it. That's from 1992, and I'm still trying to do something about it. [End of Tape 1] SCHER: This is part two of the interview with Ms. Jackson. I'm sorry, you were talking about your initial involvement on domestic violence and the GPF, and you said because of what was happening. What were the types of observations you made that confirmed your desire to try and do something about it and get involved? JACKSON: What I found is that the attitude and the approach of the police-they did not encourage support. They were very confrontational, as well as the response of the citizens. The members of the public were also not appreciative of the efforts of the police. I think that by then, the society was one that was in disorder. We had lost a lot of the restraint and respect. There was a time when anybody on the street could speak to anybody, particularly children, to correct them, their behavior. Then we got to the point where if you spoke to somebody on the street, they could abuse you. I think that that has affected how people respond with each other. So the sense of authority of the police was not there anymore. The image of the police was already tarnished at that time. SCHER: This is in 1992? JACKSON: Yes, 1992. SCHER: To what would you attribute this tarnishing of the image of the police? JACKSON: The country went through a difficult period when there was lots of hostility. Then we went through the period of socialism and foods were banned and people began to scramble and there was migration. I think that migration has really made a big difference here because there are, a certain strata of the society has migrated, and therefore, those who uphold standards were not there. People became very outward-looking in terms of whether they would migrate, or they began to expect things coming in from people overseas. You know, remittances, in a big way. When you think about it, if you have persons in the organization who come from a society that is dysfunctional, that dysfunction is part of the society as well, of the organization as well. There was a time when members of the police force came in as cadets who had gone to senior secondary schools, so they came in with a certain educational background, a certain standard. Right now, for the longest while, people were going into the police force with very low levels of literacy. The qualifications were dropped. I think that now they're beginning to attract more people who have passed the secondary examination, which is done by the Caribbean Examinations Council. There are some people as well who are coming in already enrolled at the University of Guyana. So there are a few of those persons who are now coming in again. But there was a period of time where the persons who may have gone into the organization in the 1970s would look for something else to do, because the organization itself was not attractive. Policing ceased to be attractive. Their wages and conditions of work are woeful; they still are. So some people may see this organization as an employer. It is not about commitment and service, but it is a job for some of the recruits. It's just a job. SCHER: I see. And your involvement is specifically with domestic violence training? JACKSON: What has happened with that-I started off-well, I was doing a number of things: I've done work in courtesy because that was one of the things I did with the traffic wardens. The work that I did with domestic violence, apart from doing workshops with them, in 1999, there was a project funded by the Gender Equity Fund that was supported by the Canadian International Development Agency, where we trained trainers to deliver the course. I think the training was done over two weeks, doing both methodology as well as content. Those trainers were then asked to deliver courses in the different divisions. That was actually before, I can get the date for you, the first one. What we found is that because we had just given them content and we had no structure to the training, there was no consistency in the training. So the second project, I'm right, it was 1999 the first one. In 2000, there was a regional project as well that was funded by DFID (Department for International Development), IDB (Inter-American Development Bank). It involved the Caribbean Development Bank as well, and that was implemented by the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action at the base in Trinidad. So what you had, you had two sets of people, because some of those who were trained first actually went on to be trained again, but you had additional people being trained in Trinidad. For me, one of the problems with an approach like that is that if the organizations, the police force, the police service, is not an integral part of the planning, then it becomes just as if somebody else is saying that you should do this. So that even though they were asked to nominate people and people were trained, when they came back, there was no demonstration of commitment required. So it was up to the organization to decide how it would use the persons who had been trained. So what happened for the second project, and that was negotiated in 2004. What happened there is the police were involved in the planning of the project. It took longer to get off the ground, but then it became theirs. I refused to do certain things. I refused to do certain things because I kept saying to them it's not my project. I will work with you to help get the project off the ground. We were able to start that process in 2004 and approval came in 2005. We realized that it was not enough to do training, so a fuller project was developed, one where policy and procedures are articulated. So there is actually a policy on domestic violence. There are procedures for dealing with the public. The team of police who drafted, did the drafting of those documents also prepared a document for dealing with reports against the police, but the administration did not accept that. They said that they would use the Police Act; they would apply the Police Act. They didn't think it was necessary. I'm hoping that over time, they will realize that they need to have those special procedures. They