By KHRISNA RUSSELL
Deputy Chief Reporter
krussell@tribunemedia.net
NATIONAL Security Minister Marvin Dames said yesterday he didn’t have any statistics to back claims from a recently released United States report that crimes against its citizens in this country had increased.
The US State Department’s Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) warned in its Bahamas 2019 report that despite publicised numbers, incidents involving US citizens increased by 32 percent.
The report noted this pertained to mostly rape, sexual assault and robbery/theft.
Responding, Mr Dames said: “I don’t have any statistics that will bear crimes against US citizens are on the rise.”
He continued: “But one thing I would say is that you can see (and) we can essentially feel that we are in a different place in this country as compared to previous years and crimes continues to trend down including homicide, armed robberies and the more serious offences.
“So we are very pleased with the direction in which we are headed as a country.
“I continue to hear it from persons on the street on a daily basis. Are we there yet? No. We are far from where we need to be but we are certainly on the right track.”
Officials are also making progress toward the implementation of police body cameras and the creation of a sexual offenders registry, he said.
Regulations for the latter, Mr Dames said, were on Cabinet’s agenda yesterday.
As for body cameras, he told reporters: “We basically would have completed the tender process and so once the tender process would have been completed and it was completed last week, we are in the process now of preparing the Cabinet paper and hopefully within the next two weeks we should have that before Cabinet.”
He also said: “As I said prior to this we’ve been running a significant amount of testing with the vendor and we were certainly able to get over quite a bit of kinks in relation to the system to ensure that we have something that’s custom made for the Bahamas and we are very pleased.
“Because the system would not only accommodate matters in relation to sexual complaints but also we are looking at disaster management as well.
“This is a very diverse system and the local company would have partnered with a very formidable company in the business and we feel that we have something that’s very special and that will work for us here in the Bahamas and so we are very excited about where we are with respect to that,” Mr Dames said yesterday.
As for a timeline for the sex offender registry, Mr Dames said officials were pushing to make it public as soon as possible, adding: “There is a lot of planning that will take place behind that and so we are a government that likes to get our planning in place before we roll these initiatives out to ensure that they work and they work properly.”
Comments
DDK 5 years ago
"He continued: “But one thing I would say is that you can see (and) we can essentially feel that we are in a different place in this country as compared to previous years and crimes continues to trend down including homicide, armed robberies and the more serious offences.
“So we are very pleased with the direction in which we are headed as a country.
“I continue to hear it from persons on the street on a daily basis. Are we there yet? No. We are far from where we need to be but we are certainly on the right track.”
IS THIS GUY FOR REAL??
TheMadHatter 5 years ago
We on the right tracc and thassa facc :-)
DDK 5 years ago
"As for a timeline for the sex offender registry, Mr Dames said officials were pushing to make it public as soon as possible, adding: “There is a lot of planning that will take place behind that and so we are a government that likes to get our planning in place before we roll these initiatives out to ensure that they work and they work properly.” ROFL!!!
John 5 years ago
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) do not always see eye-to-eye. Often, there has been conflict between the domestic agency and the so-called overseas organisation.
‘As previously noted, in 1987, the CIA acted against Lynden Pindling, partly because Pindling had granted sanctuary to the financier, Robert Vesco, wanted by the FBI. In September 1983, however, according to Time (19 September, “Vesco Redux”, p.25), a dispute developed between a proposed covert FBI operation and the CIA. Since 1972, the FBI had been investigating the activities of Vesco and Bahamian officials allegedly involved in illegal drug-smuggling into the U.S.. They intended to set up a “sting operation” to catch the officials taking bribes. But the CIA station chief in Nassau successfully opposed the FBI operation on the grounds that it would jeopardise the continued use by the United States of AUTEC and other activities on Andros including, presumably, the global submarine surveillance system. Richelson and Ball (The Ties That Bind, p.248) add: “AUTEC at Andros in the Bahamas includes one of the largest sea-bottom arrays in the US global submarine surveillance system.”’
