–‘will be more presentable and not hard to read’ – Nandlall

THE Guyana Police Force will soon be able to prepare statements, among other things, electronically, as a quantity of computers and printers will be donated to the force and distributed to various police stations across the country in a bid to build capacity.

The computers and printers will be donated by the Ministry of Legal Affairs through the US$8 million Support for the Criminal Justice System (SCJS) programme, which is funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), according to Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, S.C.

“The purpose of this exercise is to ensure that statements that the police have to take down from persons in the ordinary course of their investigations and statements that they have to use in the prosecution of criminal offences, those statements are typed and not handwritten,” Nandlall said during his weekly ‘Issues in the news’ Facebook programme.

As per the current modus operandi, when a person is involved in a matter which requires him/her to produce a statement to the police, that statement is handwritten, usually by an officer, and sometimes difficult to read, the Attorney General said.

“This is based upon a conversation we had with the Police Force, so they told us what is the capacity and we are accessing and will be donating it to the Police Force,” Nandlall said.

“So no longer will we have handwritten statements in criminal investigations, we will have typed-written statements by Police Officers, and they are going to be legible and they are going to be far more presentable than where we are now,” the Attorney General contended.

Nandlall explained that the statements will not only be more presentable and reader friendly, but will also be stored on the computer and will be easily accessible; he posited that this small step will be significant in helping to improve the services the force provides.

The SCJS programme is being implemented by the Ministry of Legal Affairs and seeks to help tackle prison overcrowding by reducing pre-trial detentions and increasing the use of alternative sentencing, among other measures.

The programme is divided into two components: the first seeks to reduce the use of pre-trial detention, especially for individuals accused of minor offences; by providing better legal assistance to individuals accused of non-violent offences; improve the prosecutors’ ability to handle cases according to the seriousness of the offence; strengthen the judiciary and design and implement a restorative justice programme.

The second component seeks to increase the use of alternative sentencing by the criminal justice system in Guyana, which includes strengthening the country’s legal drafting functions, modernising probation services and implementing a pilot project at the magistrate court level to apply alternatives to imprisonment for non-violent offenders.

Recently, at the handing over of 50 vehicles to the Guyana Police Force, President, Dr. Irfaan Ali expressed that the government is committed to continue making the necessary investments through providing the requisite assets and developing the human resource that are critical to craft a holistic approach to revamping of the force.