Police officers must now follow a Code of Conduct.

This morning Commissioner of Police Michael DeSilva said the new Code of Conduct outlines 50 areas of behaviour the Police are expected to follow or refrain from.

“In January I published the Annual Policing Plan in which we identified the four areas that we would improve this year: people, partnerships, priorities and performance.

“In terms of the people component, our staff are critical to the mission of making Bermuda safer. We are committed to develop all our staff to achieve high standards of competency and performance. The benefit back to the Police comes in the form of public trust, confidence, cooperation and support.

“The content of the code is not new to the BPS; we have just codified the behaviours that are expected, or prohibited in some cases, both on- and off-duty.”

Most of the points in the code centre on the way people are treated. Training has already started to improve the way the Service handles calls from the public, an area which has consistently been criticised, he added.

For the full story read tomorrow’s Royal Gazette.