The Guyana Police Force (GPF) on Tuesday announced that it had recorded a 19% decrease in serious crimes for the first four months of the year as compared to the same period last year.
The statistics, released by the GPF, have come as a recent rash of crimes has led to growing unease in the business community and criticisms of the almost year-old coalition government for its seeming inability to manage national security.
“There was a 9% reduction in reports of murder; a 9% decrease in gun-related robberies; an 8% decrease in armed robberies where other instruments were used by the perpetrators; a 38% decrease in robberies with violence; a 38% decrease in robberies with aggravation; an 18% decrease in rape; and a 22% decrease in break and enter and larceny,” the GPF said in a press release.
The police also indicated that the reports of crimes made in April, 2016, represented a 32% decrease against those reported in March this year. “The slowing down of the crime rates is based on several initiatives taken by the Government and the Guyana Police Force to manage the crime situation,” the GPF said.
According to the GPF, the initiatives include capacity building in the Criminal Investigation Department that is now manifested in perpetrators of high profile crimes being arrested within two to three days of their occurrence.
“That situation coupled with the social crime prevention programme and our anti-crime patrol systems as well as Government policy initiatives are developing the public trust and reducing the fear of crime in the Guyanese society,” the police force said.
According to the police force, its partnership programmes with civil society organisations and its collaboration with local and foreign law enforcement agencies have also served to strengthen its capacity.
The release further said that presently 12 Assistant Superintendents of the Police Force are attached to the Dade County Police, in Miami, for a period of three weeks. This training is likely to expose them to a “First World approach” on designing tactics and delivering on frontline functions.
It added that for the year 33 members of the force have received training overseas in various aspects of law enforcement, inclusive of a three-month course in Cyber Crime in India, a three-month course in Advanced Fingerprint Technology, also in India, and an Advanced Crime Scene Investigation Course, in Russia.
Further, the force said locally another batch of 34 new entrants to the Criminal Investigation Department has completed a six-week training programme. This adds to 24 ranks who completed an Intelligence Gathering and Analysis Course, 20 ranks who participated in a Narcotics Investigators’ Course, and another 35 who attended a programme on National Protocols for Child Advocacy Centres Multi-disciplinary Teams.
