Home News Govt to spend $16M on crime- mapping consultancy
The Government of Guyana has awarded a contract to the tune of US$78,750 (some $16 million) to GeoTechVision founder Valarie Grant, who will be tasked with the responsibility of conducting consultations as Guyana moves to highlight the criminal hubs in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica).
At the end of the consultancy, the Government, through the Public Security Ministry, is expected to move full steam ahead with its crime-mapping initiative. Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, during one of his press conferences, said that the project will geocode serious crimes – that is the occurrence of crime as per geographic location – after which communicative maps will be created.
“Guyanese will be able to see a digital map that depicts where crimes are occurring based on crime data,” Harmon added. He further stated that the information would be colour-coded and include type of crime; date, time and location committed.
The Minister of State posited that the information would be displayed the same way as Google Maps and other Street Maps that are available on the Internet.
While Harmon did not divulge additional information about the project and when it would take effect, he noted that once the contract was signed, the project would be executed. In addition, he could not give any details about the contractor to whom the contract was awarded.
Crime analysts use crime mapping and analysis to help law enforcement to make better decisions, target resources, and formulate strategies, as well as for tactical analysis (eg crime forecasting, and geographic profiling).
Research has shown that the boom of Internet technologies, particularly web-based Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies, is opening up new opportunities for use of crime mapping to support crime prevention.
Only recently, the Georgetown Mayor and City Council (M&CC) had named the Bourda and Stabroek Markets as havens for criminal activities. As such, citizens and foreigners were warned about the location.
At the same time, the Police statistics proved that 20 murders were recorded in Region Four. With respect to other crimes, the Police did not give a breakdown as to the regions they were committed.
But, according to the statistics, the Force recorded a nine-per cent decrease in serious crimes at the end of June 2018 when compared to the same period in 2017.