also prepared procedures for child abuse. So they've got those documents. Now it is fine to have the policy and to set the framework, but the next step is to implement all of this. So the training of trainers was done. Again some of those, three of those who were trained in the first course and also trained in the regional course worked along with me as master trainers. So they did some of the training as well. While in the first course I did most of the training, working with some persons from non-governmental organizations, in this one the trainers, the police trainers themselves, did a lot of that training, and I worked along with them. The idea was that it is theirs, they must take ownership for it, they must have an investment in it. The way in which the training was done was to-the training was on again methodology, but then there is an 8-module course that should be given to everybody in the organization. The way we did it was we introduced two modules, I think, two or three modules. We did some modules, and then they went into the field to practice. We didn't give them the whole course. So they did some, come back, we'd sit and talk about what the challenges were. We'd do another set of content, go back out. So we did it in three phases. So the new trainers were actually practicing and getting feedback and building confidence. As far as possible, we worked with the same group of people for the three phases. Since then, we've met and revised the manual based on the experiences in the field. That needs to be finalized and then printed so that the trainers will have their manuals and the manuals for the trainees as well. In addition to training, and what we did as well was to issue a certificate which we hoped would help them to remember that they're making commitments. There is a certificate to say that they've completed the course, but there is also a pledge that they sign, and the intention was that everybody who participated in that course, there would be a record of them at the level of the division, so that the Commander should know at any point in time who were the persons who were trained, and you could hold them accountable for their behavior. That's the intention. In addition to the training, they've developed a poster, which has the steps to be taken, and the poster should be in every station, so if someone comes into the station, they should know what should be done and should say to the police if they're not doing it, but it says this is what should be done. There was also a link with the Ottawa police. So the Ottawa police sent a team of three here in 2006, and a team of three visited Ottawa as well, to look at their systems. They actually learned some things from their visit here because their training actually starts with an examination of self, which they did not do before. So when they returned to Ottawa, they were doing a course on elder abuse and they introduced that. It is important to have people engage in self-examination if they're going to respond to reports of domestic violence. It is important to know who are survivors of abuse among the police. It is important to know who are the perpetrators. During the training, people self-disclose, which is really very powerful. Therefore, they're talking about their own life experiences and what their own expectations are, so that they have a better sense of how to relate with the public, so that they don't have to hide anymore. They don't have to pretend that everything is fine; they can do that. So the whole element of self-examination is really very critical. Because you don't want to ask people to act on a policy when they're hurting. SCHER: It sounds to me like you've had quite amazing level of access to the police and quite a lot of support for this type of training. JACKSON: Yes. SCHER: I was wondering how you went about getting the police on board. JACKSON: When I started, I worked with a Ccommissioner who said, "Oh, yes, I'm all for this." But it wasn't easy. There were obstacles along the way. I just refused to give up. One of the important things is to find allies and try to come from different directions. So the first Commissioner of Police said, "Yes, we're on board." But getting-and this was at the stage of just doing the one-off courses, because I think it might have even started with the half-day session. Then it moved to a one-day session. Then the trainees themselves started asking for more. So eventually, it was moved to a two-day session. I don't know that they ever really institutionalized a three-day course. But I think as people began to understand the importance of examining domestic violence, just from the perspective of the dynamics, more than how to respond as police, their interest was peaked. The second Commissioner of Police was not receptive. At that time, the Commonwealth Secretariat had prepared a manual on training of police, and we had that manual. But the receptivity was low. I think I would actually say there was hostility to the initiative. But I just decided I wasn't going away. What I had to do was to work with the college, work with people in the college to see how much they would allow to happen. The third Commissioner of Police was the most receptive. It is under his watch that a lot of the institutionalization took place. But even then, I still had to be there. I had to ask questions, I had to write letters, I had to call. I had to go to the office and sit down. I think one of the critical points was when the person I worked most closely with at the level of administration read the booklet of case studies. That is one of the things that has been prepared, a booklet of case studies written by the police. He read that booklet of case studies, and that's when it hit home to him that this was really serious. I also tried to encourage them with the second project to take responsibility for the funding, rather than having it reside at the Ministry of Home Affairs or the Ministry of Finance. So they knew what was happening. But then I also had to be behind them. It's not where you can hand it over. I had to go into the Finance Department and sit with the person; I just had