Community Policing Groups urged to get to the root of crimes

Members of Community Policing Groups were today urged by Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan to get to the root of crimes in the communities, according to GINA.

Ramjattan was speaking at the 40^th anniversary observance of Community Policing Group (CPG), held under the theme, “Community policing building public trust, social cohesion and embracing youth development”.

Ramjattan said, “It is important that we see this organisation, the community policing group, as being more directly involved at the community level, solving crimes yes but also helping in the preparation of solutions to those crimes, getting to the root.”

According to the public security minister, getting to the core causes of crimes is important but finding ways to solve them is another. He said that building community trust should also be high on the agenda of community policing groups.

Community Policing Groups were also reminded to consider what was said by President David Granger, at the Annual Police Officer’s Conference. “Community policing establishes partnerships between the police and the public and it must be emphasised that problem solving should be one of the basic core,” the President had said.

Ramjattan noted that the risk associated with interpersonal violence will be addressed by injecting experts into communities to try and understand what the causes of interpersonal violence are. In addition, better parenting, conflict resolution, vocational and remedial education are some ways to target the crime situation, Ramjattan said.

Currently, the CPG consists of 263 groups with 5194 members. During the period of June – December 2015, CPGs conducted 265 vehicular patrols, 138 motorcycle patrols, 150 bicycle patrols, 443 foot patrols, 50 boat patrols and 13 ATV’s patrols. They made 38 arrests ranging from murder to domestic violence.

During the month of April, a number of activities will be conducted in celebration of  the 40^th anniversary of CPG. These include a spelling bee completion, outreach to schools, community meetings, inter-faith service, youth conference and camp fire, a women’s conference and a family fun day.

Training and awareness raising campaigns will  be  carried out for the community groups under the ‘Citizens security strengthening programme.’