Initiatives expected to be undertaken during this year as announced by Commissioner of Police Seelall Persaud at the opening of the Police Officers’ Annual Conference last week while not revolutionary, will certainly bring the Guyana Police Force (GPF) in line with modern policing if they can be executed well.
One such initiative—the creation of a serial crimes’ investigation section at the Criminal Investigations Department—is long overdue. Usually, when one hears serial crimes, one’s mind tends to turn to serial killers since these are usually counted as the worst of repeat offenders. But serial crimes are simply serious crimes that would have been committed repeatedly by the same person; hence there are serial murderers, serial rapists and serial arsonists. However, no one has ever defined a con artist, regardless of the number of scams he or she might have pulled off, as a serial fraudster.
And there is a caveat. Renowned criminologist Richard Kocis, who has written extensively on the subject, believes that before the cap can be fitted to the criminal, profiling is necessary. This means being able to study the personality characteristics of the suspect or criminal, looking for certain psychological signs. These include compulsiveness, narcissism, sadism and being prone to paraphilia, although none of these, especially taken in isolation, mean that the person will necessarily have criminal tendencies. The presence of two or more should raise red flags.
Ideally, a serial crime investigations department should be headed by a criminologist or better yet, a criminal psychologist with a background in policing. There is no one in the GPF at the moment who fits either description. However, there have been offers from foreign governments of assistance for the GPF and this is definitely one area where accessing expertise should be explored.
Commissioner Persaud also stated, among other things, that gender-based violence units would be established at sub-divisional headquarters as well as anti-narcotics units in each division.
The setting up of gender-based violence units is another much needed addition. It is well known that numerous training programmes have been offered to police officers over the years on the handling of this issue. Yet, for years now there have been complaints from the general public about the handling of gender-based violence reports at various police stations. The criticisms ranged from general bumbling to lack of empathy and from want of good sense to ignorance on the part of some officers taking reports. Of course this does not always happen and there have been reports too about officers who conducted themselves professionally. However, it only takes a few bad reports to throw shade at the whole GPF, and the commissioner is no doubt well aware of this.
A special unit in each sub-division means that there will always be someone on duty with not just specialized knowledge, but hopefully the necessary competence, consideration and compassion to whom these reports can be referred. One hopes too that thought would be applied to the referral process so that the victim/complainant is not just pushed around from station to station as has happened in the past.
As regards the anti-narcotics units, they should of necessity be made up solely of detectives and one hopes that with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration now active in Guyana, there will be more opportunities for hands-on learning for local policemen as well as specialized training in this area.
As it moves to form the units Commissioner Persaud referred to in his speech, the GPF should be looking to send its brightest and best officers on scholarships for career training. Apart from exploring this with the University of Guyana, the GPF should also be looking further afield—to colleges and universities abroad where studentships can be funded either by the Government of Guyana or by the government of friendly countries that have already evinced the will to assist in modernizing the GPF. If it starts now, in say five years the GPF could have a good number of legal minds, information technology specialists, laboratory technicians and other such professionals on force—and the beginning of real contemporary policing. Moves in this direction will also make the GPF an attractive employer once again, capable of appealing to bright young people, as opposed to the majority of its recruits being those who could not find employment anywhere else.