to do that all the time. Having training, do we have the materials, can you get the list, let me look at the list. But there was enthusiasm. I think what was happening is that the organization doesn't function that way. I was trying to help them to see that they can actually make changes at the level of the college or whichever unit it is. We can take responsibility, but it is so hierarchical, people are so afraid to show initiative that-because of what can happen. They can be called to book if they do something that does not meet favor. If you have somebody in charge who is a micromanager, then it stymies creativity, it stymies the demonstration of initiative. During the training, the rolling out of the training by the trainee trainers, the three master trainers and I actually went to the field with them so that they had the opportunity to get feedback. They weren't sent out there. In the first instance, they just went out for training and we did no monitoring, and monitoring is particularly critical if you're training trainers, as well as when you want to see what happens in terms of implementation. The college came to the point of ensuring that all recruits completed the course. Of course, that didn't happen just like that, but they now try to ensure that all recruits complete the course. Depending on who was in charge, you may have some shortcuts, you may have-. Another thing that was done was the establishment of a training database, because I felt it was necessary to know who had been trained, when they had been trained. If persons missed modules, they must have an opportunity to come back and finish those modules. So that training database is there, but it is not operating the way that it really should. So that is still a challenge, because even though it is set up as a training database for domestic violence, it could be used, expanded to include all of the training that is taking place. I say to them, you must be able to pull up a transcript for any member of the force at any point in time, so that you are in control of what is happening. But the changes come slowly, but they're coming, they're coming. There are people in the public who are recognizing that there are changes in behavior when it comes to responding to domestic violence. Of course you still have lots of complaints and the number of murders of women by their partners, in this area you have had quite a spate of them, that's what is emblazoned in the newspaper, that's what is on television. We haven't nationally really examined the fact that by the time the police are involved, the problem existed. There are people like family members, like neighbors, like religious leaders, who hear about the problem who can do something about it. But everybody expects the police to fix the problem when the problem existed before. SCHER: I see. I have a number of questions I'd like to ask. You say that now, depending on who is in charge, almost all recruits will go through this training. JACKSON: Yes. SCHER: So how many people in the force do you think have been trained or have been exposed to this training so far? JACKSON: I can't pluck a number out, but I can get that data for you. SCHER: Sure, just out of interest. JACKSON: Maybe one third of the organization have done? Yes, maybe one third have done the eight module course, but many others have had exposure because they were doing other things. They are actually supposed to-they do something called instruction classes at the level of the station and domestic violence is one of the issues, but it depends on who is in charge. It really depends on who is in charge what happens. SCHER: I can imagine that targeting incoming recruits is probably the easiest way of exposing police officers to this type of training, but what about people who have been in the force a longer time, at middle ranks and even the upper ranks? JACKSON: What has been recommended is that when they do their upgrading courses, if the course is two weeks long, they should add a week to do domestic violence. SCHER: Really? JACKSON: Yes, so that's been done for some of the courses. It happens consistently if I am there saying what is going on, who is coming in. In addition to working on domestic violence, I do sessions on self-examination and the tendency is that once they have a course, they call me in to take the first day on self-examination. So I would say, "How long are they going to be here? Have you scheduled that week?" SCHER: Okay. JACKSON: This year they had about four courses and I said to them, "Have you scheduled the course?" "No, we haven't done it, but we're going to bring people in to do a session or two." When I ask the people, they haven't done the course, but they're assuming that by now they have already done it. Because what was also happening is after the trainers were trained, they were going back to their divisions and that was the idea. Because you have trainers from every division, they should be doing training within their division on an ongoing basis. So you're getting people who were trained years ago and have no exposure doing that. So it is not only with the recruits, but training should be done on an ongoing basis. Now it occurred to me that, I think it was in 2002 or 2003, I did two courses with senior officers but most of them have retired. So the senior officers now, including the Commissioner have not done the course. I think it is a problem, because you have the junior persons who have done it and they want to act on it, and those who are supervising them are not steeped in the material, and they don't know the policy. They may have seen the policy, but not really examined it and understood why and what should be done. SCHER: So we've touched a little bit on this, but would you mind talking a little bit more about what is contained within the eight modules, what are the focus areas and also where you have developed this material from? JACKSON: Okay, good. The first module is on the policy, so there is discussion about this is what the organization says needs to be done. They question that in terms of how realistic it is and what do we need to do to make it work. The second module