The Cayman Islands government and associated private sector entities or non-profits operate more than 130 programmes aimed at fighting crime and strengthening the local community.
But these programmes often have no way of evaluating their own effectiveness and are not coordinated to avoid overlapping responsibilities.
“There appeared to be too many projects with resources spread over too many agencies,” read a summary of the Cayman Islands Crime Reduction Strategy, made public by members of the National Security Council on Wednesday. “Sometimes [funding] was spread too thinly, with projects and departments having to compete. Based on volume, it is impossible for all these efforts to be effective.”
The report – the result of a year-long research project into crime fighting and community stabilisation techniques – identifies several general strategies the government will pursue to reduce the incidence of crime.
Dozens of other suggestions are made within the report for various ways to reduce crime, recidivism and strengthen the community. Governor Duncan Taylor said those will be reviewed in due course as to their feasibility.
“It would be wrong to assume… that Cabinet will be saying ‘we will do each of these things’,” Mr. Taylor said.
The Cayman Islands Cabinet has approved the strategy generally and the document will continue to be reviewed on a yearly basis to adapt to a changing situation, the governor said.
Findings
One of the key findings made in the report is the establishment of a coordination or “tsar” role within the Cayman Islands Cabinet office to direct crime-fighting and related programmes throughout the Islands.
Mr. Taylor said it is eventually expected that some of the current programmes will be phased out or merged together, depending on evaluations of their effectiveness. Determining their current effectiveness is not an easy task, the crime strategy report found.
“Most agencies have not supplied the performance indicators of their various programmes or their success rate,” the report found. “To be more effective, we need to better understand what we have and why we have it… do we really need 15 similar screwdrivers all belonging to different people?”
For instance, an organisation like the CAYS Foundation is separate from the government Department of Children and Family Services, but there may be no rationale for such a split, the report found.
“Why is the Youth Services Unit in a separate ministry from the Department of Children and Family Services?” the report asked. “Why is the Department of Counselling Services running programmes that were previously run by the Department of Children and Family Services and not providing essential services they receive budget dollars for – like drug and alcohol counselling for prisoners?”
A Cabinet Office coordinator [or tsar] is expected to be hired in government’s upcoming budget to assist in coordinating the various programmes.
The crime strategy report also noted that too many of Cayman’s young people were becoming trapped in the criminal justice system. In early 2009, there were 14 young offenders in the Eagle House facility, but because of overcrowding at Northward Prison there were 18 adult offenders residing at Eagle House at the same time.
“Eagle House does not begin to meet the needs of boys, and for young girls there is no facility between home and prison,” the report noted. “It was alarming to note the statistics of how the vast majority of boys released from Bonaventure and other care programmes had ended up in the criminal justice system.”
Recommendations
The report recommended that a main thrust of government’s crime strategy should be the reduction of instances of re-offending or recidivism, particularly among youth offenders.
“There is currently no drug and alcohol counselling being offered to prison inmates,” the study reported. “This is shocking as over 70 per cent of those incarcerated have a drug and or alcohol problem.”
Consistency in drug education was also recommended, starting early at the primary and secondary school levels. The report found young people have a lack of knowledge about the medical and psychological consequences of drug or alcohol abuse.
One of the models with which the National Security Council members were most impressed was the BEST, or the behavioural and educational support team. The programme focuses on crime education targeting at-risk students at the primary school level, but the crime reduction strategy report noted it lacked funding at the moment.
Once adult inmates are incarcerated, sentence planning to reward good behaviour is needed equally as punishments for bad behaviour. The report suggested reopening the previous site of the prison farm in North Side which was closed following the killing of Sabrina Schirn in 2009.
The report also suggested that an inmate re-employment programme should be started potentially through the Department of Employment Relations.
“If a prisoner on release has stable housing and a job, he is less likely to re-offend,” the study noted. On the housing front, assistance often comes too late from government as the inmate’s most vulnerable period is the first 72 hours after release.
Suggestions
A slew of suggestions regarding early intervention, crime fighting operational programmes, enforcement and recidivism are also made toward the end of the crime report.
Governor Taylor pointed out that most of the ideas contained in this section needed a more careful review, but he said the government and National Security Council would be exploring all aspects of the study.
Suggestions from the crime reduction strategy report included:
Home visitation for at-risk children and families from social workers
Alcohol and drugs training as part of any driving education programmes and tests
Consider raising the drinking age to 21
Close all nightclubs at 1am
Develop a cash-for-guns programme
Establish a single law enforcement information database for RCIPS, Immigration, and 911
House dangerous prisoners offshore
Implement a sex offender registry
Require all criminal cases to be dealt with, charge to sentence, within 6 months and consider fining defence lawyers who seek to adjourn matters
Expand the powers of the police commissioner to impose a curfew
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This ‘suggestion list’ is a bunch of pure horse manure.
