—police charged to rid country of criminals

IN recalling the horrid past of “gruesome tortures and executions” in Guyana, Prime Minister, Moses Nagamootoo, who lauded the Guyana Police Force (GPF) for their good work in reducing crime, also called on them to “Smoke out left over gangs.”Nagamootoo was at the time referring to the crime spree during the period 2002-2006 but, with a 16 percent decrease in serious crimes and a 64 percent increase in the number of murder cases, which were cleared up in 2016, the GPF has indeed showed signs of smoking out gangs and earning its worth of being lauded for their good work, said Nagamootoo at the launch of the Police Officer’s Annual Conference held at Eve Leary.

Although officers have done exceptionally well over the past year, it was pointed out that there is much room for improvement, thus at this year’s conference 175 officers will deliberate on current challenges and issues facing the force and seek to derive new strategies which will help in their fight against crime.

Conducted under the theme: “Forging ahead with professionalism and intelligence-led policing in collaboration with stakeholders”, the two-and-a-half-days conference will seek to address major social issues such as gender-based violence and so on, which constitutes and contributes to crime in society, while also moving to enhance its investigation capacity and develop an information command center.

This was according to Commissioner of Police, Seelall Persaud, who indicated that with their sight set on new goals, it must be noted that in 2016, there was a break-even in reports of murder, with a clear up rate of 64 percent, a percentage decrease in robbery-under-arms where firearms were used, with a 15 percent clear-up rate.

Besides, he made mention of the fact that there was a 17 percent decrease in armed robberies, where other instruments were used by the perpetrators, with a clear-up rate of 23 percent, a 25 percent decrease in robbery-with-violence, with a 27 percent clear up rate and a 9 percent decrease in robbery-with-aggravation with a 32 percent clear-up rate.

It was also stated that the force was also able to crack 37 cases, which included 10 cold cases and were able to arrest 78 persons, who were wanted for committing serious crimes.

During that period the Police Commissioner pointed out that they developed new units in every division which assisted them in achieving their targets. Some of the units which were developed include the gender-based-violence and anti-narcotic units as well as a serial crime unit.

As such, with focus on capacity building and expansion, the force saw an increase of its manpower by 896 new recruits in 2016.

Recruits were given the opportunity to receive training both locally and abroad in all aspects of the force’s operations.