A NATIONAL task force aimed at bolstering evidence-driven crime prevention under the scope of the CariSECURE project, was on Wednesday launched at the Guyana Marriott Hotel.

The five-member unit comprises Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan; Director of Public Prosecutions, (DPP) Shalimar Ali-Hack; Police Commissioner (ag) David Ramnarine; Solicitor-General of the Attorney General’s Chambers, Kim Kyte; and Director of Prisons, Gladwin Samuels.

The task force, which is a collaboration between the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Ministry of Public Security, is now responsible for managing the implementation of the Caribbean Citizen Security toolkit in Guyana.

Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan, said with the information provided, trained personnel will analyse data which will later see some evidence-based policy-making. “This task force is going to ensure the implementation of the project activities, which include collecting data from all across the country, police stations [and] educational establishments, where there may be violence to students all being collected into one central observation.”

Also speaking at the launch was United States Ambassador to Guyana Perry Holloway. He said the toolkit implementation represents an in-depth collaboration between the entities involved. “The United States Government is proud to continue its long history in supporting the government of Guyana in areas of citizen security and youth empowerment. We are pleased with the gains made under the CariSecure initiative to date, which is part of the USAID’S wider Youth Empowerment Services (YES).”

The YES project uses the public health model for youth crime and violence-prevention to define the problem; target interventions to address risk and protective factors facing both communities and at-risk youth and share results to foster evidence-based approaches to reducing youth crime and violence in Guyana and the Region.

The goal of the CariSECURE project, according to USAID, is to improve youth crime and violence policy- making and programme development in 10 Eastern and Southern Caribbean countries through the use of quality, comparable and reliable national citizen security information.

In adopting this approach, the project which costs some US $14,000,000, will first work with technical personnel in public institutions to standardise and disaggregate citizens security data across the Region. CariSECURE will then build the analytical capacity of public institutions to use such data to identify and measure youth crime and violence trends and resilience factors, draw conclusions on the actual state of citizen security in each country, and identify possible interventions.

The project will also promote a culture of evidence-based, policy-making and programme development in national institutions, which focuses on addressing the root causes of youth involvement in violence and crime. Along with Guyana, project activities will be implemented in Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, the Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the Republic of Suriname, and the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.

Also present at the launch of the task force were respectively: Ministers of Education, Public Infrastructure, Citizenship and Indigenous People’s Affairs, Nicolette Henry, David Patterson and Sydney Allicock along with the Director of Prisons Gladwin Samuels, Head of SOCU, Assistant Commissioner of Police Sydney James and head of NANA, Major-General (ret’d)Michael Atherly and other dignitaries. (DPI)