Is this all the NSC can come up with ?
Plans that that have proven to be total failures and suggestions that have been bandied around for years without a snow-ball’s chance in hell of ever working in a modern-day Cayman Islands.
I’m surprised that one isn’t in there that says ‘make church membership mandatory for every single resident of the Cayman Islands with drastic criminal penalties for non-compliance’.
It is the taking away of people’s personal empowerment to be the main instigator of their own success that has contributed to more than 50% of Cayman’s crime problems, if not more.
The revelation that drugs and alcohol is the root problems and yet, after how many years of evidence, there is no official drug and alcohol counselling in the prison system sums up this crime strategy report.
What I see here is what, from my own experience of Cayman, I’ve seen for my entire life that was lived in Cayman; the unadulterated attempt, despite however many instnaces of failure and its resulting consequences…
To turn the Cayman Islands into a police state so that the rich and privileged can feel safe and protected in their surreal world…
Without ever affecting or being able to influence or reduce the rate of criminality in the Cayman Islands.
At the end of the day, I believe that until we have a police department (not police service) whose officers are not Camanian, the power and incentive to fight crime is abssent.
My home on the Northside has been broken into 5 times and it is my belief that it is known by the authorities who the offenders are. In fact, I belive because of local ties the police service looks the other way.
I do feel empathy for the police because if they did show up at the scene of a robbery what are they supposed to do to apprehend an armed criminal? No wonder the respose times are slow!
I am comtemplating selling my home and finding another place to hide from the Michigan winter!
Actually this list of suggestions is fair and good – and will prove a remarkable help if enforced. Enforced being the operative word. If it is – it will be a help.
Fighting crime at the ROOT is imperative. Pinpointing at-risk families, children (before they are teenagers) and implementing consistent and impactful counselling and preventative measures. Everyone can feel empowered to help if they actually choose to help. Visit the families in need – help organisations that are willing to get their hand dirty and hearts opened in order to save lives down the road…
I’m all for the suggested list mentioned and all for preventative measures if they are truly realised. I for one am willing to do what I can to be a part of the solution. If you aren’t, and choose to gripe instead, that’s your loss.
Gus, you really think it will make things better if you arm the police force? The more guns here the more access people will have to them, whether they are meant for the police force or not, does anyone really want that?
TJP
I’m not against measures suggested to combat Cayman’s growing crime problem;I’m against this tired, worn-out and obsolete set of suggestions that have been taken out of the closet, dusted-off and presented as something new every time this debate is held.
This is not the first time this issue has been debated and long before Cayman’s crime levels were anywhere near what it is now and these were the same suggestions that were made as solutions back then.
Clearly, they have not and will not work because they really do not address the root causes of Caymanian crime.
I could take every single one of those suggestions and break them down for you to prove, in each and every case, why they do not address the root problem they propose to do but that would take writing an entire book on the subject.
To condense my views; the root of most of Cayman’s crime and worldwide crime is poverty and lack of economic opportunities for certain segments of society.
These lauded crime solutions trotted out here do not address this issue at all.
Creating job training and counselling programs in conjunction with employment programs for these at-risk groups would at least cut the % of people who commit economic crimes simply because that is their only option and who might not commit those crimes if they had alternative ways of legally supporting themselves.
How does nightclub hours and a curfew relate to Cayman’s crime problems, pray tell ?
Those are only two measures suggested that will not work in modern Cayman and would only punish innocent people without ever reaching the people who intentionally go out to commit serious criminal acts.
Someone out drinking (responsibly) at a nightclub until whatever time in the morning is certainly not out burgling someone’s house or robbing them at the same time.
You can also trust me that a curfew does nothing to keep a commmitted gunman at home when he has serious business to attend to elsewhere; a burgler was shot dead in the dead of the night last year by a homeowner, having removed a police-tracking device from his body so his whereabouts could not be determined.
I guarantee you that if he had that choice to make over, he would have chosen differently but some people never get that second chance; I have absolutely no sympathy for him or others like him.
The first two suggestions on the list are worthy and worthwhile ones.
Numbers 3,4,7,9 and 10 are completely useless and unworkable and have been suggested as solutions since Noah was a boy and wasn’t workable then and will certainly be far less workable now, than when they were suggested years ago.
Address the reasons why people commit crime first, and you will have gone a long way in beginning to solve your problems.
The overall focus of this report in no way does this and is thus bound for failure.