At the 158th anniversary symposium of the police, cumbersomely titled ‘Modernising Policing by Balancing Technology, Community Engagement, & Global Best Practices,’ Home Affairs Minister Robeson Benn on Tuesday referred to a 20% decrease in serious crime over the past few years. “I think it’s almost a third or fourth year running that we reduced it by about 20% every year. We have been able to get good results,” he was quoted as saying.
This was simply a replay of what had already been declared at the Anniversary Awards ceremony on Friday, when Police Commissioner (ag) Clifton Hickens reported on significant benefits from the 2022-26 Strategic Plan, notably the reduction in serious crimes. “We are currently experiencing an 18.9% reduction in serious crimes, thanks to the active presence of 361 community policing groups across the regional divisions, intelligence-led policing methods such as crime mapping and predictive analysis, and the use of drones, body cameras, and CCTV for real-time surveillance and hotspot management,” he said.
It should be noted that this was not the first year we have heard this. However, last year when similar statements were made by the acting Commissioner there was a reaction from the private sector. The Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry commented on its intense concern over the level of crime being perpetrated in Guyana, more particularly in recent times.
Its statement ran: “Whilst the Guyana Police Force has posited that their official crime statistics indicate a decline in crime, the GCCI views this as not reflecting the reality of the prevailing circumstances. Rather, and alarmingly so, the GCCI views the decline in official statistics as demonstrative of a loss in confidence in the GPF and reflective of an underreporting in criminal perpetration.”
No specific category of crime was identified, although the release came after the fatal shooting of former Chief Education Officer Olato Sam. What was particularly interesting, however, was that the Chamber alluded to possibly flawed statistics, intended to cover a loss of confidence in the GPF. And this is the problem: before anyone will believe that the police are achieving all these remarkable results, we will need a credible statistical breakdown.
Citizens for a start do not feel safer than they did a few years ago; in fact the opposite is the case. In addition, if one opens an independent newspaper there is plenty of violent crime on the pages to cause a reader to ask what precisely the police are talking about. If one takes the Saturday, July 15 edition of Stabroek News as an example, it would be seen that on that day we reported on the condition of six-year-old Jeremiah Gustave who was wounded in the head as a result of a shooting at Charles Street, Charlestown on Tuesday night; on the death of taxi-driver Edmon Moses who had been set alight by his partner; on the questioning of several persons relating to the shooting death of Shaun Anthony Simon, a trans woman at King Street and South Road; and the charging of a miner with the murder of another miner at Quartz Stone Backdam, Cuyuni River.
Of course officialdom will say that newspapers seek to sensationalise in order to sell their product, and their coverage of crime is not reflective of reality. But this paper does not sensationalise crime, and simply reports events as they have happened. And nor would it make any difference if there were no such reporting; this is a small country and people hear about what happens without any prompting from the press, and usually in more lurid terms than will ever be supplied by the media. People derive their sense of safety from the area in which they live, and that is not affected by what the media says let alone by what the acting Commissioner has to say.
The problem for the Police chief and the Minister is that no one believes the statistics. But then why should they? The figures are completely meaningless. In the first place, what is serious crime? What does it encompass? Does it include burglary, for example, or white collar crimes involving significant amounts of money, or money laundering? If we don’t have a breakdown of individual crimes it will be impossible to gauge whether there has been a decline in ‘serious crime’ overall, or only in certain categories like burglary, for example, which will affect the calculations for the entire group, including violent crime.
And make no mistake, when the public reads about ‘serious crime’ they are taking that to mean violent crimes and murder. Even where this category is concerned, people need to see breakdowns. Is the acting Commissioner seriously going to tell us that domestic violence, for example, is on the decline in this country? It is in any case not something which will be affected by any of the methods listed in his Strategic Action Plan.
And what about other categories of murder as well as violent assault and armed robbery? In addition, why can’t the Police Force supply figures for the number of murders and injuries where a firearm was used, and say whether these have decreased since the advent of the Strategic Plan. Armed robbery is of particular interest to the business community.
Then there is the geographical spread of violent crime. Are some areas safer than others, and if so what are the factors impacting on this? The public cannot help but notice the number of murders taking place in the mining areas, which seem to display all the features of Guyana’s very own Wild West. Has serious violent crime really declined here? And what about urban areas like Georgetown in particular, which for all its surveillance cameras has no one feeling any safer.
In addition to disaggregating the data, Mr Hicken needs to tell us exactly how it was compiled, and how his officers determined what should be included. Unless we know their statistical method it will be difficult to establish the reliability of their conclusions. In addition to that there is the point made by the Georgetown Chamber, and that is that many crimes are simply underreported. This would not, of course, apply to crimes of violence, but certainly is relevant in terms of burglary and theft of one kind or another where it is no secret that many citizens do not even bother to contact the police.
The police have an image problem, but it will not be helped by the issuing of fuzzy data which is at odds with the lived experience of citizens. The GPF needs to come clean, and provide some meaningful statistics. Contrary to is fears, it will find that the truth is the best route to remedying its relationship with the public.
