Community Policing Groups helping to prevent and solve crimes

DPI, Guyana, Monday, March 5, 2018

Administrator for Community Policing Groups (CPGs) in Guyana Dennis Pompey said that the organisation is playing a meaningful role in the suppression and resolution of crimes nationally.

At a press conference hosted by Minister of National Security, Khemraj Ramjattan at his Brickdam office today, Pompey said, “We had a quite a lot of successes in terms of arrests and quite a lot of arrests. I can’t give you the figure, but I think we had in excess of 50 to 60 arrests for serious offences.”

In addition, Pompey attributes the successes of the CPGs to the fact that its members are community-based and are more familiar with perpetrators of crimes in the various neighbourhoods.

“We had over the years wanted persons who are not familiar to the police, but familiar to members of the community. They were arrested for offences. One was arrested for a sentence passed behind his back and he was passing the police there and the police didn’t know him”, Pompey explained.

Citing the case of the recent dismantling of several carjacking rings by the police, the Administrator said intelligence provided by the Community Policing Groups was critical to the police’s breakthrough.

“If you could recall a few weeks ago, we had a carjacking ring which was dismantled that was mainly because of Community Policing providing information and leading the way so that these persons could be apprehended”, he explained.

Meanwhile, Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan highlighted his Ministry’s intention to continue to support the work of the CPGs through the provision of training and other resources.  “We plan to establish new groups in all the regions, continue the training of members and to work with youths. Who might not want to join up but to giving leadership to them across all divisions”, Minister Ramjattan said.

According to the 2018 calendar of activities, members of CPGs are to receive continuous training in the areas of domestic and gender-based violence, suicide, trafficking in persons, drugs and alcohol abuse, noise nuisance, anger management, social cohesion, leadership, secretarial duty, financial management, capacity building, divisional audits, patrol duties, care and custody of prisoners, mode of arrests and statement writing among others.

 

By: Kidackie Amsterdam