Crime Chief decries bail for serious crime offenders

Head of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), Senior Superintendent Wendell Blanhum, has said that when ‘serious crime’ and repeat offenders are granted bail by the courts, it often hinders the performance of the police.

The Crime Chief recently reiterated this concern when asked by reporters about the performance of the CID in solving crimes. According to Blanhum, the CID has been performing “on par,” with an 85 per cent clear-up rate and the constant arrest of suspects and dismantling criminal groups.

However, he noted that one of the major challenges that his officers face is the fact that, despite all their efforts and heard work, perpetrators are often granted bail by the Courts; and often, when they get out, they create more trouble.

“When these known characters or high-profile criminals are granted bail and they have (ongoing) matters before the courts, (it kind of) imposes a very difficult or unfavourable condition upon us. Because many of the persons that we are charging would have (previously) come into contact with the law enforcement officers and they would have charged them; but they are back out, based on the bail either being granted at the Magistrates’ Courts or the High Courts, and that situation, in all honesty, has been affecting us, especially (in) regard to our performance,” the Crime Chief stated.

The Police Force has often blasted the local judicial system, saying that its efforts to apprehend perpetrators are often in vain, since the courts would usually grant these ‘serious crime’ offenders bail. This continues to be a major challenge faced by the Force, and is also a serious deterrent to its efforts at crime fighting.

This issue was brought to the fore back in September last year, when now convicted drug lord Barry Dataram escaped to neighbouring Surinamese days before the ruling of a drug trafficking charge against him. He was on bail at the time of the trial.

At the time, Assistant Commissioner – Administration, David Ramnarine, had pointed out that “…the Police Force is but a microcosm of the wider society; we are one element of the criminal justice system, and we do our level best. I cannot answer, and will not take responsibility, for the behaviour of other people who constitute and have a role to play in the other elements in the criminal justice system. I can only defend our actions in the Police Force and lay our side of the story in the public domain.”

Ramnarine, who at the time was the acting Top Cop, pointed out that four defendants who were charged in the recent past with unlawful possession of arms and ammunition are out on bail; and in three of those cases, they were granted bail by the High Court, while the other was granted by a magistrate.

“This is the reality of what we have to deal with, and challenges we face in law enforcement… This is something that should be known, so that right-thinking people can be concerned and have their say about the conduct of certain people in certain positions,” Ramnarine had posited.

Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan had subsequently declared that persons who commit such serious offences should not get court bail. In fact, he noted that judicial officers must weigh the rights of offenders and the rights of the public when bail privileges are considered.

Even as calls have been made for repeat and serious crimes offenders to be remanded upon arraignment, the issue of overcrowding at the country’s main holding facility – the Camp Street Prison – remains. This, compounded with other issues, led to a deadly riot by inmates at the Georgetown facility back in March last year.

Government has, as such, since earmarked some $60 million for the rehabilitation and expansion of the Mazaruni Prisons, so that inmates on long-term sentences can be transferred to the Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) facility, thus creating space at the Camp Street penitentiary.