is about domestic violence, what it is, types and forms, the dynamics, the cycle of violence. They look at things like the costs. The third module I think looks at-I'll just talk about what the content is, not necessarily by module. SCHER: Sure. JACKSON: Then they look at the effects of violence on children, the whole issue of entrapment, the cycle of violence, the Domestic Violence Act and then they go through the procedures that they should follow. They look at networking with-which are the agencies that they can work with. When the trainers were doing this module, they actually went out to agencies. Some of them went to Help and Shelter which is an organization that does counseling and has a shelter. Some went to Red Thread which is another organization, some went to the media to build alliances and some went to the Women's Affairs Bureau. So the idea is that you're not doing this thing alone. You need to build relationships. You need to know who you can contact, and these agencies need to know who they can contact within the police force. Then they do child abuse. That particular module is a very heavy module because they do child abuse, elder abuse, sexual harassment and sexual abuse. Because there's no course on that, so we figured that we would put it in there. It is important for them to look at how to respond, what it is all about, how to respond when dealing with that. We also do interviewing techniques and safety planning, and they look at record-keeping because they're supposed to keep a domestic violence book at each station, so they do record-keeping and reporting because each station, each division, is supposed to submit its statistics on a regular basis. That's one of the challenges that some of them are not doing it. Some of them are not doing it properly. Hopefully with the training that will be improved so that you can have more accurate statistics. Now the material, for the first course, we worked with an adaptation from the Ontario Police College, their manual. At one point there was a volunteer from Canada who came to work for the police looking at domestic violence. She brought the Ontario manual. So that was adapted by a group of persons from the NGO community. I further adapted that when I worked with them. The second course, we used that material as well as material from the regional course and other material that we downloaded, that we accessed from different agencies, because there's a whole lot of training material online, and we sort of tapped into that. SCHER: One of the elements that you mentioned, which is before these modules, is self-examination. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that because it sounds like something that must be quite difficult to get people to do, especially if people are used to a more pedagogical approach to training and to having to not only participate, but expose themselves in some sort of way. JACKSON: Well, the kinds of things that we do because it is an integral part of the course, and the trainers are doing it as well. For instance, an activity that we might do is ask people to draw a plant, a flower, an animal that represents a positive side of them. Then we do the same for a negative side of them. Then you start off with "I can't draw." Then I would talk about the fact that we put limits on ourselves by saying that we can't, and we need to try, because we don't really know the limits of our capabilities if we start off by saying we can't do that. So it's fun. It breaks the ice, it's fun. So people look over at each other, what are you drawing, what are you doing. Then you begin to process that. I think it is because of my background in psychology that I want to do this kind of thing, and I think it has made me very critical. So then you ask why did you choose that, what is it, what does it mean? Then if you see that there is something underlying, particularly with a negative, then you move through to get them to go a little deeper in terms of what is happening. So people begin to talk about anger. They talk about anger; they talk about not feeling good about themselves. This year I've had some very different kinds of responses from people. They talked about, one guy talked about swearing. He doesn't like it about himself but he does it. Unfortunately that has become a norm in Guyana; people are just using expletives as part of normal conversation. He said he sees that as being macho. So I said, "How could that make you macho, isn't it denigrating yourself to do it?" We were having an open discussion about this. So it is breaking down the barriers. It is helping people to examine what is going on. There was one woman who said, "I'm doing everything right, and I'm still not losing weight." She said, "I'm doing everything right." So I talked a little bit with her and then continued the discussion, and all of a sudden, she rushed up to me, backing the class and she said, "I never knew my father until I was 26, could that be it?" and she just burst into tears. In these sessions there are lots of tears. SCHER: Really? JACKSON: Oh yes. They are unburdening. They're going places they've never been before. To me that is humanizing. Particularly with the police. When they are dealing with the stresses of what I would call abusive supervisors, you're dealing with stress. Not earning enough so you're not sure whether you're going to be able to meet the needs of the family. You're dealing with maybe stressful personal relations. You don't need all of those things bottled up inside of you. You don't need them, you need to be able to offload these things. So a lot of people have residual things from childhood. I say a lot of people, I think all of us have residual things from childhood that we don't really confront. So in one group, one of the activities that I do is I ask them to close their eyes and go back as far as they can in their childhood. There was this one guy, he was an officer who looked absolutely sad. He said, "My brother and I have not spoken to each other since childhood," for whatever reason. When I went back the next week, he reported that he was going to his brother. His brother was working on