Dear Editor,
What you are about to read are my personal views. Crime and the police have come into vogue. Recently, I perused several editorials, letters to the editors and listened to numerous confabulations in the electronic media and elsewhere about crime in Guyana. Many apposite views have been posited as to how to reduce crime and the fear of crime. This has titillated me to again put my fingers on the keyboard and join in the conversation, after a self-imposed absence from writing letters on security nature to the editor. In doing so, I will repeat a few views I had previously shared and introduce some new concepts.
There is something called The Fire Triangle – without sufficient heat, a fire cannot continue; without fuel, a fire will stop; without sufficient oxygen, a fire
cannot begin, and it cannot continue. Correspondingly, there is The Crime Triangle – the location, the victim and the suspect. Ralph B Taylor theorised that all three elements – motivated suspect, suitable victim and adequate location – are required for a crime to occur. Crime is presumed amenable to suppression if any of the three legs is removed or neutralised.
Generally, the crime fighting tactics is focused on the victims and suspects, while very little is done at the locations where the crimes occur. It is the tendency of the police to use crime rates, number of arrests and case clearance rates over a period of time to measure how well the law enforcement agency is doing. President David Granger in his maiden address to the Police Officers’ Annual Conference urged, “But we must go beyond and find causes of crime. Why is there piracy, why is there suicide, why is there murder, why is there trafficking in my division, what are the causes, so stop boasting about how many cases you made, find out how many causes you are able to discover, and let us stomp out the causes, you stomp out the cause, then you stomp out the crime. If you don’t know the cause then the crimes will continue to be repeated over and over again.” This method of evaluation used by the police is just a tabulation of events with no analytical input. Such measures have several problems. In a subsequent letter I will elaborate. What must be done is that the police should analyse the figures and ask these and other questions. Is it a trend? Is it a pattern? Is it a spree? Is it a series? Is it a hot spot? The data obtained can be very instructive to design, develop and implement some amount of intelligence-led policing at the various locations particularly hot spots.
Hot spots are specific locations with high crime rates. A hot spot can be a single address, a cluster of addresses, part of a block, an entire block or two or an entire intersection.
Braiden (1998) suggests another way to view the significance of location – “the hunt and the habitat”.
“I can’t think of two special interest groups more philosophically opposed to each other than hunters and animal rights activists, yet there are two things they totally agree upon. The species will survive the hunt; it will not survive the loss of its habitat.
“What can policing learn from this basic principle of nature. Well if the ultimate goal is to eliminate the criminal species, well the best way to do that is to eliminate the habitat that spawns and sustains that species. Structured as it is criminal justice system puts 95 percent of its resources into this hunt while the habitat is left almost untouched. We can never win working this way, because the habitat never stops supplying new customers for the hunt.” Braiden was writing for the American public. This could be applicable to Guyana.
On the other hand at the various communities several issues may be operating simultaneously which may impinge on the police ability to fight crime. These may be political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental. (PESTLE). Unless the PESTLE is adequately addressed crime will flourish. Over the years there have been numerous strategies and tactics used by the government (past and present), the police and members of the various communities ( another triangle – the government, the police and members of the community), working together in an effort to reduce crime and to make the communities safer places to live. These include but are not limited to: community policing; police in active association with the community; impact; station management committee, community oriented policing and problem solving; interactions with numerous overseas law enforcement agencies; youth groups; scouts; traffic advisory, training board; divisional advisories; neighourhood police; citizen security programme; citizen security strengthening programme; establishment of the ministries of communities, citizenship, social cohesion and social protection; security sector reform; cops and faith; integrated crime information system; one year comprehensive training programme; commission of inquiry; hinterland intelligence committee; strategic management unit; executive leadership team and recently making the police boundaries coterminous with that of the regions.
All of these programmes had/have well intended objectives but they have not yet delivered the optimum desired results. Many milestones were missed. These strategies and tactics have worked in a limited way, delivering excellent results to the police but in patches. However, in many instances they lacked effective coordination, cooperation, consistency and the implementation or key recommendations and policies. Therefore, the watchword must be sustainability.
The interventions have not fired constantly on all cylinders, unlike some criminal elements who are firing regularly and hitting the targets with deadly consequences. All is not lost. It is pellucid that there is no one-shot solution to reduce crime and the fear of crime. Behind every dark cloud there is a silver lining. The clouds will soon roll by. Arising from the police efforts green shoots have been recently emerging. They will be fruitful. The paradigm will be shifted in the favour of the police. As a former senior member of the police force I am confident that I am not hoping against hope.
Yours faithfully
Clinton Conway
Assistant Commissioner of Police
(Retired)
