THE extension granted to facilitators of the recently concluded Criminal Investigation Department Induction Course was necessary to cater for more practical sessions and for ensuring that ranks who were part of the course did not graduate without proper training in certain matters.This is according to the Force Training Officer Senior Superintendent Paul Williams when approached by this publication on the reason for the extension of the course, which was initially intended to last six weeks.

According to Williams, while in the classroom it was observed that the participants showed a high level of commitment on the course and were very interactive and keen as demonstrated by their grilling of facilitators on certain subject and matters which investigators are often required to deal with.

Those included the Sexual Offences Act and domestic violence. The ranks were drawn from various police divisions and all received certification for successfully completing the first course of its kind for this year and more so over the past 11 months.

“It is very important for CID ranks to have trained properly, especially when dealing with issues such as the filing of case management and preparation of cases, since those are very important coupled with the very critical and important domestic violence and sexual offences investigations,” Williams added.

Williams was pleased to report that 31 persons had started the course,and all completed it. This he credited to the frank pep talks which were given to them by himself, the deputy crime chief and the crime chief at the commencement of the training. Additionally, there were no disciplinary infractions so there was no need to discipline anyone.

Williams told the Chronicle that what the administration of the force has been able to see was that the persons who were selected had demonstrated progress that the facilitators and organisers had envisaged, as he asserted that the right set of persons were chosen for the course. He said this was evident when one saw the high level of commitment that the group showed throughout the training exercise.

He opined that what may have contributed to the high performance of the course participants was the fact that they had been exposed to at least three and two years of general policing and dealing with members of the public before their shortlisting.(Leroy Smith)