Caribbean Law & Order

If you get mugged in Tobago, the cop who shows up to arrest the perp might be a bobby.

With unprecedented levels of drug-related gang violence, kidnappings and murders threatening to soil the English-speaking Caribbean's idyllic image, an increasing number of governments around the region is desperately turning to British and other foreign police officers for assistance.

"We need help," St. Lucia Acting Police Commissioner Hermangild Francis told The Miami Herald. "Without it, we will be in trouble."

"There has to be more collaboration," said Lance Selman, director of the Caribbean Community's regional Implementation Agency for Crime and Security. "We are still much more peaceful than most of the other regions [of the world], but the fact of the matter is, the situation has changed, value systems have changed."

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But not everyone is greeting the bobbies with open arms.

Some argue that the former British colonies should cut the umbilical cord with Mother England, while others say the answer to crime isn't recruiting foreign officers but investing in better training, equipment and salaries for local police.

Last month, more than 2,000 rank-and-file Jamaican police officers working in some of the most volatile communities called in sick to protest poor pay.

In Trinidad and Tobago, the police union has raised similar concerns while lashing out at the government's decision earlier this year to recruit 39 police officers from across the United Kingdom to boost the twin-island nation's homicide and anti-kidnapping unit. The country's murder rate has tripled since 2000.

"It basically sends the wrong signal... that the police of Trinidad and Tobago are incapable on their own of [dealing] with the crime situation," said Cedric Neptune, president of the Police Service and Social Welfare Association.

With all due respect to the constabulary on Trinidad and Tobago, let me remind Mr. Neptune that most of the islands in the Caribbean rely on tourism, and not a lot of tourists care about the nationality of the policeman who protect them.