With a 10% rise in serious crime and a 12% increase in murders at the end of May, the new Minister of Home Affairs, Mr Khemraj Ramjattan and the police hierarchy have their work cut out for them.
One of the prime demands of citizens over the last 23 years has been for greater personal security and the maintenance of law and order. Both of these attributes of an ordered society came under great stress in successive PPP/C administrations which refused to take the sweeping and bold measures required to get on top of crime. Instead, during critical periods, they allowed law and order to be overrun by unsavory characters, like drug lord Roger Khan who prosecuted private wars and engaged in extrajudicial killings. It represented a deep criminalising of the state and a grave undermining of the structure and integrity of the Guyana Police Force. Policemen and ex-policemen were co-opted into killings and a range of other criminality.
While the public will understand that the ongoing high crime is a product of the years of mismanagement of the PPP/C, lofty expectations have been created of the new APNU+AFC government and citizens will expect to see structured, incremental and effective change for the better in policing. Indeed, President Granger was a member of the Disciplined Forces Commission of 2003 and knows its seminal recommendations inside out while Mr Ramjattan has shadowed the home affairs portfolio for many years.
Serious problems beset the criminal justice system and the police force in particular and undoubtedly the new administration will want to proceed cautiously. What should drive the pace of reforms is whether or not results are being produced. One of the most debilitating aspects of policing under the PPP/C was the great failure rate in solving major crimes. From the murders of Monica Reece to Courtney Crum-Ewing to hundreds in between such as those of journalist/activist Ronald Waddell and the late Agriculture Minister Satyadeow Sawh, the police have signally failed. The murder of rice farmer Hardat Kissoon on June 1 on board a mini-bus at Turkeyen is the type of horrific crime that citizens want exhaustively investigated and prosecuted. This is what Minister Ramjattan must champion. Under his stewardship the police must either solve crimes or make measurable progress otherwise changes would have to be rung.
It will not escape the attention of the public that the police hierarchy that is in place at the moment is essentially the same one that has failed to produce results over an extended period. The hierarchy and Mr Ramjattan will therefore be on notice that the public expects to witness a radical shifting of gears and hopefully results will flow. If not, there will soon be a clamour for change.
There are several areas where the police can make significant operational and investigative gains. The first is the quality of the response to crime. Police stations across the country have been accused of languid, boorish and uncaring responses to desperate appeals for help. The outrageousness of the poor reaction has become legend over the years. Just recently, the Kitty police station was complained about for the umpteenth time. Clearly the police need rapid response units and transport. They don’t have these at the moment. Once they get to the scene of the crime the units must take decisive steps to interdict criminals. Most often the police treat their arrival at a crime scene as an occasion for commiseration or officious note-taking as opposed to rapidly assessing the situation and evaluating opportunities to engage with or pursue criminals. The handling of crime scenes also leaves much to be desired. Gathering of evidence is slipshod and with very little emphasis on forensic examination. What would immensely improve the odds in favour of the police would be immediate access to labs that can undertake rapid DNA testing and transmission of results. This would then necessitate training on the gathering of such evidence from scenes of murder, rape, armed robbery etc. With such weaponry in its arsenal the police should be able to improve the crime solution rate. How the former government and the IDB conceptualised a billion-dollar forensic lab without the ability to do DNA testing is beyond mind-boggling.
Minister Ramjattan has already signalled plans for a gun amnesty. Any initiative that could cauterise the scourge of illegal guns is welcome. There is a thriving guns-for-hire business in which hit-men are being recruited. Investigations of these must lead directly to the contractors and they must be prosecuted. There are two other aspects of the gun dilemma which have to be looked at. The first is the determination to prosecute those found with illegal weapons. Too often, persons found with illegal weapons escape prosecution and the severe penalties that can be applied. Minister Ramjattan and the police hierarchy must make it clear that possession and use of illegal weapons will be rigorously prosecuted and the stiffest penalties sought. The other concern is the porous borders that ring the country and the vast Atlantic to the north. Soaking up guns via an amnesty is fine but there is only so much water a sponge can hold. If guns continue to flow unhindered across the border, an amnesty would be a futile business. Guyana has to work with its neighbours and friendly countries to interdict the trafficking of small arms across borders.
Given the extent of violence against women, Minister Ramjattan and the police force will have to make a concerted effort to ensure that complaints by women and their relatives about domestic violence threats are acted upon assiduously and with the aim of protecting the lives of abused women and children. Despite pledges of a change in culture, the police force has fallen below expectations in relation to handling of complaints of domestic violence at police stations.
Other factors abound including the need to repair ruptured relations with communities and the nurturing of human intelligence assets countrywide. The Symonds report of the Laurie Lewis era had underscored the absolute need to have intelligence-led policing and to reduce the number of policemen and women doing desk jobs which could be accorded to civilians.
There is no doubt that the Granger administration faces a daunting task to break the back of crime. However, there are options available including recourse overseas for a swift review of the problems of the force and the recruiting of seasoned law enforcers from abroad to oversee operations.
Another deep-seated problem facing the police is the rampant corruption in all levels of the force. There must be a clear statement from the police that there will zero tolerance for this and complaints about the solicitation of bribes should be energetically investigated. The people of this country have raised their voices against entrenched crimes and lawlessness. It is now for the new administration to show what it can do.
