Cayman’s thin blue line has got thinner as a result of staff shortages and budget restrictions last summer – but extra funding allocated by the National Coalition For Caymanians government has made the service’s blue lights shine a little brighter.
Since national security forces, including Royal Cayman Islands Police Service, fall under the purview of the governor, the key role that the NCFC – or any other elected government – can play in reducing crime is to increase the budget for law enforcement.
The NCFC did that with a $15 million increase in budget for the police, the Coast Guard and the Regiment.
The jump from $59.3 million to $73.4 million for 2026 announced in last November’s budget – with a promise of $75.4 million for 2027 – has allowed Commissioner of Police Kurt Walton to boost frontline numbers and increase the number of specialist community police officers.
The services, however, benefited from extra cash on top of the 2025 allocation, with a further $7.7 million last April and $1.2 million last September.
Premier André Ebanks told Parliament’s Finance Committee last November that the new budget allocations provided “the foundation to strengthen front-line policing, enhance investigative capacity and modernise infrastructure and technology”.
He added, “The funding will also enable the recruitment of local police officers and critical support staff, to strengthen local succession planning, community policing and administrative efficiency.”
Adding more officers
When speaking about the budget allocation, Walton told lawmakers that there were 375 police officers and 101 support staff in the service, about the same as 2008, when the Cayman population was about 56,000, compared to more than 90,000 at present.
Walton said last September that the police service was understaffed by 26 officers.
But he said later a recruitment process designed to attract more Caymanians, particularly younger people, now under way, would help.
Walton added he hoped to recruit up to 60 officers in 2026 and more in 2027, which would bring the service back up to its 2019 strength.
He agreed with MP Roy McTaggart of the opposition PPM that attrition rates in the service had to be considered when looking at recruitment numbers.
He highlighted that the service had lost 56 staff members last year to November and that two recruitment classes a year were needed to balance the number who left.
Walton added that, on average, the service shed 15 members for every 25 new recruits it took on.
Several MPs quizzed the commissioner on the planned efforts to beef up community policing across the districts during the Finance Committee meeting.
Walton told the committee that he expected to take on 45 more staff, which will allow for 15 front-line shift officers, 11 community police officers and six traffic officers, as well as three constables on Cayman Brac.
He added another 10 people would be added to the specialist Financial Crime Investigation Unit.
Road safety and bodycams
Parliamentarians also raised concerns about road safety, including the need for a crackdown on speeding.
Walton said that he would invest more in roads policing so he could put a “full complement” of officers on the local roads.
He added that the National Road Safety Committee, of which he is a member, was also examining the use of speed cameras and the introduction of a penalty points system for driving licences.
Such measures would require the NCFC government to pass legislation to allow them. The NCFC signalled plans to do that that when it issued a request for proposal in February for specialist consultancy support to design and help implement a new Integrated Traffic Management and Enforcement System that would include both measures.
In the UK, penalty points are imposed on drivers convicted of roads offences and, if 12 points are accumulated over three years, an automatic ban of six months is imposed.
Government funding of the police will also allow the RCIPS to outfit all frontline police officers with bodycams by the end of July, a move designed to protect officers and the public and help provide evidence that can be used later to help secure convictions.
Compass Media will continue its coverage of the NCFC administration’s first year in office and key national issues across all platforms.
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