The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1897-10-09
.ECUADOR'S POLICE FORCE
\ NEW YORK MAN INTRODUCES
AMERICAN METHODS.
Captain Pratt Reforms the Guarda
NIilitar and Stops Crime-Gives the
Criminals - Hours to Quit.

Ecuador is about to dispense with
the services of soldiers to do police
work and organize a police force. For
the successful carrying out of such a
work the services of an American
have been employed. Captain Joseph
II. Pratt of the New York police. who
formed the police forces of Guatema-
la, Costa Rica and Salvador, spending
over ten years in those countries, has
already arrived in Ecuador, and soon
the republic will be able to boast of
a modern police force.
That Captain Pratt has been select
ed to go to Ecuador occurred in this
way:
President Alfaro was visitor in
Guatemala while Captain Pratt was
directing its police force. He was sc
impressed by American ideas of polio
ing a city, that when he became Pres
ident of Ecuador, he wrote to the Ec-
uadorian Minister to America to en-
gage Captain Pratt. But by the time
the letter arrived Captain Pratt had
sailed for Salvador. When he return
ed to America last December Captain
Pratt took the matter under advise
ment. the offer still being open for
him and for no one else. He finally
entered into a one year contract for
$1,000 in gold and all expenses paid.
Captain Pratt in an interview with
a reporter for the New York Tribune
says:
"The South America republics had
copied from Spain the custom of pre-
serving the peace with the 'guardia
militar.' or military police. This is
what they have in Ecuador, and our
kind of police is unknown. The city
of Guatemala. for instance, with a
population of 10000, is guarded by
800 soldiers. These soldiers who con-
stitute battalion of the regular ar
my of the nation, do patrol duty IN
small squad of a sergeant and three
or four men. | shall be able to do
much better work than these five
hundred with two hundred men, ex-
cept that I will have to give better
pay to get more efficient men and |
shall introduce a one man patrolling
system.
'The police of these republics are
controlled by the department of war,
and are not municipal institutions. So
| shall organize forces also in Quito
and other cities, and in addition, prob
ably, a rural mounted police. The
military policemen are now paid only
23 cents a day of our money. and find
| themselves. Only the poems or men
of mixed blood will work for such a
sum. Mechanics of Spanish descent
are well paid. and in order to get de-
sirable men I shall have to greatly in
crease this miserable pay. The mill
tary force that I found in Guatemala
were bare-footed. At night the only
attempt at police was something like
the old English watch. They had old
men called seranos, who sat in hall
way all night and cried out the hours
but did not move from one spot
Captain Pratt says the absence of
capital punishment for any offence
except treason, and no hard labor as
a punishment, made ii difficult to
control and suppress crime, in some
of the republics he has seen, but by
getting a good class of men for police
and by serving as his own roundsman
he has succeeded.
One of the first things Captain Pratt
says he does is to send for all the well
known, criminals of the city, take Il
photograph of each of them, and give
them twenty-four hours to leave the
city. Then he secures the passage or
the principal ordinances of the city
of New York that no citizen should 90
about with weapons, and accordingly
proceeds at once to disarm every man
seen with machete or any other
weapon, on the principle that il is bet
ter to prevent than to punish crime.
Pratt says:
ITO illustrate how prevalent crime
was in Guatemala before | reorgan-
lied the police, | will say that thieves
would waln along the streets with big
long poles with hooks in the ends of
them. The hot climate compels the
keeping of windows open. and these
thieves could reach in and lift curtains
off their fastenings or lift valuables
from tables. ANOTHER class of thieves
made practice of lifting shawls off
the heads of women in the streets in
the boldest manner.
Il organize these police forces on
the plan of the New York police force
with inspectors. captains, sergeants,
roundsmen and 'policia,' as the patrol
men are called. | introduce the New
York uniform with the exception that
in place of helmets | have selected
cap with a spreading top, which Is
more suitable to the climate"