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Ridiculously slow police response times highlighted at Officers’ conference
The response times of the Guyana Police Force to criminal activities are the worst in the Caribbean region and President Donald Ramotar wants to see this state of affairs changed.
The government claims it has been providing the police with vehicles to improve their mobility.
The President in outlining a 15-point plan dubbed “15 in 2015”, that is aimed at restoring confidence in the Guyana Police Force, identified the police response times as one of the areas that need to be addressed. He made the observation while addressing the Annual Police Officers’ Conference yesterday.
He said that too often there have been complaints about the length of time that the police take to respond to criminal acts and the failure of ranks to answer the 911 police hotline, a situation that needs to be changed immediately.
Ramotar noted that the shorter the police travel time from notification to arrival at the crime scene, the more likely it is that offenders can be apprehended.
This rapid response he said will produce three crime prevention effects: (i) reduce harm from crimes interrupted by police intervention; (ii) greater deterrent effect; (iii) incapacitation through imprisonment of offenders who are prosecuted effectively from evidence from response-related arrest.
To achieve this, he called for the creation of a state-of-the-art rapid response centre, while requiring hiring and training of new officers, improved technology and infrastructure.
But many in the Force will argue that response time is intricately linked to the availability of vehicles, something which has been a source of concern for the force over the years.
While the government will want to boast about providing the Force with vehicles, the reality is that in most divisions, these are in very short supply and on occasions, non-existent.
Calls to the stations are often met with the response, “we don’t have vehicles!”
On occasions, citizens themselves have had to provide transportation for the police to respond to their reports.
Just recently, the police had to rely on the assistance of a private citizen for transportation to track down a carload of bandits who had robbed a Mahaica businessman.
In other cases the police have been relying on the joint service assistance for their mobility.
According to President Ramotar, leadership and resources do not matter if there is nowhere to put the resources and nothing to lead.
To this end, he proposed 14 other programmes, which are designed to restore confidence in the Force.
Among them are the establishment of a neigbourhood watch programme; the introduction of a problem-oriented approach addressing crime and increasing the number of police officers in the streets and neighbourhoods.
He also called for police officers to work closely with schools to reduce school violence, drug abuse and the influence of criminal in the institutions of learning.
The establishment of a drug and weapon-free zone should also be a priority.
“If a person is caught with drugs or weapons near a school, they must be dealt with condignly in accordance with our laws,” Ramotar declared.
Another area of the plan is the re-opening of cold cases and unresolved crimes, which will be aimed at improving cleared-up rates for homicides, shootings, robberies, break-ins, larceny and sexual offences.
The President also called for the setting up of a targeted policing programme to secure and boost confidence in critical sectors such as tourism, agriculture, construction, commerce and sport, and the need to expand the force’s intelligence abilities to achieve greater focus on the critical crime targets such as gangs, trafficking syndicates, groups at risk and crime hotspots.
“This 15 for 2015 programme is the next step in the journey to bring greater security, safety and stability to Guyana. I am committed to seeing that it becomes a reality and I look forward to working with each of you in its implementation,” the president stated.
He told the police officers that “these are not matters to be glossed over in their haste to conclude their conference; these must be seen as work in progress, moving from one deliverable to another in a focused manner”.
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