Dear Editor,
Armed robberies, including home burglaries and muggings are in peak season once again. It is not simply ok to kill a couple of criminal elements and hope the enabling conditions fuelling crime will go away. Preventative policing, meaning reducing the environmental and socioeconomic enablers of crime, is of critical importance in Guyana.
I have observed two related phenomena.
My first observation concerns police response time. I am at a loss when contemplating how in 2010 the police can take more than 30 minutes to show up at the scene of a crime (I’m making reference here to the recent robbery in Correntyne, Berbice). Similarly, when my home was broken into (I’ll come back to this later) the police took over one hour to arrive at the scene. As a matter of fact they told us that they would come when there was daylight. Yet the nearest police station to my home is a five-minute walk away. Then a couple of days ago there was a robbery on Quamina Street right in front of the Guyana Responsible Parenthood Association. There is a police outpost on the corner of Main and Quamina Streets; however there was no sign of the police leaving the outpost to do police work.
This brings me to my second observation which concerns the reduced police presence after working hours in and around the Georgetown, especially in zones with a history of criminal activity. Closer to home, my friend and colleague, who is a foreign consultant working in Guyana had her residence broken into twice within one week. I wonder what memories of Guyana she will share with her friends and family in her home country? Even closer to home, my home was broken into three times in the space of one month. Luckily, I suppose, the thief was later apprehended as he attempted to cart off a television set he had earlier stashed in a clump of bushes. There is no street light on the street where my house is located; at night you cannot identify whether it’s a cat, dog, goat, donkey or person walking in the street. I wonder if the police have a policy of recording their response times by areas, time of day/night and types of crimes. Something as simple as this could improve efficiency by suggesting training and equipment to mitigate highlighted inefficiencies. Are the police interested in this sort of efficiency monitoring? The police service can directly influence environmental conditions by facilitating the removal of bushes and the installation of functioning street lights. The force should get serious and begin to police intelligently; lives are at stake. Citizen security is the extent to which individuals and groups feel safe in and outside their communities, not what a minister or president determines is feeling safe.
Yours faithfully,
(Name and address provided)
