Bermuda has the third largest per capita police force in the world but several former Police officers say leadership failings in the past few years have put the criminals in the driving seat. Matthew Taylor reports.

New senior Police officers need to get a grip on their vast manpower and crack down on criminals say angry former officers.

With Bermuda now boasting 29 police personnel per square mile and an officer for every 142 Islanders they expressed frustration criminals were getting the upper hand in the third most densely Policed country in the world.

One Bermudian former senior Policeman, who like everyone in this story was interviewed prior to new Police Commissioner Mike DeSilva taking over, said: "You hear the Police saying they are going to take back the streets when?"

At his swearing in ceremony Mr. DeSilva pledged to empty the offices at Prospect to give reassurance to the public and relief to front-line officers.

Mr. DeSilva added: "We will take back our community one house at a time, one street at a time, one neighbourhood at a time."

Those sentiments are likely to be welcomed by former Bermuda Police officers who are frustrated resources have not been targeted better in recent years.

The former officer said: "People are doing what they like, wherever they want to whenever they want to – without any fear of Police. It stems right from the management."

The ex-officer said he didn't understand why there was the need for overtime given the high staffing levels with a budget for 477 uniformed officers plus 136 civilian staff, making a total of 613 people.

"The extra civilian staff were supposed to free up officers for community policing I don't see it taking place. Where are they?

"They might talk about it, start it, but there is no follow up. Police should be made to get out of their cars and go to certain neighbourhoods, knock on doors and introduce themselves.

"Now they are waiting for a major crime, then pleading for the public to come forward well they have to go to the public first. People take you in confidence and give information."

The former senior officer said he felt the rot started under former Commissioner Jean-Jacques Lemay and was never righted under leaders who had worked under him.

"People say Policing in Bermuda is difficult, it's as difficult as people want to make it.

"Thousands of people have had a successful career in it, you make more friends than you lose when you join a disciplined service."

The Bermudian former Policeman said the leadership needed to lead officers at football matches. "This is what leadership is all about you get stuck in yourself.

"You can't be successful working nine to five, you have to come out at all hours to make sure guys are doing what they are supposed to be doing."

And former Police Commissioner Colin Coxall said it was important that the Government and the Governor ensured their most senior officers have extensive off-island experience in major Police forces around the world which then equips them with abilities to run a Police force.

In England it is impossible to work your way up the ranks to the top in one location, said Mr. Coxall, as moving was part of the rules for those wanting top Police jobs, to help encourage applicants to get a wide range of experience and contacts.

Concerns are often raised about expat policemen not understanding the culture and Bermudian policemen being soft on relatives and friends.

But Mr Coxall said there had been excellent officers from both the local and overseas contingent.

"Providing they are properly led and properly controlled there are no problems.

"What they are really crying out for I found was leadership, someone they had confidence in, who knew what he was doing."

And a Bermudian former senior Policeman, speaking to The Royal Gazette on conditions of anonymity and before the appointment of Commissioner Michael DeSilva, said standards had slipped lamentably uniform codes had gone out the window, indicating a lack of pride.

Despite leaving the force many years ago he said people were forever stopping him in the street to tell him horror stories about policing. And he was also seeing it with his own eyes.

"You see Police racing down the street in patrol cars and bikes, overtaking recklessly, a quarter of a mile down the street they are sitting up, talking with their ace boys, putting on a show.

"You see them double parked, holding up traffic. Where is the discipline and pride and accountability?"

Some officers were in it for all the wrong reasons as an easy life with good money, said the source.

"These guys are getting paid handsomely for doing nothing. Some of them are making so much money in overtime, they are boasting about how much money they rake in. It seems they are mercenaries, more interested in the money than the job."

Despite this he said Police officers were moonlighting with taxis and water trucks and other hustles sometimes while claiming to be sick. "Policing is like a hobby, secondary.

"How can you give a full day's work when you are exhausted because you have been out driving for ten or 12 hours?"

Despite his criticisms, the former top Policeman had some sympathy with today's officers.

"Sometimes Police bust their backside to put a case together but the jury is finding the suspect not guilty before they have heard the second witness.

"Certain cases I think should not go to a jury but be dealt with by a panel of judges, some of these big narcotic cases."

Similar views were expressed by one retired expat policeman who joined in the mid-1970s.

He said Bermuda had some "very, very good Police officers." But he said acquiring proof and getting it on paper was their failing, not helped by a weak DPP's office so work should instead to be farmed out to better private practice lawyers.

The ex-officer said things started to go downhill when it became a Police service rather than Police force and officers had lacked a decent Commissioner for 20 years.

And he said guarding duties such as Government House security had turned a lot of officers off.

"It deadens your brain, officers came from overseas to do Police work, they get sent to Government House. They start to resent it and get an attitude which doesn't sit well with their supervisors and so they go back home."

The source also said there were too many women in the ranks and recalled one WPC who refused to patrol Dockyard because she was scared.

"You need Police to get more proactive and physical, like the old motorcycle section or Harold Moniz's marauders. So when criminals see them they think they had better watch it.

"But it's a society problem. There is no problem for people going to Westgate, they go out on a truck to go shopping at Christmas and you see them waving at everyone. There is no shame in it.

"What the hell do kid's look up to today?"

A fourth former Policeman, who also would only speak to The Royal Gazette on conditions of anonymity, said that reduction of crime was not a Bermuda Police Service strategy, only the management of crime.

"This is most readily evident in the haphazard tactical decisions made on a yearly basis including unit creation, personnel transfer and statistics management.

"The Service is guided by responding to highest priority matters as dictated by the Governor or Minister or front page of the newspaper and providing quantifying data that supports those decisions."

The former policeman, a Bermudian, added: "Thus the problem with the Police 'curbing' crime has nothing to do with the amount of officers but more so with the complete lack of systematic, structured application of resources to identified and quantified factors leading to crime.

"The Police must realise they have lost the war for the public trust and there is absolutely no point being coy, ambiguous or unclear about it anymore.

"The best place to murder someone in Bermuda is in front of a crowd of people, the war's over, Police lost."

The next step in the battle is to use more than words to reassure the people that the Police remain a legitimate social institution. But statistics and high-visibility policing are not going to cut it, said the ex-officer.

"I don't think a single person driving into work at 8.15 a.m. thinks that a dozen cops along East Broadway is a good idea given the amount of violent, drug-induced crime not occurring there."

"Inversely, the inevitable presence of gangsters at football games and the complete absence of Police, I'm sure goes a long way to telling the public the Police don't care or if they do care, their competence is certainly in doubt."

The only way for Police to regain the confidence of the people is for them to protect the people using more than traffic stops, quarterly statistics and random enforcement actions, said the source.

"I'd like to see the body of analysed information that lead to deploying a dozen cops at 8.15 a.m. to East Broadway, we know it's not accident statistics nor violent crime.

"It must be because that's where you can deploy the fewest amount of cops for the least amount of time and the most amount of people will see them.

"Intelligence-led policing means using resources to produce results. Visibility is not a result, it's a method."

Government is now pushing to get control of the Police from the Governor.

But our source said the notion that Government currently had no role to play in the deployment of Police was "a bold but a smart lie".

He added: "Certain politicians are frequently, more than weekly, briefed by the Police.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to imagine new orders, or maybe we should call them 'ideas' or 'recommendations', are issued subsequent to the briefings, be they written documents or verbal.

"How much the Government controls the Police is evident when, during a spike in crime, the Police budget is lowered yet the (former) Commissioner doesn't oppose it."

Police have chosen not to respond to concerns raised in this article.