Editorial: A police force in tatters

Two years ago, when a so-called transformation strategy covering 2020-2025 was launched, the police force pledged “a more positive working environment” for its workforce. What prevails – admittedly, with three more years to go – are police stations in such a pitiful state they have been likened to a “horror house”.
That state of affairs can only make for a disillusioned and demotivated body of men and women, the bulk of whom go out of their way every single day to serve society the best they can against the odds. And this only in relation to the physical infrastructure of their workplace.
Imagine what they have to go through when the corps they are so loyal to is discredited by so many for going after the fry as the big fish and the long-tentacled octopus continue their feeding frenzy.
In his introduction to the strategy document, Police Commissioner Angelo Gafà had spoken of not wasting any time to embark on “some key initiatives”.
Concrete action, he had said, would be taken “so that, five years down the line, we will be a proud police organisation with high levels of public support”.
Judging by what the Malta Police Union has just declared, that remains a pipe dream.

“In the...