building a house. He went to him. His brother said, "What are you doing here?" They were able to mend that. For me that is so rewarding, absolutely rewarding, to help people to unburden. Because if you don't talk about these things or do something about it, it stays inside and it could affect your health, affect your performance on the job, affect your relationships at home. Coming out of particularly this year's sessions, it has led me to want to do work with couples, because I feel that if you've worked with individuals and the individual is beginning to see life a little differently, but goes back into that same environment, then there could be additional stressors. That's where you could have domestic violence by members of the organization occur. SCHER: Actually calling this training doesn't capture at all what you're involved with. It sounds like a much bigger exercise, it is part therapy session in many ways. And indeed, many of the skills you're giving people from these modules are transferable to other aspects of their work. JACKSON: Yes. SCHER: Even talking about things like record-keeping. Was that a conscious decision to try and make this program more than just a focus session on domestic violence and to give people a whole array of skills? JACKSON: Well the thing is that the record-keeping on domestic violence is critical because you need that to plan. If you don't know what is happening in terms of-first of all, if you do not record the reports properly, then you really don't know what impact you have. You don't know how to schedule people. If you have investigations, if you have the records, you know what investigations you need to do. You know when the court cases are; you have to go follow up those things. It's trying to get the whole picture together; they're not there yet. But at least the foundation is there because it's not-. I think what happens is that things are done in discreet manner, but what I would like them to do is to see it holistically. That's why the networking is critical as well, because policing is not-I mean, dealing with domestic violence is not only about the police. It is not only about the police. One of the areas that I am particularly interested in now is what is happening at the level of the prisons, because as more people go to prison for domestic violence matters, the prisons will need to be able to deal with that. If not, they'll end up with the police again. I have a sense as if the bigger arena of addressing domestic violence is not addressing this whole thing. I thing we're still focusing on the police doing what it is they have to do and not enough is on the prevention side of it. Not enough on trying to find solutions to all of this. What does culture have to do with this? What does religion have to do with this? Just to give an example, I was involved on a management committee of a community-based project and workshop for religious leaders. There was a young pandit, that is a Hindu person; he was 19. He was totally horrified when he heard our discussions. The video that we showed, the whole video was shown, and he was so shaken. But what he did was he went back to the Temple, and there was a function and he reported on the workshop, and he also pointed out to them that they were there, the celebration they were there for was to honor goddesses. He said we cannot be honoring goddesses without thinking of those goddesses as our mothers, our sisters, our aunts, and we are abusing them. So he has now started to do work on that. So if you can get more of that, then you can bring the police in to talk about what they know. Bring them in as real partners rather than only calling them when there is a problem or going to them when there is a problem. As was mentioned, in so many instances, a report is made and then the complainant comes and says, "I don't want anything done, just give him a warning." That doesn't solve the problem. It creates frustration for the police and probably makes the woman more vulnerable because she actually went to the police. SCHER: I see. I'd like to if I may pull the conversation back a little to something you mentioned earlier in terms of the modifications you've made to the training as it went along. I just wanted to clarify that a little bit. You said in the first phase, you had mainly workshops and in the second-please correct me if I'm misunderstanding. In the second phase, you tried to focus more on skill development and-would you walk me through the process again, I clearly haven't quite grasped it. JACKSON: In the first phase, we did the content, but it was left up to the trainers to decide what content they would do. Then the second, there is this eight-module course and it is that everybody must do every module so there is a common understanding, there is a common curriculum that is followed. They may not be on the same page, but they're there in the same arena. Because one of the things we find is that some people say, "No, I'm not going to do that, I don't agree with this." Or there are people who will say, "No, no, no, I'm not arresting the man under these conditions." I think it is something that we need to look at because if you arrest every person against whom a report is made, in some areas, where are you going to put them? What program is there to deal with them? That's why I think the preventative work is so critical. Getting people within the communities who can provide support when there is a problem, dealing with the conflict when it arises, rather than waiting until it escalates to the point where somebody is going to blow up. From one of the courses and talking with one of the ranks, it became clear to me that conversation is so important, helping people to develop the skills of communication, and you don't sit down and bottle these things up. Or you don't go home from work frustrated by-you're on a patrol and people were abusive to you, and then you go home and you're abusive to your family. They've done you nothing. Then if, in the case of a woman, the woman wants to make a report. Who does she make the report to? Will the police listen to her? Often they don't. If the perpetrator is a