There are two realities about crime and law enforcement which have to be faced and these, regrettably, are likely to be around for some while. The first is that there are decided question marks that arise over whether or not the Guyana Police Force (GPF) possesses either the manpower or the various other crime-fighting resources to provide a sufficiently robust deterrent to crime, not least robberies and murders. Not just in the capital but in other parts of coastal Guyana we tend to have these short, sharp spurts of robberies and murders, except that, worryingly, media reports suggest that they occur with monotonous regularity. Of course, it needs to be said as well, that however much we tinker with the logistics of manpower allocation insofar as the distribution of ranks is concerned, the GPF, by the admission of well-placed functionaries, simply does not have ‘the numbers,’ and in those circumstances will always be shorthanded.
The second phenomenon that becomes apparent in even a cursory examination of criminal behaviour is the prevalence of what one might call opportunistic crime, that is to say a criminal act or a spate of acts that are triggered by a particular set of circumstances that create convivial conditions for the commission of particular crimes.
On June 1 this year as crowds gathered on the East Bank Public Road in Agricola after a seven- year-old girl was struck dead by a truck, criminals took advantage of the situation to randomly set upon and rob unsuspecting onlookers, relieving them of their valuables.
Last Friday evening a group of armed bandits took advantage of what they knew would be a ‘sold out’ Amazon Warriors game at the National Stadium at Providence to put in a presence of their own after the game. In the full view of onlookers and with mind-boggling barefacedness the brigands randomly relieved cricket fans of their valuables, almost certainly jolting them out of their euphoria arising from the Warriors’ record-setting tenth win ‘on the trot.’
It transpires that these robberies would have taken place in the full view of other onlookers who, apparently relieved that they had not been singled out for similar treatment, were only too happy to look the other way.
Even at the risk of being accused in some quarters of hanging yet another criminal act around the hapless neck of the Guyana Police Force one has to ask whether the Force did not `miss a trick’ here. Unquestionably, the GPF would have, by now, become aware of the phenomenon of opportunistic crime, where, as both the Agricola incident and Friday evening’s Stadium happenings demonstrate, large crowds of unsuspecting (and in the instance of Friday evening euphoric and high-spirited fans) would have been, collectively, a ‘soft target’ for criminals who had obviously gone to Providence with a plan.
Here it is a matter of raising the question as to whether the reported after-the-fact pronouncement by A Division Commander Marlon Chapman that the following evening’s game would be attended by a contingent of police strong enough to create a “robbers-free environment” was anywhere near sufficient to placate the victims of Friday evening’s occurrences. Whether or not, police or no police, as we say in Guyana, there may have been incidents outside the Stadium, is a moot point. One imagines that the Guyana Police Force would have engaged in its strategy sessions associated with providing security coverage at the Providence CPL games. One imagines, further, that precedent would surely have given rise to a reasonable conclusion that there was at least a considerable likelihood that thousands of high-spirited, tipsy (to say the least) fans leaving the stadium and possessed of their cellular phones, wallets and their various other valuables would have been ‘easy pickings’ for bandits well-schooled in the ‘discipline’ of opportunistic crime. So that whether it was simply a substantive shortage of manpower or a strategic oversight on the part of the GPF, we venture to suggest that the Force’s strategy functionaries who sit down on matters of this kind may have ‘missed a trick’ on Friday.
