Guyanese confidence in Police Force among the lowest in the Caribbean

Nov 13, 2012 News

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By Dale Andrews

Guyanese have little confidence in their police to control crime. This is according to the 2012 Caribbean Human Development Report, which shows that in terms of confidence in their police forces Guyanese are rated behind Trinidad and Tobago among the seven Caribbean territories surveyed.

The report shows that 53 percent of persons polled in Guyana indicate that they have some amount of confidence in the police to control crime while only six percent said they have a great deal of confidence.
In Trinidad and Tobago, 52 percent said they had some amount of confidence while a mere 4.6 per cent said they had a great deal of confidence in their police force to control crime.
Significantly, Jamaicans who have been experiencing one of the highest murder rates in the region, have a high level of confidence in their lawmen, coming second only to Barbadians.
Suriname, St. Lucia and Antigua were the other countries that were part of the survey.
The inaugural Caribbean Human Development Report , which was launched earlier this year, was the subject of a three-day discussion among regional journalists and representatives from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Barbados and resource personnel among them the report’s main author, Professor Anthony Harriott.
The ground breaking report, which was commissioned by the UNDP, focused on the shift to better citizen security.
It was observed that citizen security is not just a police and judicial matter; it also has a strong development component.
According to prominent regional media practitioner Wesley Gibbings, who has been a journalist for the past 31 years, never before has there been a report that deals with citizen security the way the HDR 2012 has.
“It looks at the impact of insecurity and violence on human development, relevant to the Caribbean…The report focuses on the need of security based on a human development approach whereby citizen security is paramount rather than state security,” said Gibbings, who is also the President of the Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM).
Utilising statistics from seven countries, the authors of the report found that there is a great need for active citizen involvement in the security sector.
This initiative is being actively pursued by the Guyana government with its citizen security programme which seeks to target groups that are vulnerable to criminal activity, such as gang violence.
Within the last 10 years, violent crime has grown into a regional problem, with crime rates reaching a peak a few years ago before showing a marked decline as the various territories which have a heavy dependence on tourism, implemented strategies to deal with the scourge.

Robust community cohesion is one of the ways that regional governments used to combat the runaway crime situation.
However during recent discussions in Barbados, much consideration needs to be given to the low confidence regional citizens have in their security and judicial systems, said Jamaican Professor Anthony Harriott.
This was also supported by Gibbings who noted that “declining confidence in the criminal justice system results in declining confidence in other state systems.”
But while both Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago lead per capita in terms of investment in their security sectors, the lack of confidence in their respective security forces is the highest in the Region.
According to the report, the human development approach to crime and violence in the Caribbean is hampered by the lack of institutional capacity of public institutions.
“Despite progress being made in some countries, the predominant model of policing in the Caribbean still focuses on state security rather than on citizen security,” the report noted.
It speaks to the fact that the police system in the Caribbean faces several challenges to complete a transition to citizen security.
These include the promotion of legitimacy which comes from integrity and improved accountability, and eradicating corruption, which weakens public confidence.
Another challenge is for regional police forces to reduce abuses of power and fully recognize the human rights.
“Overcoming these problems will allow community policing and citizens’ cooperation to prevent crime and control criminality,” the report stated.
Guyana has embraced the concept of community policing with several groups established throughout the country.
However, the lack of trust between the community policing establishment and the traditional police is serving to undermine the effective cohesion of the two entities.
But there are some grounds for optimism, according to the HDR.
Citizens perceive their police forces as moderately legitimate and competent, and show willingness to become co-producers of their own security, since Caribbean citizens want safer societies.
“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 HDR noted.

In Guyana the opposite is happening with society growing much more suspicious of the police as a result of recent events, so much so that the Guyana Defence Force has been called upon to diffuse rising tensions between the citizenry and the civilian law enforcement agency.

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