police, often they don't. SCHER: I have a few sort of more technical questions about how the course was administered. Firstly, you mentioned I think that the four initial workshops you had were held in different parts of the country, was that correct? JACKSON: Yes. SCHER: Some of the earlier work you did. JACKSON: Yes. SCHER: How were those locations chosen? JACKSON: We did them, one was at the college. We did them-one was in New Amsterdam which is to the east. There is a town there. One was in Linden which is going south, and then we did one over West Demerara. So it had to do with accessibility for one thing. Sure there's lots of abuse in Essequibo, but we could not for a one-day workshop do that. It was easier to organize those four. We didn't want to center them in Georgetown; we wanted to take them out. SCHER: And today the training is done mainly at the police college? JACKSON: For the police, the training is done, the recruits are trained at the college, and the ideal is for any course that they run at the college because they do upgrading courses and other courses. Right now, they've got a prosecutor's course, and so I said to them, the prosecutors have to do it. They're not going to think that the prosecutors need to do it; it's a one-year course. I said the prosecutors need to do it. So it is now in their consciousness that they have to factor that in. But because there are trainers trained for every division, training should also be done in the divisions. So it is not-that's to take care of the persons who were not covered at the level of recruit and the persons who were already in the system. What still needs to be done are the senior officers, and they would need to be done centrally. SCHER: Have you tailored the course or considered tailoring the course for different regions of the country or for different divisions or is it standardized? JACKSON: No, it is a standard course, but what we recognize is that for the hinterland, there has to be a different approach. The course, everybody needs to do the course; it doesn't matter where you are, but for the hinterland they also need to look at particular-and they're not going to come up with it on their own-but they have to be helped to look at how to deal with it. But what is good at the moment is that one of the master trainers, as a matter of fact, the best trainer and the most committed trainer is now in the interior. So he is doing work. What will have to happen is that he needs to document that and make recommendations on how to approach it. Because shortly after he went to Lethem, he did some work in a church. I think he has that visibility in the community now because speaking with him, he said a couple had come in to him and he was able to talk with them and also to point out to the man that he would have to charge him. But because he is there, he is becoming a part of the community. For me that is where-you're part of the community rather than the police in the community. The police need to be part of that community and therefore people are referring others to him. Now if he had-if you had another level of actor who was trained and could be doing the conflict management stuff, then some things would not need to come to the police, or the police can come in as a resource for the community. So the thing is in Lethem, I don't even know how often they have court. So if you're going to charge somebody, it doesn't make sense to be charging people, and you can't hold them. So you really have to look at a different strategy. We've talked about it in the wider community about what can happen. I think that his location in Lethem now would present great opportunity to see what can work, because he is also doing training. Not the formal training, but he is also doing work with them and pointing out, hands-on, in a situation like this, this is what you do. SCHER: If you wouldn't mind, could you tell me a little bit about what different approach would be required in the hinterland and what are the factors that would require the course to be modified slightly? JACKSON: For one thing, you don't have-they don't have access to the police as readily as on the coast. The stations are very distant. They don't have magistrates' courts to process these cases. Therefore there is need to spend time understanding the culture of the environment for one thing; understanding the political systems. It is not the big "P," but the small "p," political systems that exist. In the Amerindian communities you have toshoas (village leaders) who are in charge. You need to get them on board. Some of them may themselves be perpetrators. So you have to find a way to work with that. I think that it will be important for them, because some of the police are themselves Amerindian, and we have that experience; we've gone into Lethem some years ago and done a session at the station. The police said, "Well, I'm not going to do anything about this, this is our culture." So it is getting them to confront that and to understand that we're talking about human beings and human rights and that there are different ways of relating with people and solving problems. So it really is important to imbed in the community an understanding of relationships and problem solving and conflict resolution and all of those things because sometimes the police just are not there, they're not accessible. They may be called when there is a death, and that's not what you want. So they have to play a different role, a role of educator, a role of conciliator, a role of maybe counselor. They may have to do those things in that environment. And find out who your allies are, who are the persons who you can then train, use and help them to come up with their own systems as well based on their culture, because some cultural things just are not going to change. But I think the role of the police is going to be more proactive in terms of helping the communities come to terms with what they need and what they can do. SCHER: I see. Have you been able at all to measure the impact of the training or the difference in behavior that the training has brought about? JACKSON: We haven't done that. It is all