The incidence of serious crimes in the Cayman Islands continues to fall.
Traffic accidents, however, continue to rise despite increased enforcement by the police.
Police Commissioner Stuart Kernohan says although serious crime has declined in the Cayman Islands, police are concerned and frustrated by the rise in auto accidents. Photo: File |
The Royal Cayman Islands Police Services announced the latest crime and traffic offence figures at its quarterly press conference Monday.
Commissioner of Police Stuart Kernohan said the serious crime statistics were extremely encouraging, and reaffirmed that the RCIPS is taking effective action against criminals operating here.
‘Serious crimes have dropped by a significant amount,’ he said. ‘We have arrested many criminals.’
Serious crime has dropped considerably since Mr. Kernohan’s arrival just over one year ago. Deputy Commissioner of Police Anthony Ennis noted that crime was down on all comparisons.
‘Crime figures continue to show a downward trend,’ he said. ‘We seem to be driving crime down, which is good news.’
There were 127 fewer serious crimes committed in the third quarter of this year compared to the third quarter of 2005, a 45.3 per cent decrease. Burglary, which makes up about two-thirds of all serious crime, was down 56.3 per cent, with 222 in the third quarter of 2005 an only 97 in the third quarter this year.
For the entire year in 2006, serious crime is down 29.1 per cent compared to the first nine months of last year.
Serious crimes have also dropped every quarter this year, from 267 in the first quarter, to 240 in the second quarter and down to 153 in the third quarter.
Mr. Ennis said the police would not become complacent despite the success.
‘I don’t know how much further we can drive [the serious crime figures] down, but we’ll continue to try to do so until there’s no longer a threat to the Cayman Islands.’
Although the serious crime and volume crime figures dropped, Mr. Kernohan said the police were still very concerned and frustrated by the increase in auto accidents.
The 844 total traffic accidents so far this year represent a 53 per cent increase over the 551 accidents over the first three quarters of last year. Fatal accidents have more than doubled as well, from five through the first nine months of 2005, to 11 so far this year.
The accidents are happening in spite of stepped up enforcement measures by the RCIPS. In the third quarter of 2006, police detected 2,436 traffic offences, a 124 per cent increase over the third quarter of 2005, and a 55 per cent increase over the second quarter of this year.
While he is generally pleased with the success of the StreetSkill multi-agency safe driving campaign, Mr. Kernohan said it was frustrating for the RCIPS to increase traffic offence detection to much higher levels and still have accident rates rise. He also said he was at a loss as to the reason for the continued increase in collisions.
‘Normally, an increase in enforcement tends to decrease collisions.’
The largest volume of accidents was of the fender-bender type that occur in built-up areas around town, Mr. Kernohan said.
‘The more serious collisions tend to occur on the more open road.’
Mr. Kernohan said driving with excessive speed was a contributing factor to the accidents.
‘There’s a hard core driver that doesn’t seem to have responded to increased detection and requests to slow down,’ he said.
‘Disappointingly, there are still some motorists that are driving at ridiculously high speeds,’ he said. ‘I’m hesitant to use the term suicidal speeds, but I can’t think of any other word for it.’
Mr. Kernohan likened driving at extreme speeds to pointing a gun at someone and said the RCIPS would deal anyone caught going at very high speeds with much more than just a speeding ticket.
Speaking about possible reasons why speeding is such a problem in Cayman, Mr. Kernohan said ‘it was more or less a culture thing’. He recounted a conversation he had recently with a middle-aged Caymanian woman who had told him that driving fast ‘was in our blood’.
Mr. Kernohan said the campaign against traffic offenders would have to fight against such thinking.
‘It’s about breaking this culture of bad driving and making it socially unacceptable,’ he said.
Mr. Kernohan said the public could help in two ways.
‘First, if the public can mind their own driving, that would be the most help,’ he said. ‘If everyone could just slow down.’
Secondly, Mr. Kernohan said concerned members of the public could advise the RCIPS of particular locations or times when there are high incidences of traffic offences. He said people should also inform the police of drunk drivers or if they know someone driving on a suspended licence.
Related Videos
