Crime prevention is a community concern

Mar 20, 2010 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
Professionals in the criminal justice field have long recognized the value of community-based efforts in crime prevention and control. Widespread application of this concept to the streets and neighborhoods of local communities throughout the nation represents a new thrust in the search for approaches to combating illegal activity. Implicit in this trend is the idea that Guyanese no longer rest on the comfortable assumption that the establishment of institutional machinery to deal with crime constitutes an adequate response to the problem.
The continuing evidence of increasing criminal activity has made it clear that our courts, police, and correctional institutions cannot solve the problem alone. We cannot ask those in the criminal justice system to take full responsibility for a task demanding the concerted action of every individual, community, and institution in the country.
Just as the causes of crime lie imbedded in the structure of the community, so do its solutions. The success of a variety of local crime prevention programs’ suggests that the necessary elements for effective programs are available in most communities. What is most commonly lacking is the will to act and the knowledge of how to organize effective programs.
Citizens’ concern about crime must be translated into action. Crime prevention must be given the same priority that environmental problems have received in recent years. It is incumbent upon professionals in the criminal justice system to align themselves with the community to develop the level of awareness necessary to spark widespread involvement in crime-prevention activities.
Responsibility for initiating action must also be accepted by leaders representing all segments of the public and private sector. Without energetic local involvement of the total community, the criminal justice system will inevitably fall even further behind in its crime control, prevention, and rehabilitation efforts.
Ample opportunities exist for private sector participation. They begin in the home and extend through the entire social structure of the community. There is an abundance of evidence to indicate that delinquency and crime occur with greater frequency where there is also poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, and inadequate medical and recreational resources.  Efforts to alleviate these and other conditions that contribute to criminal activity are necessary if a community is to have significant impact on the total group of crime-related problems. These activities must be coordinated with programs more directly concerned with the criminal justice system.
Most desirable as a foundation for the development of programs and activities is an overall evaluation of the local criminal justice system to identify priority needs. What also must be recognized and used to advantage is the vast reservoir of skill and expertise that exists within the private sector of the community. Labour, business, industry, churches, schools, private foundations, social agencies,clubs, organizations, and private citizens can be called upon to supply manpower, funds, and other resources.
A catalyst is needed to organize these groups and individuals toward a common purpose. Police Divisional Commanders should initiate programs that encourage the public to take an active role in preventing crime, providing information leading to the arrest and conviction of criminal offenders, and facilitating the identification and recovery of stolen property. To begin with, local police departments can establish or actively assist volunteer neighborhood security programs that involve the public in neighborhood crime prevention and reduction. Such programs can include, for example:
(1) the marking and identification of personal property;
(2) instructing neighborhood volunteers to telephone the police concerning suspicious situations and to identify themselves as volunteers and provide necessary information;
(3) insuring that participating volunteers do not take enforcement action themselves;
(4) when an arrest results from the volunteer’s information, the police notifies him by telephone; and
(5) acknowledgement, through personal contact, telephone call, or letter, of every person who provides information.
Further, the police can establish or assist in programs that involve trade, business, industry, and community participation in preventing and reducing commercial crimes. Next, the police agency can seek the enactment of local ordinances that establish minimum security standards for all new construction and for existing commercial structures. Once regulated buildings are constructed, ordinances can be enforced through inspection by operational police personnel. Additionally, the police can conduct, upon request, security inspections of businesses and residences and recommend measures to avoid being victimized by crime.
Finally, the police department can create a specialized unit to provide support services to and jurisdiction-wide coordination of the agency’s crime-prevention programs; such programs are usually best operationally decentralized. Crime prevention is a community concern. It cannot be left only to professionals in the criminal justice system.
Individuals and organizations in the private sector must form a link with the police services if this nation is ever to deal effectively with crime and the law violator.
The need for cooperation extends from taking the very necessary step of shaping a more progressive community attitude toward dealing with law violators, to organizing and undertaking specific programs for prevention.
Robert Gates

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