Dear Editor,
The Kaieteur News of 22nd May informs us of the findings of a study done by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) concluded in Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica Bahamas and Suriname.
The call by the IDB report for police departments in the Caribbean to focus on proactive policing is in keeping with trends here in the USA, and indeed much of the developed world. Proactive policing refers to action by police officers and departments intended to prevent criminal acts from occurring – crime prevention. Proactive policing takes many forms and police departments lay emphasis on different approaches; usually emphasis is determined by available resources. For example, in a poor country like Guyana and those of the Caribbean emphasis would be placed on encouraging citizens to place bars on windows and doors of homes, and encouraging vehicle owners to mark relatively easy to remove parts of their vehicles, since marked items are more difficult to sell. Increasing police patrols is also a proactive activity since a police presence tends to deter crime and give citizens a feeling of safety and security. But there are approaches to proactive policing that are worrying and present a threat to democracy.
Proactive arresting – police crackdown is one such approach. Crackdown is usually defined as “intense, short term increase in officer presence and arrests for specific types of offences or for all offences in specific areas.” The problem with this approach to proactive policing is that it gives rise to police eroding the rights of specific communities and individuals. This would include raids on specific communities, the harassing of ex-criminals even when there are no grounds for suspecting criminal intent, unwarranted stop and search of people from poor communities, etc. Aside from its threat to individual freedom the success of this approach to proactive policing is questionable. Here in the USA where this approach is frequently used in poor, disorganized communities it has been found that crime moved to neighbouring communities.
I would suggest that Guyana double down on strengthening its community policing approach as the vehicle for the delivery of proactive policing. Community policing seeks to establish a relationship between the police and community that is typified by trust, respect and a willingness to work together in the interest of establishing a safe community. In such an environment, for example, community members would share information with the police on planned criminal activities, point out abandoned houses used by criminals, and organize themselves in active community policing groups in support of police efforts. (There are some criticisms of community policing and suggestions that it fails to meet its goal of increased community satisfaction. One of the reasons for this inability is that it tends to focus on serving groups that already see the police in a favourable light, while making little effort to reach dissatisfied groups in the community. This observation demands attention and should be subjected to urgent examination.)
The IDB study is useful to Guyana, since it indicates an approach for determining the level of crime in the society and suggests a possible response to crime. However, the IDB method for gathering information used in the study and its suggested response to crime, should not be conceived as providing us with approaches that should be copied and used in Guyana without consideration of their appropriateness. In life others, friends can help us only so far; there are some things we will have to figure out for ourselves.
Yours faithfully,
Claudius Prince
