It’s been more than five years since RCIPS Commissioner Derek Byrne took over at the helm of the RCIPS with the goal of rebuilding relations between the police and the community.
Since then, he says, there have been tremendous improvements, but it’s a never-ending journey that will require constant maintenance between both sides.
To truly understand the degree of fracture and distrust that once existed between some factions of the community and RCIPS, you would have to have been present at one of the town hall meetings that took place during the spring of 2017, some six months after Byrne took over.
From West Bay to East End, the message was the same – police were only seen in the community when responding to a crime. Without their regular presence on the beat, no one in the locality knew the individual officers, and were reluctant to share information. Additionally, residents expressed reservations about being open to police for fear that they would be identified as informants.
Byrne says things have been changing since then.
“From the tangible feedback, we are doing quite well,” the commissioner said at the annual RCIPS Crime and traffic Statistics press conference last week.
He added, “I do think that we have made some significant progress as to the feedback that I am getting. I don’t think we have arrived at our destination, I think it is a journey and will likely always be a journey.”
Byrne said Inspector Leslie Laing-Hall has been appointed as the new head of the Community Policing Division.
“Since taking over as the head of community police, my team and I have begun several initiatives to help address and tackle crime within the community,” Laing told the Cayman Compass.
The RCIPS community police unit consists of 19 officers who have been assigned to an electoral district. They are further supported by an additional 10 community safety officers and, most recently, 11 officers from the last crop of graduated constables have also been assigned to the eastern districts to support community policing efforts.
“We are talking about everything from loud music to persons selling drugs in the community, these are the things that we are targeting,” said Laing-Hall. “So far, we have 43 neighbourhood watches across the island and three business watches.”
In addition to the watch groups, police have also launched a Police Youth Club at George Town Primary School, and RISE (Respect, Inspire, Support and Empower), a female programme similar to Boys To Men. Liang-Hall said there are talks of restarting the police’s Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) programme.
“These programmes are essential to building relationships between police and the younger generation,” he said.
Community police to help combat burglaries
According to the RCIPS, crime rose by 3.9% in 2021. Leading the way were theft-related offences and acquisitive crimes. Laing-Hall said his officers are refocusing their efforts to catch these offenders, and specifically re-offenders.
“For example, whenever there is a series of theft from cars and burglaries, etc., we proactively work during the day and night until the perpetrator is caught and taken to court,” he said.
He added that, for years, police have dropped the ball when it was time to follow up with victims – something that has now changed.
“We know that persons in the community need follow-up information after they have reported a matter to us, so we have made an extra effort to update them on the progress of the investigations and the eventual outcomes,” Liang-Hall said.
The RCIPS statistics reveal that, of the 3,696 crimes reported in 2021, there were only 131 burglaries – down from 157 in 2020 and 264 in 2019.
Burglaries are at the lowest levels they have been, certainly, in 20 years that I have seen from the records,” said Detective Superintendent Pete Lansdown.
Liang-Hall noted that the closure rate for burglary cases is 25%, which means one in four burglars are caught. However, this might not be a true reflection of the criminal activity because police suspect that one repeat offender is often responsible for multiple burglaries, despite only being convicted and imprisoned for one crime at a time, purely due to evidential reasons.
“Because of the strength of our community policing programme, persons in the community are feeling more at ease to come to us. That is part of the reason why we have been able to drive down the burglaries,” said Laing-Hall. “Our intention is to continue on this trend going forward.”
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