Marvin Dames must finally come to realize that there’s no ‘One America.’ There’s the part most Bahamians know where they go for fun and to shop and even to school or live. And there’s part of America that extends overseas and into many countries and also into the business of many countries, These agencies of America are not only involved in collecting and disseminating information, some true and others concocted and knowingly false. And yes they know how to destabilize or topple governments, or create social unrest and disturbances, all undercover and also to disrupt and make economies scream. And yes they may be involved in weapons and trafficking of illegal drugs and humans even. And they may work with you side by side but only to gather information for their own benefit. Even the regular Americans do not like this part of America. Some are even shocked to death about their behavior. And when China exposes them and find them of wrong doing, they execute them.
mandela 5 years ago
Just don't be walking alone anywhere cause you will be robbed
John 5 years ago
Is Andros being used to smuggle guns and incite Bahamians to social unrest and In Wheaton’s view, this secret facility was central to Theodore “Ted” Shackley’s “Third Option”; and the project to create domestic unrest, chaos, and the illusion of a domestic terrorist threat within America. According to the Portland Free Press, the operation was controlled by the same group of CIA covert operators who were running the Jupiter, Florida-based Continental Shelf Associates/ANV (“acta non verba” – action not words), and the New Orleans-based Pacific Gulf Marine; the same “lunatic fringe” of the intelligence community who were investigated by the Pike and Church Congressional committees in the mid-1970s, and Senator John Kerry’s Guns, Drugs and Covert Operation Committee in the late 1980s, related to the Iran-Contra scandal.
Alleged to be involved was George Bush senior, who became CIA Director and, later, President of the United States, Theodore Shackley who was formerly CIA chief of station in Miami, Richard Helms, Robert Stevens, James A. Cunningham, Jr., and an élite inner circle of OSS and CIA veterans, Ray Clines, William Casey, Geoffrey M.T. Jones, et al. Incidentally, the Bush family oil company, Zapata Offshore, an off-shoot of the Zapata Petroleum Company, was allegedly used by the CIA as a cover in the planning of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba (see The Last Supper, 1988 by Philip Willan, p.294). The Andros Island covert operations evolved from the mid-1970s intelligence scandals surrounding CIA officer Edwin P. Wilson, Jr. and the creation of Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) Task Force 157, Consultants International and several “front” companies. At the time Theodore Shackley was CIA Deputy Director of Operations, involving illegal gun-running, money-laundering and assassinations. Such operations were allegedly planned, launched and controlled out of Andros Island under the secrecy, unofficially, of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). Wheaton says he “has reason to believe several questionable deaths are related to illegal covert operations under the secrecy of [the] NRC, and were planned and launched out of Andros
Island”. He alleges that the deaths included Prime Minister Olaf Palme of Sweden, Bill Casey, and Jim Cunningham, a friend of his who was the former head of the CIA’s Air America in Laos; and a number of other individuals, although he does not give any evidence. Gene Wheaton died shortly after. The late investigative journalist, Danny Casolaro, who died under mysterious circumstances in August 1991, associated former
presidents Reagan and Bush Snr., and sources within the CIA and the Mafia, of being part of much the same secret group of conspirators which he named “The Octopus”. How much of this is true, I have no idea.
Well_mudda_take_sic 5 years ago
Greenslade was right when he said Dames would quickly prove himself to be much worse than B J Nottage ever was as minister of national security.
birdiestrachan 5 years ago
NO Games they must be don't know you.. It is to bad you can not send them home you know like how you can sent the senior Police home, and poor McAlpine who experienced you rage.
John 5 years ago
It is time to investigate the relationship between crime in this country and the reports being put out by the state department and their agencies. How is it that they can gather intelligence/crime stats that are contrary to those of the police and go public with it before even sharing or discussing it with police or government officials? Maybe it is the same information they have on the massive fire that killed 158 in a country not too far from here not too long ago. Remember the one that appeared on the cover of Time magazine? We cannot have a foreign agency, continue to suppress our economy with false or negative information, disrupt our social life and be disrespectful to our government. Then what are the benefits of them being here. What exactly are their intentions in this country and for or against Bahamians?
Dustin 5 years ago
It's a pretty sensible approach regarding a sex offender registry, if he wants to ensure it works before implementing. The fact is, it won't.
The registry has been in place for over 20 years in the US and has yet to prevent one single crime of any kind. The high recidivism claim that led to its creation is and has always been false, as prior sex offenders have the lowest recidivism rates of all felons except murderers. Law enforcement doesn't need it, as the same data it contains is in scores of other places. The registry has never played a role in the investigation, identification, or arrest of any crime other than failure to register. Indeed, its only law enforcement purpose is to solicit more funding which is nearly always appropriated to anything in any given LE agency but the registry and its enforcement.
In short, the registry is absolutely worthless, worse when considering cost/effect analysis. Dames is right to question whether or not to create one, and will remain right should he choose to oppose it.
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