The fight against crime is not going well

May 28, 2011 Editorial

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Crime is now staple fare on the front pages of local newspapers as a matter of course, interspersed ever so often with some particularly ghastly act of violence on ordinary citizens.
The question on the lips of a shell-shocked citizenry is, “What is the government doing about all this?” The Government is content to invoke the increased spending it has directed at the Police Force. But is that the end of its responsibility?
The responsibility of the government is to ensure that the increased police budget delivers results. The record up to now has been scandalous yet, as has become the norm, no heads have rolled, no knuckles have even been rapped; only some hand-wringing on the part of the officials has been evident.
Over the years since the massive increase in violent crimes a decade ago, in 2001, there has been legislation enacted to facilitate the formation, training and deployment of a Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) unit. Top Government officials publicly promised the early delivery of the unit in view of the inability of the joint Police/Army teams that are often hurriedly deployed to contain or eliminate any eruption.
Yet to this day, there is no SWAT unit. What are the powers that be waiting on?
PPPC Presidential Candidate, Donald Ramotar is the latest to promise the formation of a SWAT team. He did so on Wednesday.
On the general issue of high-intensity crime, there have been volumes of legislation passed: anti-kidnapping Act, anti-Terrorism Act, Deportee Act, etc. but to no avail. There has been a Disciplined Forces Committee Report with hundreds of recommendations that have produced nothing. There were changes of top leadership – both of the Force and the Ministry – yet the slide continues.
What can be done? Well, first and foremost, someone has to take responsibility for the mess our crime-fighting apparatus is in. Secondly, someone in the government must accept that we need professional help. What’s holding us back in that regard? Is professionalism something feared by those in authority? We hope not.
Additionally, the country is paying an unbearable price for the lack of appropriate involvement of private citizens and communities in the fight against crime.
Too many either do not understand, or do not accept, that fighting crime is definitely not the sole responsibility of the police and government. These official entities are on the frontline, but law-abiding citizens, as individuals as well as groups, have essential supporting roles to play.
In the aftermath of serious crimes, it is quite common for citizens living nearby to claim prior knowledge of circumstances that were conducive to the crimes. Yet, more often than not, they do not relay this knowledge to the police.
The police can hardly raid a drug yard without persons in the neighbourhood claiming intimate knowledge of its operations. Also, when victims of domestic violence are murdered by their abusers, persons often step forward to provide information on the nature and duration of the abuse. But when persons and communities observe such suspicious activities beforehand, they seldom make timely reports to the police.
To make matters worse, many persons who have witnessed crimes, or who have information relevant to the prosecution of perpetrators, do not want to testify in court. Therefore many investigations and court cases are stymied by missing or unreliable witnesses, thereby allowing countless criminals to evade justice.
The pervasive influence of the growing drugs trade is undoubtedly one of the main causes of rising crime. Greater community cooperation with the police would be particularly beneficial in the fight against the drugs trade because 24-hour neighbourhood vigilance is invaluable in observing drugs-related activities that the police might find difficult to detect.
There is a network of crime and corruption in Guyana with tentacles from the highest to the lowest levels of society. The government and police cannot deal with this problem effectively without considerable inputs from society at large. Right-thinking citizens have to watch each other’s backs as well as cooperate proactively and completely with law enforcement agencies.
The type of community involvement in fighting crime that Guyana needs should not be confined to vigilance regarding criminals. It should also include public scrutiny of police work, to expose rogue cops and detect procedural flaws, as well as to identify deficiencies in their equipment and infrastructure.
Having said this, quite frankly, the fight against crime is not going well.

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