anecdotal, because, for instance, one of the counselors at Help and Shelter, she would be able to tell you what kinds of links they've been able to establish with whom. There are certain people you go to if you want information or you want some kind of action taken. I remember one time she was saying that the police are also calling. I got a call from Lethem, the police at Lethem asking me what to do. So there is more of that kind of interaction. SCHER: Which presumably would not have happened before. JACKSON: Oh no, there was a lot of hostility. For some people, they would see Help and Shelter as breaking up families rather than trying to help people work through situations. SCHER: I see. So when you think about these training programs that you are involved with, how well do you feel that they meet the objectives that you want them to? Are there cases where the training has performed better than you think and other cases where-? JACKSON: Oh yes, some of the trainers are better than others. Some, as a matter of fact, one of the trainers herself was not convinced of the training, and I think in the next round of training, attention needs to be paid to who is selected as a trainer, because I think what happened is that this one person, when the request came, she said she wanted to do it, but when she came to the training she was just-it was difficult to work with her, because she had her own views, and I don't know to what extent she herself had been abused. To me there were signs. So she was putting up a face, and she had difficulty dealing with some issues. I think in some cases, people were sent because the Commander said, "Oh, just let them go," rather than a commitment to having the best people. So I don't think people understand that for trainers, you want your best people, because what you're doing is affecting a whole lot of other people, and you want them to be using the best practices. But some people see sending people to training as punishment or-. SCHER: That was actually my next question, how you went about selecting the trainers. JACKSON: I did not select them. SCHER: The process of selecting trainers is-. JACKSON: I think what happened is, you know the usual process, you have this training coming up, select people to come to do the training. I think they need to move beyond that and to get people who are committed. As a matter of fact, I was asked at one point how were those two performing. Well, don't send me people who you are going to question how are they going to perform. I can take anybody and make them good trainers because the first thing is to treat them as people. When they're coming out of an environment that is as structured and hierarchial as this one is, you first of all have to build people's confidence. There are two trainers who came from one division who were so insecure; they were junior. One of the things that we did for the training is that domestic violence training should be done in civilian clothes, not in uniform. So you're not dealing with rank. Because some people will not talk if it is a senior officer and whatever else. What is also significant about what has been achieved is that you've got juniors training seniors. You've got sergeants who are trained as trainers, and they have been training assistant superintendents and superintendents, and that's unheard of before. SCHER: I see. So in terms of these trainers and just thinking about some of those who have performed very well, would you have any tips for people in a similar position who might want to be thinking about what types of trainers would have the best rapport and be the best able to convey the types of messages that you want them to. JACKSON: I think that in selecting trainers, it is useful to have persons at least, at least start off with persons who at least have a positive sense of themselves. Because when you have people who are insecure, you have to spend a lot of time working to build up their confidence. At one point, there was a trainer who was delivering a session. So what I would do is do the corrections as we go along, because by then we were down to the last training day or something like that. So they'd work with each other for-this was the third week of working with each other. She just had a meltdown. I had to take her aside and one of the other trainers had to carry on. You see, if you can process a lot of this stuff during that day on self, a lot of that comes up. SCHER: I see. JACKSON: But it is in terms of people who are respected as well. Don't choose people for punishment; don't send people for training to punish them; you want them out of your sight for the duration of the training period, because when they come back, they have a difficulty convincing that the training needs to take place. If the persons who are responsible for the division or the station or whatever it is, those persons also need to understand the value of the training. They must want it to happen because they want to have the best possible station or division or whatever it is. You don't want to be in charge of something where all you get are complaints. So you need to have people who are respected by their colleagues, people who have demonstrated some capacity to think as well. You know these organizations don't always reward people who can think. I had somebody say that one of his positives is that he can carry out instructions. So I said, "If somebody asked you to plant drugs on someone, would you do it." He was silent. He didn't say no. I think for him it is an instruction, and he would carry it out. So we had a big discussion because a number of them said, "no way." SCHER: Very interesting. JACKSON: There's lots of stuff. One of these days I will write about what I've learned from the police work. SCHER: We'd look forward to reading that. I have just a couple more questions if you don't mind, one of which is that a lot of the programs, training programs at least that the international likes and donors like, tend to be very expensive. You bring people out from overseas, and you have very intense training programs that end up costing a lot. I was wondering whether you could talk a little bit