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Stronger focus needed on social crime prevention – Report

Oct 09, 2012 News

Despite progress made in some countries, the predominant model of policing in the Caribbean still focuses on state security rather than on citizen security, according to the recently released Caribbean Development Report 2012.
The report states that the police system in the Caribbean faces several challenges to complete a transition to citizen security. These include; improving police capacity and capabilities to enhance performance in terms of responsiveness and effectiveness; promoting legitimacy, which comes from integrity and improved accountability and eradicating corruption, which weakens public confidence; reducing abuses of power and fully recognizing human rights.
“Overcoming these problems will allow community policing and citizens’ cooperation to prevent crime and control criminality,” the report noted
A survey in the report provides some grounds for optimism. Citizens perceive their police forces as moderately legitimate and competent and show willingness to become co-producers of their own security. Further, the citizens of each nation manifest support for government investing resources in the reform of the police services in order to increase their effectiveness.
The Caribbean Development Report 2012 further stated that within the Caribbean justice systems, legal codes and institutional arrangements continue to present characteristics of the colonial legacy. Arbitrary arrest and detention is prohibited by the Constitution, and the systems allow visiting of incarcerated persons by external observers.
“But the criminal justice system still faces challenges. Case processing delays and backlogs, low conviction rates, prison overcrowding and insufficient alternatives to prison, all strongly interconnected, impact on the capacity for fairness, effectiveness, transparency and accountability. Although systematic data are not available, conviction rates in the Caribbean appear to be alarmingly low.”
The report noted that “…in the Caribbean, the practice of pre-trial detention is widespread, and the length of time a person may be detained on suspicion of involvement in criminal activity varies. This often contributes to significant problems such as case backlogs and prison overcrowding. Detainees are held sometimes for years. This practice is an affront to justice and overwhelms the capacity of prisons, while the incarcerated must contend with substandard conditions, overcrowding and poor sanitation. Probation is viewed as a viable alternative”.
In addition, the report said even in those countries where separate facilities are available, juveniles may often be detained in adult prisons due to security concerns at youth facilities. In some countries, female juveniles are especially vulnerable to being placed in adult prisons due to an absence of female youth facilities. The extent to which juveniles are isolated from adult populations within adult facilities varies as well.
Caribbean correctional systems are far from being able to balance protection of the public against the need for efficiency and fiscal prudence. The focus of getting “tough on crime” reduces the emphasis on rehabilitation and alternative sanctions, ideas around which a regional knowledge base on good practices is still to be built.
“Caribbean citizens want safer societies. Governments have made considerable efforts to improve security. The challenge is how to respond more effectively to broaden the results for the society as a whole with respect to citizens’ rights and inclusion of the most vulnerable,” the report cited.
“The approach is crucial to making Caribbean societies safer and more just. It requires completing the shift to citizen security in the framework of human development. This means rebalancing policy so that there is a stronger focus on social crime prevention, and grounding this policy in the overall human development strategies both at the national and regional levels.”

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