How Fit Is Police’s HR Department?

How Fit Is Police’s HR Department?


For any police force to be effective in safeguarding the public, retaining public confidence is critical.

This is because the public are a key source of information, and their trust and cooperation are often key to Police.

IGP Kale Kayihura publically criticised his detectives that they lacked commitment and prosecution fails because of sloppy investigation.

A Social scientist often works with ideas that are more complex and have many aspects to them.

For example, take job satisfaction, if someone were to say they were satisfied with their job it might tell us something useful.

I would like to look at another aspect of the police service that might help to answer some questions.

The screening and the background checks process for the Police must be upgraded.

The quality and calibre of personnel joining the police force should be different from what we had in 1980s.

What we see today in terms of the quality of the service is representative of a failed HR police recruiting system, which has not been able select a professional and noble force to execute the duties of the force.

Apart from physical and mental capacity needed, the educational level is important, especially in the PR campaign to enhance the image of the police.

The service should be distinguished by noble young men and women who can discharge their duties without moral bias but based on the law and their role as enforcers of the law.

Our policemen and women of the 1980s wore nothing short of embarrassment and this is due to the quality of personnel, which can always go back to the quality of the screening and background process.

It is my hope as a Ugandan that the police establishment can become a professional organisation made up of enlightened men and women who wish to take on law enforcement as a career.

In my view, the Human Resources arm of the police department is critical at this juncture in terms of its contribution to national security and its relationship to investment and development, by way of selecting the appropriate personnel for the jobs of police officers.

In addition to a more refined screening and background checks process, the institution must think forward in terms of implementing professional courses to develop these men and women on an on-going basis.

There must be constant reinforcement, sensitizing, and appraisal in terms of new laws and bi-laws to keep them updated on the events affecting the country.

The police must be trained extensively to be able to discharge their duties in a manner that befits the country.

Let us first take a look at the HR department of the police force.

What is the capacity and to what extent is the department’s mission in line with the broader mission of the Uganda Police Service and the government at large?

It is only after a critical look at this department that we can understand some of our problems now, and how best to upgrade this important institution of civil society.

Richard Musaazi

@musaazi22

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