Wrapped in the package of this year’s Christ-mas policing plan came the annual crime figures. Well some of them. It was Deputy Commissioner Wendell Blanhum who on this occasion announc-ed that serious crime was down. We were told the same thing last year too, but again, there was no full disaggregation of the figures to give the public any more accurate idea of what the reality is.
While he did identify certain ‘serious’ crimes, he did not give the full list of what fell under this rubric and what the statistics in each case were. As such, the 14.4% reduction he cited as applying to the entire category was not all that informative.
And while it has been reported in the past that there are eleven offences which fall under the ‘serious crime’ definition, commentators have observed that there are a number of unlawful acts which are not included under this heading but should be, such as, for example, arson, drug trafficking and unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition.
Mr Blanhum did single out one or two categories for comment. He said that while there had been a reduction in the number of murders in comparison with 2023 – 100 as against 133 last year – conversely there had been a rise in the incidence of armed robberies. There had been 239 occurrences this year as opposed to 215 the previous year, representing an 11.2% increase.
This at least was no news to the public who could not have avoided noticing the escalation in attacks on supermarkets, stores, businesspeople and the like. Such attacks are reflective of the availability of firearms, and the Deputy Commissioner did have something to say about this.
On the basis of a ten-year review, he reported, the highest seizure of illegal firearms was recorded this year, i.e. 162 guns between January 1 and November 11. Sixty-seven per cent of these were pistols, 13% shotguns, 11% revolvers and 8% rifles. Whether the higher level of seizures is a reflection of the greater effectiveness of the GPF or the fact that more guns are coming into the country than before is very much an open question.
Whatever the case, most of these originate from the United States and Brazil, which is not something which will come as a revelation to observers. For many years Brazil has been the source of Taurus revolvers in particular, because there is a Taurus factory located there. Further-more, former president Bolsonaro had a much more lax approach to firearms than either his predecessor or successor, making 32 changes to the country’s gun laws and causing a proliferation in the ownership of weapons.
For all of that, said Mr Blanhum, most of the firearms were seized in Police Division 4 ‘A’. It is not very often that we hear of seizures in Lethem, or anywhere in the vicinity of the Brazilian border, although the guns must be transported overland. One might have thought that with the cooperation of the Brazilian authorities, and the monitoring of miners, particularly those who go to and fro across the border, the police might have been able to make some impact on the situation.
The case of the United States is much more problematic, and it is not just our authorities but the entire Caribbean which has concerns about the illegal importation of firearms from that direction which have been fuelling violence in the region. There have been meetings, symposia and workshops to address the problem, and a few months ago the US Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security said that Guyana was producing an action plan on the matter for which American funding was available.
The official referred to an export ban on illegal arms put in place in April by the Biden administration, and a Department of Commerce interim final rule intended to reduce the risk of legally exported firearms being diverted or misused to fuel regional instability, drug trafficking, and other illegalities. In addition, it was said, currently valid licences authorising the export of firearms to non-government users would be revoked to certain destinations. Among the 36 “high risk” countries to which this applied were Guyana, The Bahamas, Belize, Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.
Whether Guyana’s action plan will ever see the light of day remains to be seen, but in any case, no one can be sure what the situation will be when Mr Trump accedes to office, and whether he will adopt a similar approach to the export of arms as President Biden. One can only hope that the government completes the plan and qualifies for funding before January 10.
These developments, of course, are all outside the jurisdiction of the police. What was said in the press conference was that local business places were advised for their own safety to install security cameras. It was also said that a number of serious crimes had been solved using the security cameras located around the city. If so, this is interesting news, because to date the public has not been informed about how many crimes, let alone armed robberies, have been ‘solved’ because of the presence of CCTV.
In addition to armed robberies, Mr Blanhum did relay to the assembled media that there had been an increase in rape cases this year. One hundred and ninety-three were recorded up to November 11 as against 180 last year. This probably does not reflect anything like the true number, because many will go unreported. The police, however, do count rape as a serious crime, whereas the same cannot be said of cocaine possession. The Deputy Commissioner told his audience that a five-year analysis had revealed that 2024 accounted for the highest number of people charged with cocaine possession.
One can only wonder if drug-trafficking and possession, gold smuggling, arson or manslaughter, to give a few examples, had been included in the category of ‘serious crime’, whether a 14.4% reduction in that classification would have withstood much scrutiny.
Of course the police want to convey the impression that they are making headway against the criminals, but they should understand that it doesn’t matter what statistics they publicise, citizens will still make their own judgements. This will be done on the basis of whether they feel safe or not, and in a comparative sense whether they feel safer than they did last year. And if what they experience does not to a large extent square with what the police say, then they will just accuse the GPF of trying to cover up the reality.
The hierarchy of the Force needs to do a rethink. If it wants to retain a category of ‘serious crime,’ then it should expand it considerably. But in any case, it should start providing statistics for every offence; these should not be a state secret. If they do this they will come across as more transparent, and where there is good news, such as in the case of murders (Region Eight had none this year), this will stand out more than if it is buried in the nondescript category of ‘serious crime’.
