Boots on the ground: Beat officers back on the streets

Cayman’s community police are back on the beat after they were redeployed last year amid a personnel shortage.

A total of nine beat officers have returned to duty after the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service was last year forced to re-roster them to cover front line roles.

Superintendent Adrian Seales, in charge of community policing, said the officers offered a reassuring presence, a fast track to a range of help – including other agencies – and would carry out liaison with Neighbourhood Watch networks.

Seales added, “As human beings, we depend on trust and when the community can feel they have that constable in their community, it stops us from becoming ‘us and them’.

“It’s we together, working to find solutions in our community.”

He said, “Sometimes, it’s not always a police matter, but certainly we know who to go to and who would be positioned to deal with a lot of these community problems.”

Seales added community policing was a ‘back to the future’ move, inspired by the ‘Peelian Principles’, the list of ideals pioneered by Sir Robert Peel when he founded London’s Metropolitan Police in 1829, the first modern policing service.

Neighbourhood Watch

Seales added that it was hoped officers would become even more involved with the Neighbourhood Watch network.

“It’s like having a vehicle. If you have a vehicle, you need to service it. The beat officer will be the technician and get out there and service that Neighbourhood Watch.”

Seales added, “Intelligence-led policing is pivotal for us. We want to know what’s happening in the neighbourhoods and we want the right input so we can touch the right things at the right time.”

He was speaking as he teamed up with Inspector Ian Yearwood of the community policing department to discuss the role of the specialist officers just weeks after they resumed community work.

Yearwood said the “connection to the community” created by beat officers was vital, especially in dealing with non-emergency, local problems that could be dealt with by them or referred to other agencies if appropriate.

He said things like tipping of trash was something “we will get cleaned up by the relevant agency” and that some areas once used as dumps were now community parks that enhanced the area around them.

Officers have also helped resolve street parking problems and disputes over road encroachment by vegetation over fence lines.

But Yearwood said beat officers had also helped in cases where burglars and prowlers had targeted particular areas, gathering intelligence about their habits.

Crime prevention

Yearwood said officers also gave security advice to concerned householders and could make home visits where they could spot gaps in security like faulty cameras and high vegetation that could be used as cover for thieves.

“You can’t really measure in terms of output where you have crime prevention measures.

“One of the key roles is offering that advice, not only to the residential community, but also to the commercial community.”

Seales, who was involved with community policing in the 1980s, used the example of a young man who had been “hanging out by the park with his friends”. He was helped and landed a job, which diverted him away from a dangerous path.

“He maintained that job for years. It was a positive outcome for him. He found a job he liked and kept it,” Seales said.

“I could have seen that young man going down the wrong path and becoming a problem for the police.”

Yearwood added the young man’s connection with the police had “changed his direction”.

He said that “we’re not going to reach every single person” but that the ones they did influence went on to lead productive lives instead of falling into a life of crime.