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An empowered police force

Jun 26, 2012 Editorial

 

 

There was a time when the people of Georgetown complained about the absence of the police from the streets. The residents would complain that it would be some time after the accident that the police would respond and by then the criminals would have long disappeared.
We cannot help but note that the criminals have to think twice about conducting robberies in the city. This is because the government has enhanced the mobility of the force. For the past four years, the budget has been catering for vehicles for the police and this expenditure is now paying off.
Yet we believe that we are leaving too much to the police. We have already said that the dependence on paper currency is the factor that is spawning these robberies. The gunmen are certain that whenever they attack a victim that victim would have large sums of cash.
The people who hold on to cash do so because they recognize that they can avoid paying the requisite taxes. There is no paper trail but when the thieves strike the victim loses much more than he or she would have paid in taxes. Further the taxes would have enhanced even greater expenditure in the defence of the population.
It is useless to talk about controlling the flow of illegal firearm. Weapons possession in the hands of certain people is endemic. The gun control laws are not working because very few people are caught with weapons.
Slightly more than 300 weapons have been recovered over the past two years and in a society with a population the size of Guyana’s this is a lot.
However, many of us feel that this is only the tip of the iceberg.  Given the porous borders and the relatively low price of weapons, plus the lack of reasoning among the people who carry them just about every young man walking the street is most likely to be armed.
Many people see these armed young men but they remain silent. They talk of retaliation. What they do not say is that they know someone who declined to report a gun possession actually becoming a victim.
The various sections of society do not organize what is called Neighbourhood Watch in some places. Such a system works even in the developed countries. Any suspicious activity is recorded and the police respond with some alacrity.
In Guyana, especially in the city over the past few weeks, it has not escaped our notice that quick police reaction is in fact a deterrent. It was such quick reaction that thwarted a robbery and led to the capture of the two gunmen.
Before that, the police were quick to respond to a report of an attack on a money changer.
They nabbed the men. As was the case with the most recent incident, a man died. We are aware that similar quick reactions would deter many from committing armed robberies. People commit crimes if they believe that they would get away.
In many countries where the rate of crime solving is high the incidence of crime is low. Guyana has not been having a high rate of crime solving and this is so for many reasons. People know but they keep their mouths shut; others try to benefit from the ill-gotten gains; and yet others say that they are too a scared to talk.
They say that when they do talk the police leak the information back to the criminals so for their own safety they remain silent.
This is an area that has been investigated. With their limited capability for self examination the police have investigated their own and indeed have weeded out some. But we suppose the paucity in the number of ranks in many cases force them to turn a blind eye.
Yet for all their shortcomings the police have done remarkably well to protect the rest of the society. What they need, now, is the support of the wider society. Gun crimes as we know them could be made a thing of the past only if…

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