Detectives are overworked

PANAMA. More criminal cases involving members of the defunct Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) occurred in 2006, the year of the National Police reorganization, than in any previous year. These scandals, which included cases of former police inspectors taking part in bank robberies and having links with drug trafficking gangs, tarnished the reputation of the National Police and led to an internal crisis. Eventually the killing of the Sensitive Crimes Unit chief, Franklin Brewster, at the hands of three of his colleagues shook the PTJ, obliging the authorities to speed up the reorganization process, and improve departmental operations and criminal investigations.

Last week La Estrella published an article saying that, since the approval of the law that created the Judicial Investigation Department (DIJ) and the Forensic Science Criminology Services (SEC) on December 2007, personnel are overworked, underpaid, infrequently promoted and are expected to do jobs that are not their responsibility.

In 2008 alone 122 inspectors resigned and, in the last five years, 700 detectives have abandoned their jobs. In order to fill these vacancies, the current DIJ director, Javier Carrillo, said that the National Police is now involved in criminal investigations, together with 456 former members of the Police Information and Investigation Department (DIIP) who formally worked on criminal cases or as lawyers. “We did not bring any amateurs who were going to learn on the job,” he said. All Police Academy recruits have to take a two month module in investigations but Carrillo acknowledged that there is a void between theory and practice although “the training strategies are taking care of that,” he said.

A DIJ member, who wanted to remain anonymous, said that the problem with the two month module is that when recruits leave the academy there is no follow up. When working a case, newly-graduated police officers need the advice of inspectors who end up taking the file away and doing the job themselves. “We have too much to do and on top of that we have to support our colleagues and it is deeply unfair,” the DIJ member said.