On Thursday
January 19, 2023 the Ministers of Justice of Aruba, Curacao and Sint Maarten, who met in Aruba in connection with the
Four-party Judicial Consultation also referred to as the JVO (Justitieel
Vierpartijen Overleg), were invited by the Board of Police Chiefs (College van
Korpschefs) of the Caribbean countries in the Kingdom for an extensive presentation
and discussion on the activities of the Board.The Board of Police Chiefs is a partnership between the police forces of Aruba,
Curacao, Sint Maarten, and the BES islands represented by their respective
Chiefs of Police and supported by the National Police of the Netherlands, in
which the forces closely collaborate on and discuss matters of common interest.
The Board is chaired by each of its members in turn under a rotating
Chairmanship. The current Chair is Chief of Police of Sint Maarten Mr. Carl
John.
During the
presentation and discussion, Minister Tjon, Minister Hato and Minister
Richardson were updated on the activities that have been carried out in recent
months at the request of the Board. These activities have yielded positive
results for the police forces. The activities have focused on Information
Cooperation between the countries and within the countries, whereby special
attention is placed amongst other things on improving analysis capacity in the forces
and increasing the effectiveness of working with information. In addition, the activities also place
much attention on General Education Programs for the police forces and how
these can be further developed in the region while also looking at organizing
specialized training programs to further professionalize the forces e.g. Leadership
development programs. This will be carried out in collaboration with the local
training institutes in Curacao and Aruba with the support of the Netherlands
Police Academy.
After informing the Ministers of Justice of the activities that have taken
place, the Board informed the Ministers of forthcoming projects. All three Ministers of Justice very much welcomed the opportunity
for this first meeting with the Board of Police Chiefs which they found to be
quite enlightening. Minister Richardson, supported by her colleague Ministers,
expressed the hope that this meeting would mark the beginning of a regular
discussion forum between the Ministers and Chiefs of Police to discuss common
matters of importance. At the meeting
with the Board of Police Chiefs, the Ministers of Justice were introduced to a
visiting delegation of the police force of the Republic of Surinam. On behalf
of their respective countries the Ministers of Justice conveyed the sincere
regards and best wishes for the new year to the people of Surinam.