“Encouraging!”
That’s the way the president of the Police Social Welfare Association Gideon Dickson viewed the large turnout of men, seeking to be recruited into the TT Police Service.
Thousands of men answered the call and showed up Friday for the recruitment drive at the St James Police Barracks and the Municipal Police Training Academy, Tagore Avenue, Marabella.
Dickson, in a Newsday interview, said the recruitment should help the TTPS to get from its current strength of approximately 6,500 officers to its required manpower figures of approximately 7,800.
He praised the men who applied and said the numbers spoke volumes about the TTPS and the population at large.
“It means that we are still doing something good and there are still civic-minded citizens out there wanting to contribute towards the scourge that happening in society right now. So something good happening somewhere.”
Dickson added, “The applicants, once they qualify to be in the police service then that means they are qualified to be elsewhere too and yet still they chose the police service. So it is an encouraging feeling.”
He addressed concerns that the majority of applicants cited job security rather than passion as the reason for applying.
Dickson said he believes the mindset of the police service being “just a job” will change as they move through the service.
“I understand a young person being in survival mode, being in a mode where they feel they need a job that has a level of security and this opportunity presents itself so they’re coming out from where they are to come to try to do it.”
“I am also mindful that that mindset for most would change when they enter the barracks as a trainee and are exposed to training and are subsequently placed in divisions, sections and branches. It is no longer a job and it ought not to be a job. It is a profession.”
He warned that those who entered the police service for the wrong reason will realise soon enough that their mindset is incorrect.