about cost-saving measures or things that can be done quite cheaply but have bigger fixes, if that question is not too broad. JACKSON: I think one of the things for developing countries is that we need to value the resources we have. There are people in country who can do lots of things, but we often look externally for particularly human resources. We also need to build on what we have. So you send somebody overseas for training, use them when they come back. Don't look for somebody else to bring in. Or even if somebody comes in, that person must work with somebody locally, so the next time around, even if you have to bring somebody in, the person isn't spending as long because the local person can do some of that on their own. We have to value-we also have to document, we're not very good at documenting. So we tend to be recreating things that have already been done before. We need to be documenting; we need to be producing our own materials as well. To me the booklet of case studies done by the police is just absolutely brilliant, because those are their stories, those are their experiences. The next step is to produce a booklet of model answers, so that everybody is on the same page and know which acts they can use in a situation like that. Because it is not only the Domestic Violence Act which you're going to use, it is the Summary Jurisdiction, whatever act, because the Domestic Violence Act is a civil law. What is the criminal law in this particular situation? Or, in a situation like this, we need to refer people to agencies such as this and that, because everybody will not know all of these things. So with your booklet of case studies, you have your booklet of model answers so it is consistent. And develop as much indigenous material as possible. I think that that produced the materials like the video tape on the survivors, women survivors of domestic violence. Use your examples. Use the media, use the media to get the word out; you're going to reach people. Use popular education. In the training as well, involve other agencies that are doing training because they may bring a different perspective to it. For instance, in preparing the materials for the 8-module manual, somebody from Help and Shelter did the bit on child abuse because they deal with child abuse, and then came and delivered that, trained the trainers to do it. One of the things, the training of the police, it started with people outside of the organization who worked with them. For me, part of the success is getting them to take it on, take responsibility and not always look externally for it to be done. It is one of the things I keep trying to encourage, particularly Help and Shelter, to give support to the police, don't go in and do it for them. You have your objectives, but you also have to help them to believe that they can do it and give them that support. You don't want to be looking over their shoulders. You want them to get to the point where they are doing their own monitoring. Monitoring by others can still be done. It takes longer, but it is more likely to be sustained. SCHER: I'd like to thank you very much for talking to me about all the very important work you're engaged in. It is really quite amazing what you have been able to achieve. Before we end it, I wanted to give you the opportunity to share any other thoughts or reflections that I might not have given you the opportunity to talk about already. If there is anything else you'd like to add. JACKSON: I just want to say a little more about the self-examination work, because I think it is particularly important generally, but within the police force, I found it to be really very powerful in helping people to be better people, and it has an impact on families. So I say that if in every group I meet one, it has an impact on one person, and that person can see it ripple out, I will be satisfied. I know that it has a wider impact. A number of people within any group benefits from that session. This year, it has been people talking about their addiction to alcohol, their addiction to cigarettes and wanting to change. An organization like the police force needs to have a facility whether internal or with links outside to help them to deal with these things. One person said, "At the end of the day I deal with my stress by drinking." I said, "Is that what you want to do? Is that the person you want to be?" So even by just putting those questions to them, it helps them to examine where they are and what they want to do. I think that the self-examination is just absolutely critical, absolutely critical. With one group of trainees, because I see some of them individually, the college would call me and say, "Look, we'd like you to see this person," I decided with this one group to ask them to write about their mothers, because so many of them had issues around their mothers. There were some of them who were putting up this face of being this tough person, but when it came down to writing about the mother, the pain was just flowing through. For me, you need to deal with that if you want to go out and help these people to serve and protect the citizens of the country. You have to take care of their needs. You have to help them deal with their pain. I think it is something that an organization like the police force-you can't say, okay, this is what the society sent me, and I am going to train them to use weapons. Who are they going to use those weapons on? How many of them are going to use the weapons on themselves or on their families because of the trauma in their own lives. So I think it really is extremely important. SCHER: Well on that very important note, I think we'll end. I'd like to thank you again. JACKSON: You're most welcome. Innovations for Successful Societies Series: Policing Oral History Program Interview number: S-6 ______________________________________________________________________ 16 Use of this transcript is governed by ISS Terms of Use, available at www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties Use of this transcript is governed by ISS Terms of Use, available at www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties