AG pledges action to arrest crime

Some initiatives will be introduced within the Royal Barbados Police Force (RBPF) throughout 2020 as authorities make moves to keep crime under control, speed up some processes and spread thin resources.

This assurance has come from Attorney General Dale Marshall, who promised to “redouble” his efforts to tackle the crime situation and achieve greater efficiency within the crime fighting agency.

“The Royal Barbados Police Force will also be redoubling its efforts,” Marshall told Barbados TODAY, adding that for him, 2020 will be about “action and achieving results”

The length of time it takes to get a police certificate of character has been a major concern. Marshall said he would be meeting with Commissioner of Police Tyrone Griffith on Tuesday to thrash out those and other issues affecting the RBPF.

Pointing out that there has been a deficit in the Force for over two decades, Marshall said they would also be finding ways to make the profession more attractive and to better mobilize resources to bring about solutions.

“But until that happens, and we can recruit the additional numbers that we need, we have to do things differently,” he said.

“So, for example, the police certificate of character takes up to six police officers. We are completely automating that. Over the next five to six weeks you will see a whole new computer-driven mechanism for getting police certificates of character, which will see them coming out in a matter of days and actually being emailed back to you. We have developed an application so you can actually make the application on your mobile phone,” he explained.

The Attorney General also said that come next year, police officers would also stop responding to minor accidents.

“Those matters are really matters best left to insurance companies because at the end of the day it is really about who is going to pay. Those are not the kinds of things people get charge for,” he said.

“So police will continue to go to fatal accidents and serious accidents, but the run of the mill accidents – somebody bounced your car in a carpark and you are not moving until the police comes – that takes up valuable policing time,” said Marshall.

This, he suggested, would allow officers to tackle more serious issues.

“So, when it comes to us being able to strategically and holistically reduce all levels of crime and, especially in relation to murders, how we deploy our manpower is going to be key and we are going to be rolling out a whole set of initiatives to take care of that,” he said.

With mere hours to go before 2019 comes to a close, there have been a record 49 murders in Barbados.

Despite the “unprecedented” number of killings, most of which were executed through gunplay, Marshall told Barbados TODAY he was satisfied enough was being done to bring the situation under control.

“Of course there has been enough action this year. The members of the police force have worked more than assiduously in terms of investigations,” he said.

The trained attorney explained that “a lot of things that don’t make the Press” were happening, including several successful intelligence-driven operations leading to the seizure of illegal weapons and the stemming of firearm importation.

“We know, though, that there has been an accumulation of firearms on our streets over the last decade. Our mission is to ferret those out and to ferret out those individuals who have been using them. So there are things that have been going on that have been achieving results for us,” insisted Marshall.

“I know as the year ends everyone is concerned about the high level of murder rates. Forty-nine murders in any year is unprecedented for Barbados, but I want Barbadians to stay the course.

“We have put, in difficult financial times, extraordinary financial resources for the police. We are gradually changing how the police do things so as to free up manpower to deal with the more serious things,” assured Marshall.
marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb