Sierra Leone Police Force

The art and science of policing have been perceived differently by different sociologists. This variance in perceptions has warranted various definitions. For some social theorists, the term `Police` connotes a group of people employed to investigate crime. Modern policing demands a broader definition. Hence, `Police` can now be defined as `an organised group of people employed, trained and charged with maintaining law and order.

The Sierra Leone Police Force is the brainchild of the British Government. Its inception dates back to 1808 when Freetown was declared a British Crown Colony. In the absence of any formal organised body to keep the peace, some retired British Non-Commissioned Officers and Privates were appointed by Magistrates to come to Sierra Leone to maintain law and order.

Between 1863 -1888, the then Police Force had metamorphosed in order to address the ugly incidents which were rearing their heads especially during the 1881 Koya and 1888 Sherbro disturbances. These disturbances led to the deployment of Police along the frontier. In 1889, therefore, the Police Force was divided – Military and Frontier duties were taken over by the Frontier Police, while Civilian duties were left with the Civilian Police. The Frontier Police subsequently became known as the Court Messenger Force, and were made responsible for the Protectorate while the Civilian Police were made responsible for the colony.

On the 27th October, 1894, in the Royal Gazette of that date, the Civilian Police in the Colony were given the designation `The Sierra Leone Police Force` – (SLPF), which has remained unchanged to this day. No real significant strides took place in the Force until C.H.Ward, (O.B.E.), Superintendent of Police from Nigeria, took over command of the Force as Commissioner of Police from Captain P.T.Brodie, (D.S.O.,M.C) in 1943. The strength of the Force was 300, including two (2) expatriates, the Commissioner and the Assistant Commissioner. Africans filled the rest of the ranks.

The serious civil disturbances led to the quick introduction of the RIOT SQUAD which was subsequently trained to contain further riots. Ward raised the strength to 600 and this created a welcome and overdue increase in promotion chances. For the first time, Africans were promoted to the rank of Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) and fleet of vehicles comprising cars, Lorries, motor cycles and bicycles were obtained.

The Special Security Division (SSD), effectively the paramilitary wing of the Sierra Leone Police (SLP) force, had prospered in almost inverse proportion to the conventional military. The preference given to the SSD, formerly the Internal Security Unit or ISU, was attributable to the personal insecurities of Siaka Stevens.

Once Siaka Stevens became Prime Minister in 1967 and the plans to unseat him failed, he began to rely more on the police than the military to protect him in undertaking his functions. A paramilitary wing was formed inside the police and gradually it became an instrument of tyranny and suppression. This was the start of the drift from [the police’s] traditional peace-keeping constitutional role to that of a fighting force and its subsequent failure to protect the people.

In 1970, in order to consolidate his power, President Siaka Probyn Stevens created another arm of the Sierra Leone Police Force known as Internal Security Unit (I.S.U.). The ISU later came to be known as the Special Security Division (SSD) – an armed unit mandated to quell riots and other related disturbances. However, before this time, the Sierra Leone Police Force had been playing a neutral role in the performance of their duties thereby gaining credit from the civil populace.

The intention of establishing a militia was first revealed by Prime Minister Stevens on April 4, 1971, in a public address in Freetown when he intimated that the creation of such a body was necessary because there was not enough money to maintain a large army. It was necessary for the general public to help in national defense, and young men and women would be given basic training to enable them to play a part in maintaining law and order.

Perhaps the most important special groups are the two internal security units, ISU-1 and ISU-2. All indications are that ISU-1 came into being in the early 1970s. After the abortive coup of 1971 Prime Minister Stevens concluded a defense pact with Guinea, as a result of which a Guinean force arrived in Sierra Leone to guard Stevens.

When the last of the Guinean troops withdrew in mid- 1973, they were replaced by Sierra Leoneans. The precise functions of the ISU-2 are not clear. They are known to guard important government installations, and they may also constitute the presidential guard. ISU-2 is probably, although there is some uncertainty about this, the body formerly referred to as the militia or the Active Security Unit.

Members of the militia formed at that point were initially trained by Cuban instructors who came to Sierra Leone from Guinea in 1971 or 1972. In the mid-1970s the militia reportedly had 550 men. It was well armed and politically loyal to the APC leadership but poorly disciplined and trained. It was not certain, however, whether operational control of this body was vested in the army or the police.

Politics started creeping into Police functions when Sierra Leone entered into Republican Status. Section 174 of the Sierra Leone Constitution of 1978 changed the traditional role of the Force by the appointment of the then Commissioner of Police, MR. P.C. KAETU-SMITH (1973 – 1979) as one of the seven (7) appointed Members of Parliament by the Executive President; thus politicising the role of the Police Force.

Many of the SSD’s functionaries had undergone advanced training abroad, notably in Guinea and in Cuba on state-sponsored programs in the 1970s. SSD officers were the enforcers of the will of the Government and were always on hand to perform specialist security tasks as a complement, or a substitute, to the RSLMF, as the Army was then known. Notably the SSD had made a decisive contribution to the quelling of the Ndorgboryosoi rebellion in the Pujehun District in 1982. The participation of the SSD in such operations invariably made the military acutely aware of its own inadequacies, but the poorly-funded and institutionally backward RSLMF could not aspire to even rudimentary improvements, far less parity in combat capacity with the SSD.

The predominance of the SSD over the military was a sign that the APC state had concentrated its resources on equipping itself to put down dissent and potential uprising domestically, including that which emanated from inside the Army. This preoccupation with internal security had a naturally debilitating effect on the RSLMF and in particular its readiness for an attack from outside the country.

In 1986, P.M.Johnson became the first Inspector General of Police. On the 1st of January, 1987, the Force was re-divisionalized into Police Divisions, each division being represented by letters ranging from `A` to `N` and each division commanded by a Chief Police Officer (CPO). These were further sub-divided into Police Districts and placed under the command of an Officer Commanding Districts (O/C) who may be a Deputy Superintendent of Police or Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP). The entire country was divided into fourteen (14) Divisions. The Western Area was divided into four Divisions, namely A, B, C and D Divisions. The Northern Province was also divided into four (4) Divisions namely E, F, G and H Divisions; Southern Province three (3) divisions – I, J. and K Divisions and Eastern Province, three (3) Divisions – L, M and N Divisions.

In 1987, James Bambay Kamara succeeded P.M.Johnson. In December, 1991, in a bid to redeem the good image of the Sierra Leone Police Force which had been seriously dented by politics, the British Government sent Mr. Keith Lewis, a retired British Superintendent of Police to restructure the Force. Series of Police courses were then introduced into the curriculum in order to enhance the force in policing a modern democratic society.

However, these invaluable training programs for Police were interrupted by the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) Coup of 29th April, 1992; during which, the then Inspector-General of Police, James Bambay Kamara, who had increasingly become unpopular, was executed. This political interregnum by the NPRC Junta saw the manipulation of the Police by the Junta. Thus Police was caught in a dilemma; trying to maintain its role to its people and at the same time satisfying the Junta. Police then became a `Force in Crisis`; until the emergence of the democratically elected Government of Dr. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah in 1996.

All through the Military Regime of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council [AFRC], Kandeh Bangura took interim control of the Force; with the view to maintaining the structures of the Police intact. Mr. Kandeh Bangura served in that tentative capacity up to 1999 when Keith Biddle was appointed the Inspector General by the Government of Dr. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.

By this time, the public who regarded the Police as being corrupt completely lost confidence in the Force. The Government of Dr. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah therefore solicited the services of the British Government to help restructure the Sierra Leone Police Force. The British Government responded by sending a Team known as the Commonwealth Police Development Task Force (CPDTF) which was headed by Keith Biddle, who was later appointed Inspector General.

Under the dynamic leadership of the British born Inspector General of Police, the Sierra Leone Police Force gradually regained the confidence of the public by the introduction of a Change Management Strategy` under what he called the `restructuring programme`. The purpose was to make the Force become `A Force for Good`.

In August 2010, Mr. Francis Alieu Munu and Mr. Richard Moigbe were appointed Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General of Police respectively. The management under Francis Alieu Munu has started effecting some administrative and operational changes in the Force.