Almost a year ago, the newly elected PPPC Government participated with the Guyana Police Force in reconstituting and relaunching the “National Community Policing of Guyana”, at the Police Officers’ Training Centre, Eve Leary. Emphasising the rationale, the Police announced, “Community Policing is a philosophy and an organisational strategy that promotes partnership between the people of the community and the Police. It is based on the premise that both the Police and the community must work together to identify, prioritise, and solve contemporary problems such as crime, drugs, fear of crimes, social problems, and other forms of disorder to improve the quality of life in the community.”
Community Policing, of course, is not new, and arose out of the troubled 1960s, when vigilante groups in the various communities, which felt they were under threat and the regular Police were not responsive enough, were created. The Community Policing concept was actualised in March 1976, but, over the next two decades, was not noticeably successful, as new forms of crime, such as “kick-down-the-door” banditry, appeared and vigilante groups mushroomed. After the PPPC returned to office in 1992, it supported the Community Policing initiative with the introduction of formal supervision, training, and supply of weapons and vehicles. In regard to their mandate, according to Government sources, Community Policing Groups act as the “eyes and ears” of the GPF.
In 2003, during the beginning of the crime wave that was beginning to dwarf that of the 1960s, as part of the Government’s list of measures taken to combat crime in Guyana, the Police Commissioner’s Office established a “Community Policing Group Unit”. That unit was created to work as a liaison between the GPF and the Community Policing Groups (CPGs) across the country, and was headed by a Police Officer.
Again, the unit was not very effective in fulfilling its mandate, and crime grew to astounding proportions. The regular GPF was overwhelmed as the bandits took on the state and the Police directly. With the end of organised banditry’s challenge to law and order in 2008, Community Policing was once again encouraged and facilitated.
However, as soon as the APNU/AFC coalition acceded to office in 2015, the newly-designated Public Security Minister, Ramjattan, seized all the Community Policing Groups’ vehicles and transferred them to the regular Police. The PPP’s former Minister of Home Affairs complained, “In the 2015 Budget, there is no provision under Capital for Community Policing Organisation of Guyana. Contrary to what Ramjattan told the National Assembly – that the vehicles seized from the CPGs and handed over to the Police would be returned to the CPGs, and that there is provision in the 2015 budget for additional vehicles – Ramjattan has actually crippled the CPGs.”
Now that the PPP has signalled its intention on the CPGs, maybe we should return to some first principles and learn from ours and the histories of others on how they can fulfill their mandate more effectively. Community Policing originated in the US after their Civil Rights Movement highlighted the lapse of the Police in ignoring minority communities’ challenges. The first innovation was to introduce more “beat duty Policemen”, many of them recruited from the same neighbourhoods and communities, who would become familiar with the locals and deal with them one-to-one.
In 1982, a study of previous efforts by Wilson and Kelling, in their “Broken Windows”, argued that “by patrolling beats on foot and focusing on initial problems of social disorder, the Police can reduce fear of crime and stop the process of neighbourhood decay.” The model of beat patrols with representative recruits became widespread. Today, in Guyana, we read of so many rural communities and villages that are threatened by roving gangs of youths, who intimidate residents much as had become the norm in urban ghettos.
While Community Policing is a great model for dealing with modern crime at its roots, we must integrate to a much greater degree the premises of Community Policing into the Guyana Police Force.
