Just for a second. Imagine that notorious prisoner Daniel Vailopa had not been captured a few hours after his daring and movie-like breakout from the prison bus on Monday morning.

The police would have had to use extra resources to man checkpoints, another team or two to search places he is known to frequent and people would have been worried sick because of the man’s alleged reputation.

The other worrying pattern emerging is that this is the second time that this has happened.

In February, Sonny Crichton slipped out of the prisoner sorting area unnoticed. He was arrested behind a bank building in town on the same day.

Crichton was due to enter his plea to charges of burglary and theft but by the time his matter was called, he had already slipped out from custody.

According to the other defendants, Crichton managed to slip away while the wardens were trying to sort out the remand prisoners for their court appearances.

A police officer said the wardens lost sight of Crichton because there were so many defendants brought in at one time.

In Vailopa’s case, he escaped by jumping out of the prison bus window.

Daniel Vailopa is a repeat offender with close to 20 previous convictions and mostly brought to the court for escaping prison, burglary and rape.

Vailopa had escaped prison several times and in one of those incidents, while he was on the run in 2015, he sexually violated a Norwegian woman who was climbing the Mount Vaea trail. 

Police Commissioner, Auapaau Logoitino Filipo admitted the officers were negligent on their part when they did not handcuff the prisoner and left him unsupervised.

The officers on duty should be reprimanded for their negligence. It seems that the supervision of prisoners is being taken lightly.

Undoubtedly, there is a set operating procedure for handling and transferring prisoners from the transport to the holding cells at the court. The echelon of the police and prisons have to find out if these procedures are being followed or not.

If it is not, then all those on duty on that day should be made to answer before a disciplinary committee of the police force. Such incidents should not be trivial. The men and women being held in custody are there for a reason.

If the procedures were followed, this must have something to do with the area where the transfers are being made. Either the judiciary or the police have to foot the bill for the renovation of the area to make it easier for prisoner transfer.

The other question is about enough manpower. Does the Samoa Police have enough people to carry out this work? It seems that in Vailopa’s case, there was no one keeping an eye on him as there was more focus on getting the first batch of prisoners off the transport and into their courtrooms or holding cells.

The police also have to start looking at the physical fitness of their officers. In the February case when Crichton escaped, it is believed that the escapee outran the officers who gave chase. Fitness in general is lacking from the force. There are more out-of-shape police officers than those in shape.

A simple way to tackle this issue is to hold a regular fitness test. This can take place either twice or three times a year. The requirements would be age based but officers would have to go through a certain course to pass. For example, a time limit set on a 2.5 kilometre run and the number of push-ups, chin-ups and stomach crunches to be performed.

This should also be a key performance indicator when considering officers for promotion and pay rise. Officers should also face certain penalties, either suspension or demotion after failing three consecutive tests.

It is all about having a better-disciplined force. Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji have the same approach to keeping police officers in shape.

Let us give credit to where it is due. It was also good work done by the police to apprehend the escapes in both situations. That cannot be taken away from the police who do hard work maintaining law and order.

Adherence to operating procedures and the right number of officers in court could be a start to stopping such escapes.

The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting is four months away, and we don’t want the overseas police force looking trimmer and fitter than ours.