Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Feb 27, 2016 News
– President tells Police Officers
– challenges them to come up with strategies without building more police stations
The cost of human safety today is too high, according to President David Granger.
During his inaugural address at the Annual Police Officers’ Conference which opened Thursday at Eve Leary, the Guyanese Leader said that this cost can be calculated during a tour of the city and its environs and even as far as the countryside where steel grilled barricades are the norm at restaurants, stores and even private residences.
The price of safety can also be calculated by the proliferation of private security firms and by the large number of persons who keep on applying to own personal firearms.
“The Minister of Public Security can tell you, if he gets five letters from me a week, four of them concern applications for firearms,” the President told the gathering at the Police Officers’ Mess Annex.
He said that the situation is further amplified by the increased employment of armed sentries at the offices and operations of many gold and diamond firms.
To this end, the President challenged the Guyana Police Force to develop a strategy to effectively carry out their duties at the community level without necessarily building more police stations.
Noting that the current public security situation is dominated by community based crimes, the President said that while the force has been reaching out to vulnerable groups and communities it must go beyond mere outreach and build partnerships with these communities.
“It must intensify its partnership through community policing and working with our community schools, community clubs and organizations and civil society.”
He said that the approach should be about respecting and protecting the most vulnerable in society such as the elderly, the women and children, especially girl children.
According to the President it is disturbing that so many crimes are committed in communities.
“A 78-year-old woman, a widow, who is raped and murdered, or a 14-year-old schoolgirl raped and murdered. When a group of village louts burn down a house and kill the residents inside; when a wife hires a villager to kill her husband by hire purchase or vice versa depending on who gets there first.
“When a boy and girl who think they love each other have their friendship discountenanced by their parents and they go off and kill one another. When a housewife opens a little drug store, selling ganja; when the screams in the streets of an abused wife are ignored, these are community offences and it is in the community that we must put our policing efforts,” the Guyanese Leader stated.
He said that a more collaborative culture needs to be employed by the police, who have to uphold that unwritten social contract between citizens and the state if human safety is to become a reality soon.
“We must therefore take a second look at the current highly centralized system of policing; one that was developed when we had a highly centralized sugar industry which focused on the suppression of riots on the plantations,” the President stated.
The Guyanese Leader said that a system must be developed, which is now based on human safety in the communities rather than safety of the sugar industry.
Sparsely populated and scattered rural and hinterland communities make highly centralised policing impossible.
“It is impossible to establish a police station in every village. Our landscape with a population density of 3.5 persons per square kilometres means that many communities are located not only far apart from each other but a far distance from police station,” the President said, emphasizing that there is need for a system where communities can be assured security even in the absence of police stations.
The Guyana Police Force has already introduced a Social Crime Prevention Programme, which has its prevention effects, since it is bringing police ranks closer together with members of various communities to work on individual projects that will benefit all.
The President praised the initiative but urged greater work by the police to offer options for young people, many of whom are dropping out of school, thus becoming unemployed and susceptible to becoming involved in criminal activity.
He also underscored the role of civil society to keep communities safe by working with the Guyana Police Force as partners.
Granger said that there is also a need for more patrols which will enhance greater visibility in the communities, and as a result more community work gets done.
“People do not live in the police stations,” he stated.
“We must not be afraid of foot patrols, bicycle patrols, and now as you have noticed, horse patrols will return to the Hinterland. So whether by boat, whether by foot whether by vehicle or horse, we must go to where community crimes exist and where community safety has to be assured to allow our regular police to work alongside our residents in order to deter crime,” the President stated.
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
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