This Is Crude, Unacceptable

The story of Simon Deffour, as captured in yesterday�s edition of this paper, if indeed it reflects the reality of what happened, is appalling. He is reported to have been the victim of police brutality in Ho, the Volta Regional capital. We are saddened that such a thing could happen in a democratic Ghana. Be that as it may, the Police Administration under the IGP, Mr. Mohammed Alhassan, we trust, would delve into the matter with a view to coming out with the truth about what happened. We recognize the many efforts the Police Administration is making to change the image of the law enforcement agency and therefore find it unacceptable that some bad nuts in the Service would take the law into their own hands and mete out such brutality on a fellow citizen. We would like to call on the Police Administration to find a way of including, if such is already not the case, human rights lessons in the curriculum at the various police training schools across the country. We are aware about the pains the Administration is taking in the training of recruits at the training schools and wish to add that there is still room for improvement. We, for instance, would like to add that there is the need to have the recruits understand better, the essence of policing beyond what is currently the case. When this is done, we think that the incidence of such brutalities would be reduced to the barest minimum. We are told that the brutality was meted out a few years ago. It is therefore surprising that after such a long time, the victim has continued to suffer in silence, as it were, even as the perpetrator of the crime walks freely in uniform, calling himself a police officer. We observe that there are many in this country who do not know where to turn to when they are maltreated by law enforcement agents and this we have pointed out time without number. While acknowledging the challenges of the dearth of funds for the police and other state agencies, we all the same plead that some money be made available by the law enforcement agency to educate Ghanaians about what to do when they are brutalized by the Police. The Police Intelligence and Professional Standards (PIPS) of the Ghana Police Service, which was set up to manage such challenges, is not known to many, let alone its location. It is our take that when such education is given to the public, these brutalities, when they take place, would be promptly dealt with. Indeed when the Police know that the public know where to go when they are so treated, they would minimize such nonsense.