Acting Top Cop David Ramnarine announced on Monday that serious crimes were down by a whopping 17 per cent.
Acting Top Cop David Ramnarine
The decrease, the acting Top Cop said, is for the period January to October 2016 compared to the same period last year.
For the period this year, there were some 2700 reports of serious crime. For the same period last year, there were 3263 reports of serious crimes. So far for 2016, Ramnarine said, there have been 119 reports of murder against 149 for the entire 2015. He added that there has been a 62 per cent reduction. Meanwhile, this year, there have been some 638 reports of robbery under arms, as against 670 for 2015. For robbery under arms with the use of other instruments, there have been 254 reports this year, against 310 last year. There have also been 79 reports of robbery with violence compared to 115 for the same period last year.
Speaking on the issue of rape, both statutory and forcible, Ramnarine said there have been 212 reports for 2016 as against 261 for the same period last year, representing a 24 per cent decline.
Meanwhile, break and enter and larceny for this year has seen 1028 reports. For the same period last year, there were 1326 reports, a decrease of 19 per cent.
The Police were able to seize some 83 firearms so far for the year, with A Division (Georgetown-East Bank Demerara) seizing 61 and F Division (Lethem and other interior locations) with 26.
While the Police continue to report on decreases in criminal activities, sections of the public continue to cry out.
Just last week, the Private Sector Commission (PSC) condemned what it said was a rising crime rate, and urged that steps be taken to adequately equip local law enforcement agencies and personnel to better police the country’s borders in order to arrest gun smuggling from neighbouring countries.
According to Chairman of the Commission, Eddie Boyer, this will help in curbing the violent gun-related crimes that have been occurring. At a press conference on Friday, Boyer expressed that there was a concern, felt by every citizen in the country, over the inability of the State to generally protect them from widespread gun crime, which threatened their well-being and safety.
Prior to the PSC pronouncement, Canadian High Commissioner to Guyana, Pierre Giroux, had told Guyana Times that there was need for some studies to be carried out to make a determination of Guyana’s actual crime rate.
Asked to comment on the crime situation, the High Commissioner said he did not know the country that well to understand the dynamics, but suggested that studies should be done to understand the phenomenon involved.
According to the diplomat, the gathering of crime statistics is rather complicated.
“Let’s assume there is a society where 100 crimes are committed and people do not report the crime. So they report 30 of the 100. You have the impression that crime is under control, but it’s more, it’s actually 100. Now let’s assume that we now have a situation where Government improves the justice system for crime. It now goes from 100 to 90, so there has been an improvement, but then this gives confidence to people and they start reporting more.”
He continued, “So, suddenly your crime reporting increases. It goes from 30 to 50, but actually your total crime was reduced by 10.”
The High Commissioner said what was not known was what phenomenon was being observed.
