National Security Ministry Fitzgerald Hinds said corrupt officers will soon be weeded out from the police service.
On Wednesday, he piloted the Miscellaneous Provisions (Testing and Identification) Bill 2022 in the House of Representatives.
The bill aims to allow heads of department in the protective and public services will soon be required drug-testing, polygraph-testing and submission of biometric data from officers under suspicion or undertaking sensitive roles.
Hinds said: “One of the problems we have is that there are too many criminals in the police service. And I would like to add to that correct statement, across the board, in all of the services that I have proposed for some amendments here today.
“We have to get rid of those because they put our lives in danger. The ones with integrity you keep, and the others we have to find them and get them out.”
“It is these techniques that will allow the PSB (Professional Standards Bureau) and the PCA (Police Complaints Authority) and the police to identify corrupt officers – as identified by her – and deal with them.”
“When these things happen, it raises alarm in the national community. People want answers.
“The investigators pursuing those answers are often limited because they cannot apply the best standards, the best practice, the best science, that exist in the world.
“I come to you today, Parliament, to gain your acquiescence to support the introduction of these techniques in order to assist investigators, to assist employers.”
He said the bill contained safeguards to protect the fundamental rights of the persons to ensure proportionality.
Hinds said that under current law, members of the protective services have to submit DNA samples to exclude them from suspicion at a crime scene.
He said the bill would only apply to officers with access to confidential, secret or top-secret information or if an officer was under a “reasonable suspicion” of an act of misconduct or a serious criminal offence or was involved in a serious incident involving death or serious injury.