A better Christmas crime-wise?

Just one week into the month of October, President David Granger while speaking to reporters at State House concerning the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the alleged plot to assassinate the Head of State, put forward the view that it is important to ensure that the Guyana Police Force (GPF) can be trusted and is efficient in addressing crime.

For certain, public trust has always eluded the Guyana Police Force over the years, and this most recent Commission of Inquiry did nothing to enhance the public perception of the GPF, since its top brass came across as a fragmented group often working at cross purposes and with no clear direction. It brought into sharp focus the managerial mis-steps and institutional weaknesses that plague the Police Force that appeared symptomatic of the general malaise which it has been struggling with for too long.

About a month before the President spoke, Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan said that there was a need for strategic thinking within the GPF. His comment was made as officers embarked on two weeks of capacity building training in the area of strategic planning – courtesy of the British government. Two weeks later over fifty officers were slated to participate in a one-week Canadian Justice Education Society collaboration with the US Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs training course – part of the ‘Strengthening the Criminal Justice in Guyana’ project.

But in just the month of October alone, as criminal violence continues to spiral out of control, the GPF has been making the news oftentimes for seemingly all the wrong reasons. A 20-year-old police rank, assigned to the Tactical Services Unit, was charged and placed before the courts for allowing the escape from lawful custody of Melvor Jeffrey, a teenager shot by police and under police guard at the Georgetown Public Hospital, “through negligence or carelessness.”

Another police rank, Constable Kwesi Maloney, was remanded to prison on the charge of having in his possession a pistol, ammunition and spent shells while not being