THE Ministry of Home Affairs, on Wednesday, convened a stakeholders forum on ‘Non-Reporting of Crimes’ at Regency Suites Hotel on Hadfield Street, Werk-en-Rust, Georgetown.
It included an examination of the factors that influence crime victims’ decisions to report crimes, discussions, crime reporting procedures, steps taken by the Guyana Police Force (GPF) to increase it and concluded with recommendations on how to improve on reports.
The Minister, Mr. Clement Rohee underscored the importance of reporting crimes to the relevant authorities and urged religious leaders and bodies to have a positive influence on ensuring crimes are reported.
He agreed it is true there are a number of crimes committed and people keep them to themselves and in their families.
“I do not know whether these crimes are reported to the priest or pastors but, back in my days in church, there was the Confession Box where one would go and confess sins and talk about problems,” Rohee recalled.
He said that was another form of reporting sins.
Rohee said there is also the struggle of conscience when a girl is raped or sexually assaulted or a boy is sodomised and the parents do not want to report the incident because of embarrassment the family would face.
He observed that the next best thing they do is ship the victim out of the country so as to save themselves further embarrassment.
Rohee said those are among the issues the Ministry wanted to discuss as the ministry alone cannot solve the problem of non-reporting crimes in society.
“What are we doing about this problem?” he asked and answered: “We decided to take the bull by the horns and organise this forum to see if there is anything useful that comes out of it that can help us to see whether it is a Police matter, the way the Police station is perceived, why people do not want to visit the Police station and make a report or is it the judicial system or what is responsible and what can we do to address it.”

NEEDED

Rohee told the gathering a collaborative effort is needed to tackle the non-reporting of crimes and urged leaders of organisations to assist persons in reporting crimes because, sometimes, people report crimes to the Police but do not desire further action.
He, however, considered the Wednesday event an important and significant one, because, as far as he can recall, it is the first such ever.
Rohee posited that, in the absence of an activity of the sort, speculations are bound to arise and that is why many institutions are established to produce data that can be tested and stand scrutiny.
He continued: “I was looking at the topic of this activity to leave out the word crime and deal with non-reporting as an issue. It is not only in the area of crime but other matters that are not reported, for example, children not attending school.”
Rohee noted that several social and economical issues are not reported, crimes are committed but not reported and anytime you have situations where there are issues not reported, then you have distortions of reality and facts.
He said, too, that non-reporting has to be looked at as who gets justice and its impact on the wider society and, as such, the forum is a search, a journey to see where it would lead.
Rohee remarked that “we all have a fairly good awareness in our society and we need to know what to do about it.”
He said it is his hope that the persons who gathered there would all contribute to finding the pathway to solving the problem and made an appeal for them to try their best to address it, so that, whenever the question of non-reporting of crimes comes up, they would have an idea how to respond.
Permanent Secretary in the Home Affairs Ministry, Ms. Angela Johnson, in her remarks, emphasised the importance and need for exercises such as the one held on Wednesday.