It will take a great deal more than last week’s high-level meeting involving President David Granger and Vice President Ramjattan and their security top men to roll back the upsurge of criminal activity, particularly armed robberies involving shootings, some fatal, that have been occurring over the past two months or so.
The crime situation is unfolding too against the backdrop of the President’s oft-stated concern whilst in opposition with matters of crime and security, so that he has had little choice but to take high-profile action in the face of the present brazen challenge to law and order.
Unsurprisingly, the opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) has been quick to make the point that the shoe is now on the other foot and there have even been political comments that appear to amount to a demand that a crime situation which the PPP knows only too well has grown and festered for years be eradicated quickly.
Of course, and given the opposition’s track record on curbing crime during its tenure in office, the worst thing that the new administration can do is to allow itself to be drawn into political cat-sparring in circumstances where, having neglected up until now to take up its seats in the National Assembly, the PPP is simply playing petty politics with the issue of crime. As it happens, however, what is also true is that curbing crime now falls to the present political administration and it should not expect that prevarication and leaden-footedness will not eventually be met with public criticism. Newness does not absolve it of the responsibility to tackle crime and to do so with aggression and alacrity.
There are a few things that the government needs to understand about public perceptions of its recent crime-busting plan. The first is that we have grown far too accustomed to the various abortive ‘plans,’ ‘initiatives’ and ‘strategies’ promulgated by its predecessor to tackle crime to be taken in by simply another strident proclamation. The other point to be made is that no one will be persuaded that such plans as are pronounced are working once the criminals continue to display a manifest monopoly of determination and, often, force. The extent of the urgency associated with tackling the current crime wave demands that the administration’s undertakings materialize into practical action quickly, clearly and with a sustained robustness and that the initiative brings measurable results within a reasonable time-frame. If there may still be some measure of post-elections honeymoon accruing for the Granger administration, that honeymoon, does not extend into the realm of tackling the frightening crime situation that continues to unfold.
The situation has engendered a healthy measure of public apprehension, even intimidation and what is being sought is an immediate response.
The performance of the police, above everything else, is an issue in this most recent official undertaking to raise the stakes in the fight against crime. As it happens and for a host of good reasons, there exists a low level of public confidence in the capabilities of the Guyana Police Force when measured against the perceived severity of the present crime wave. Public perception of how safe we are plays a considerable role in the effectiveness of the just rolled out anti crime plan.
It is not just the ruthlessness of heavily armed and frighteningly violent criminals that has cast a pall of apprehension over the populace as a whole, but also a deep-seated belief that the police simply lack the capacity, perhaps even the will as well, to provide anything remotely resembling an adequate response. That concern derives in large measure from what is known to be the unceasing proliferation of lethal weapons, a situation serious enough to lead many to believe that it is the criminal element rather than the police that have a monopoly of force.
The other critical concern about the Force’s ability to tackle crime – and the government has already acknowledged this – is that what often appears to be the preoccupation of elements in the Force with perpetuating corrupt practices means that, for them, fighting crime is not a critical priority.
Put differently, it would make no sense in setting up roadblocks across coastal Guyana in an effort to put a squeeze on the movement of criminals and weapons from one place to another if all that it takes to render those roadblocks ineffective is the passage of an appropriate ‘consideration’ to the law enforcement officers for looking the other way. Nor would the new measures be effective if police investigations into criminal activity disappear like butter ‘gainst the sun following a payment that is generous enough to cause versions of events to be corrupted, witnesses to change their minds and evidence to disappear.
Interestingly, Vice President Ramjattan has already announced that the administration intends to go after ‘dirty cops’ though it has to be said that sanitizing a Police Force in which corruption may long have become endemic is easier said than done. In the meantime there is still the need for sufficient ranks and offers to execute the recently announced anti-crime initiative and of course we must not assume that the criminal element and the corrupt in the Force will not adjust their strategies in response to the government’s recent raising of the stakes.
Where crime is concerned, image is everything, and whether we like it or not, there exists – and has existed for many years – a perception amongst both the citizenry and the criminal element that the state is weak as far as its ability to fight crime is concerned. As it happens, the state and specifically the police, has not done nearly sufficient to alter that perception. That may well be one of the biggest stumbling blocks to the effective implementation of this latest crime-busting plan.
Talk of the deficiencies of the Force rarely, if ever, take account of the glaring deficiencies in its public image and the failure of the leadership of the Force to address that problem over the years. The available evidence suggests (and this has long been the case) that the GPF has scant regard for the role of police/public relations in the fight against crime. If, from time to time, there are tokenistic gestures designed to create a sense of reaching out to the public, there appears to be no institutionalized, planned and sustained programme that embraces the citizenry as a permanent ally in the fight against crime. Where corruption in the Force persists at what is widely believed to be its prevailing high levels and where the approach to policing is driven by the belief that the police are a law onto themselves, no anti-crime plan, however well-thought out and resourced will succeed.