Regional Commander of Division Six, Superintendent Boodnarine Persaud has reported that serious crimes in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) are down by 40 per cent.
“We have seen a significant reduction [of] crime in our region. 40 per cent reduction in crimes, serious crimes. We’re talking about murders, rape, break and entry and larceny, burglary – all of those are classified as serious crimes
“We do have certain crimes that still become an issue like wounding which mostly results from public fights, rum shops, wedding houses, entertainment areas mostly,” he stated.
The only area that has seen a slight increase, the Commander said, is robbery under arms. However, he stated that they have been able to clamp down on this issue in order to reduce its occurrence.
“The only issue we have a is robbery under arms and that was a period between mid-January and I would say about the third week in February, we had a series of gun robberies. We have since arrested and charged a few persons, we took 6 firearms off the road based on intel information.
Commander of Regional Division 6, Superintendent Boodnarine Persaud
“And from that 3rd week in February to now we are seeing a quiet period as it comes to robbery under arms,” the Commander further explained.
The Commander pointed out that the decline in serious crimes has stemmed from the Police’s good communication, cooperation and collaboration with the residents.
“Partnership forms a big one for us in Berbice because it’s a populated region…and policing this region, whatever strategy you’re using should be effective and it is working because our partnership programme has been going well, in building these partnerships we have stakeholder meetings, community meetings, community outreaches and we have the regional intelligence meeting.”
“Some of our main partners are the members of the community policing group, the cops and faith, the CHAMBERS of Commerce leaders,” he explained.
Meanwhile, as it relates to traffic, Commander Boodnarine said that while there has also been a significant reduction in serious accidents there has been a major increase in fatal accidents.
“One of the issues we have in Region Six is the accident rate, but we have a significant decrease in serious and serious accidents are persons get injured and got hospitalise, so we have a 32 per cent decrease in serious accidents.”
“But we have a 250 per cent increase fatal accidents… that is 7 against 2 last year. The thing about it is that out of the 7 fatal accidents in Region Six, 6 of them would’ve resulted from consumption of alcohol, the driver using alcohol in most proven cases,” he said.
This, the Commander noted, they have been working to reduce.
“That is one of the things we have been working on. We had a radio programme, we have a television programme, just to call out on the public to be careful when using the roads and avoid using alcohol when driving.”
“We also have patrol ranks out there who instruct to, do some spotting or staking out…if that is what we need to do reduce traffic accidents then we have to do that and it’s working,” he added.
