GHANA @51 SPECIAL PULL OUT (BRIEF HISTORY OF GHANA POLICE SERVICE)

06/03/2008

Story: Mary Mensah

Brief History of the Ghana Police Service
The Ghana Police Service is the main law enforcement agency in Ghana. It is organised at national level and is generally under the Inspector General of Police (IGP). Although there are many regional and divisional commands, they all report to the National Headquarters in Accra.
Policing in the Gold Coast was originally organised by traditional authorities led by local kings or chiefs. This they did by employing unpaid messengers known as "ahenfie police" to carry out executive and judicial functions in their respective communities.
Professional policing was introduced by the British colonial authorities in 1831, the colonial administrator at the time. Captain George Maclean, Governor of the Gold Coast, recruited 129 men known as the Gold Coast Corps and later the Royal Corps, to patrol the trade routes between Ashanti and the coast and to protect colonial merchants and officials around the castle.
However, these groups were disbanded in 1860 and replaced by the more efficient West Indian Regiment and when the British colonialists gained control over the entire colony of Gold Coast in 1871, there was the need to create a police force which would help them deal with the "warlike" Ashantis and Akan tribes.
The colonial masters then brought an army of 700 Hausa men from Northern Nigeria and the West Indies into the Gold Coast; 400 of these men were used to form the Gold Coast Constabulary in 1871, guided the Police Force Ordinance, which was promulgated in the same year. As years went by, more Ghanaians were added and it became the Gold Coast Police Force.
All the commissioned officers at the time were British and the force became the "Gold Coast Constabulary" in 1876. The Police Ordinance, passed in 1894, gave legal backing to the formation of a civilian police force in the colony.
By 1902, the police had been divided into General, Escort, Mines and Railway Police and this was legalised by the Police [Amendment] Ordinance of 1904.
A Marine Police unit was formed in 1906 but was replaced by the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service in 1942.
In 1921, the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) was established. The plain-clothed personnel of this branch are employed as specialists in various aspects of crime detection.
The organisation of the service first started during the 1950s, when the British instituted several changes in the Gold Coast Police Service to modernise, enlarge and better equip the police.
Of greater importance was the decision by Britain to Africanise the police. Initially they had restricted access to senior positions in all branches of colonial administration, but following the agitation which erupted after the three ex-servicemen, Sgt Adjetey, Corporal Attipoe and Private Odartey Lamptey, who were killed in 1948 by the colonial police, while leading a peaceful march to the Osu Castle to present a petition to the then Governor of the Gold Coast, this trend was gradually reversed.
In 1951, for example, 64 of the 80 senior police officers were foreigners but by 1958 only 11 of these senior officers were of foreign origin.
The first Ghanaian Police Commissioner was Mr E.R.T Madjitey. There have been 17 IGPs after him, with Mr Patrick Kwarteng Acheampong, the current one, being assisted by two deputies; one for operations and the other for administration.
The attainment of independence in 1957 saw the Ghana Police Force being renamed Ghana Police Service to give it a human face and serve the citizens better.
In consonance with Ghana’s status as an independent state, 1959 saw the establishment of an Armoured Car Squadron to deal with security threats to the state and the establishment of a Police College to undertake the systematic training of officers.
With an initial intake of 14 selected Inspectors and Chief Inspectors, the college provided local training to enable them to man key positions in the service. Before then, commissioned officers of the Ghana Police Service were trained in the United Kingdom.
The college now offers a nine-month officer cadet course and two to six weeks refresher courses in general and technical subjects.
The subjects taught are Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Law of Evidence, Criminal Investigations, Practical Police Duties, Criminology, Sociology, English/General Paper, Psychology, Map Reading, Health Education, Acts & Decrees and Financial Administration. The course also offers the cadet officers training in musketry.
In 1970 the Police Service was backed by an Act of Parliament - Act 350 of 1970 and this was supported later by other legislative instruments which have given the service a high level of legitimacy.
With the enactment of the Police Force (Amendment) Decree in 1974, the Ghana Police Service was removed from the control of the Public Service Commission and restored to the status of an autonomous organisation. The serviced branched was divided into smaller units i.e. districts and divisions, to enable it to cope with the increasing demands of the public.
Under the Fourth Republic, the Police Service was given constitutional backing in the discharge of their duties.
The core duties of the Police is to ensure a proactive and professional approach to the prevention and detection of crime, protection of life and property and the apprehending and prosecution of offenders.
Organisation and Administration
The Police Service is currently divided into two main groups; the overall command, control, supervision and monitoring activities are done at the national headquarters level while policing in general has been spread throughout the length and breadth of the country under a regional command structure, with a regional commander at the helm of affairs. Each of the 11 regional commanders operates from a regional headquarters.
The Police has shifted to a new paradigm of operations to make it more humane and democratic and community policing is at the core, where members of the public are involved in policing. Human rights and related issues have now been brought to the fore and the rights of the citizenry are taken into consideration in the handling of suspects and police operations.
The service has also created specialised units to meet contemporary demands. Among these are the Rapid Response Unit, Organised Crime Unit and Crime Scene Management to ensure that all crimes are well investigated, using forensic science application and the Critical Intelligence Response Team, an anti-terrorist unit created by the police administration to manage crises and terrorist-related activities.
The service has forged partnerships with other police organisations such as INTERPOL, FBI, French National Police and the British police in the fight against transnational crimes.
The Ghana Police Service prides itself on the newly established Women and Juvenile Unit, popularly known as WAJU. Established in October 1998, WAJU, now Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) responds to the increasing number of abuse and violence against women cases.

Ghana Police Service’s peacekeeping missions
The Ghanaian Contingent of the International Civilian Police (CIVPOL) has been involved in peacekeeping missions around the world, including Liberia, Namibia, Cambodia, Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, East Timor and Haiti, crediting the service as one of the most acclaimed peace-keeping forces.
The force was specially lauded in 2004 by the United Nations for its work in Liberia. Ghana's participation in peacekeeping began 34 years ago with the first deployment to the UN peacekeeping operations in the Congo in 1960.
Currently there are 13 regions under the Police Service and each of them is headed by a Regional Commander with a rank of Assistant Commissioner; there are the 10 geographical regions: Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, Central, Eastern, Greater Accra, Northern, Upper East, Upper West, Volta and Western. The last three regions are Tema, Railway and Ports, and finally National Headquarters.
Each region, with the exception of the National Headquarters, has divisions. There are 51 divisions nationwide. These are further subdivided into 179 districts and 651 stations across the country.
Its law enforcement establishment consists of 351 police officers, 649 inspectors, and 15,191 personnel in other grades distributed among 479 stations.
Conclusion
 There is no doubt that the Police Service in Ghana performs one of most essential key services to the state. It is also one of the most misunderstood state organisations in the country.
Recent INTERPOL records indicate that Ghana has the lowest crime rate in the African Commonwealth Region. (Source INTERPOL Analysis 2004).
For a country that has borne the brutality of colonisation - from the looting of its mineral wealth to the enslaving of its people - Ghana retains a remarkable sense of self-sufficiency in its subsistence. Formed from the merger of the British colony of the Gold Coast and the Togoland trust territory, the country, in 1957, became the first sub-Saharan country in colonial Africa to gain its independence.
It boasts of a rich cultural history, from the colourful kente cloth woven by the Ashanti tribes to the intricately designed of wooden artefacts and the splendid architecture of castles lining the coast.

(Courtesy the Ghana Police Service).