The Royal Anguilla Police Force, was formed in February 1972 following the withdrawal of the London Metropolitan Police, originally comprised Anguillians only. Luckily for the small law enforcement body, several of the rank and file came with some training and experience from other Caribbean jurisdictions.

In the years preceding that, they had emerged from a period when the only qualifications to join the police force in the region were that the selected male persons had to be exceptionally robust and strong. Hardly any applicant then, in the various islands, possessed a Seventh Standard Certificate or had the ability to pass a simple entrance test. The years have not long gone in Anguilla when candidates for the force have had embarrassing examination results over which local examiners could only shake their heads in disappointment. Thankfully those days are hopefully behind us.

It was during the service of retired Commissioner of Police, Joseph Norris Payne, that some serious effort was made in Anguilla to upgrade the qualifications of recruits to the force. Persons like the present Commissioner, Keithly Benjamin, who is the first head of the force to become a Lawyer, and Desmond Vanterpool, who served for a period before going on to the United States, were two of the officers who met the required level of education for recruitment. Time has proved that, like any other profession, there is a growing need and urgency for men and women seeking to become police officers to have at least a good secondary education and the necessary prerequisites on which they can build a foundation of training and career development.
The lack of the required level of education, and consequently the inability of some officers to undergo and benefit from professional and academic training abroad, has been one of the drawbacks of the Royal Anguilla Police Force for many of the 36 years of its establishment. Low salary and certain prejudices have also been some of the contributing factors which have militated against attracting better qualified Anguillians to the force. In addition, there has been a feeling of a need to diversify the membership of the force by recruiting persons from other islands to ensure better policing in a tight-knit small community, but really not to the exclusion of suitably qualified, committed and interested Anguillians.

For too long there has been a reliance on police officers trained in certain disciplines of policing and law to beef up the force in Anguilla. It is becoming far too expensive and although we need them badly in these times of increasing crime, the British police officers, now serving on the island with the Anguilla Government having to bear the full brunt of the cost, and unfairly so, constitute an example of the problem of expense.

It is against this background that The Anguillian hails the advertisements from the Governor’s Office for the award of scholarships to suitably qualified Anguillians to pursue degrees in one of the following areas: criminology, document examination, fingerprinting and ballistics. This high level of professional training is now a must in Anguilla if we are to beat or come near to the sophistication of today’s criminals. It is an important step towards a more effective police force in Anguilla and certainly will change the face of policing on the island.

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