Crime statistics and public security

In the absence of hard evidence to the contrary, one is not ideally well-placed to vigorously refute the claim made by the Guyana Police Force last week that there had been a twenty-one per cent drop in serious crimes at the end of September, compared with the same period last year. Contextually though, that is not to say that the claim made by the Force is necessarily foolproof and that there may not be more than ample justification for not only questioning its veracity but also for wondering aloud as to whether publication of the claim serves the purpose for which, presumably, it was intended.

To take the second issue first, one assumes that the purpose – or at least part of the purpose – behind making crime statistics public is to provide the citizenry with insights into the performance of the police insofar as law enforcement and more particularly, fighting crime is concerned and by extension, to provide assurances with regard to public safety.

In the instance of the reported 21 per cent reduction in “serious” crimes in September, compared with the previous month, what the Force is evidently seeking to do – and understandably so – is to assuage public anxiety in the current environment in which we have been experiencing a surge of violent crimes, including murders. Whether the Force’s claim regarding a drop in serious crimes in September is having (or is likely to have) the desired effect on public perception of how safe we are, has to do with factors that relate both directly to the accuracy or otherwise of the claim and to other entirely unrelated factors.

Numbered amongst the biggest challenges that continue to face the Force in its efforts to burnish its public image is the seemingly incurable public cynicism regarding both the level of professionalism and the crime-fighting capabilities of the Force. It is this credibility gap which the Force has been unable to close to any significant degree, that continues to impair its ability to persuasively sell itself to the public. In those circumstances it is much more than a matter of what the statistics say or do not say.

Secondly, the GPF ought surely to be aware that the veracity of the statistics aside there is also the much broader backdrop against which the figures are presented, so that whatever claims it makes regarding a reduction in the level of serious crimes in September, is almost certain to be balanced against the recent public disclosures regarding allegations of a spate of serious crimes, including attempted murder and robbery, involving a number of police ranks. In other words, what the police have to say about serious crimes is considerably at variance with public perception.

The problem with the veracity of the statistics goes deeper. One might, for example, raise entirely reasonable questions about their accuracy in circumstances where there is manifest evidence of the inability of the Force to effectively monitor criminal activity and more particularly to detect and respond to serious crimes, including murder, in interior areas, the Force’s ability in that regard being severely limited by circumstances that include (but are not necessarily limited to) a lack of basic policing capacity. In passing it should be pointed out that more than one senior police officer has conceded to this newspaper that a reasonably accurate compilation of overall crime figures is almost certainly compromised by various imponderables associated with the commission and detection of crimes (again, including serious ones) in some interior areas. What this means in effect is that there are likely to be instances, perhaps several of these, in which the numbers employed in arriving at the published statistics may themselves be open to question.

But it is not just the statistics but the rationale for arriving at them that are an issue. It is probably unlikely, for example, that too many people outside of those who are responsible for administering the compilation of the statistics have a clear understanding of exactly what terms like “other instruments” and “no instruments” which are proffered in the police releases, apparently as yardsticks for measuring the severity of crimes, mean.  Here, it is not a question of the picture that the police seeks to convey in their reporting but whether what they report is in fact sufficiently decipherable by the public to allow for a clear understanding of what the reports seek to say.

In the matter of the seizure of firearms (and this may not, altogether, be the fault of the Force) one might again legitimately make the point that such public assurance as might be provided by reporting on the seizure of firearms is almost certain to be undermined by the frequency of gun-related crimes and what is known to be the increasing proliferation of unlicensed firearms.

As stated earlier, one assumes that much of the reason for the periodic release of crime statistics by the GPF has to do with the perceived role that the figures can play in impacting on public perception of the quality of policing. The question that arises here – and the principal one which this editorial seeks to raise – has to do with the way (s) in which publication of these statistics impact on the public mood. When all the circumstances are taken account of how reliable a mechanism do the statistics provide for measuring public perception of the service which the Force provides? Perhaps more importantly, can the numbers which the Force routinely provide be relied upon to create an enhanced sense of public security in the society?