THE country’s national security and law enforcement agencies can, and will, win the war on crime, says Minister of National Security, Dr Bernard Nottage.
Addressing a one-day seminar on the rights of the child this week, Dr Nottage said officials at the ministry, along with those responsible for overseeing the country’s law enforcement agencies, were already seeing “positive outcomes” from various strategies.
Dr Nottage claimed this was especially apparent in the Urban Renewal areas where he said crime had gone down by 24 per cent over the same time frame in 2012.
“The other day, I said in the House of Assembly that crime in the Urban Renewal areas had decreased and people tried to have me for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” Dr Nottage said.
“People do not like good news. I did not say nothing is happening, I said crime has decreased. It (Urban Renewal Programme) is having a positive effect. Let’s strengthen the things that are having positive effects and support them instead of trying to break them down. That’s all I ask for, give us a chance and we will get the job done.”
Dr Nottage said the war on crime, while challenging, was not insurmountable.
“All of us know, I don’t care how old we are, that ten years ago, things were not the way they are now and so somewhere along the way we are not doing the things we ought to have been doing or we are failing at what we are doing and so we have got to try some new things.”
The National Security Minister said crime decreased in ten categories at the close of 2012 due to a number of initiatives implemented by the Royal Bahamas Police Force.
Many of the arrests, Dr Nottage said, were “intelligence-led”.
“We have been seeing good results because of our intelligence-led initiatives,” Dr Nottage said.
“Our officers are better trained and are deployed on a daily basis to seek out sources of information which allows us to target crime hot spots, prolific offenders and sundry criminal targets.
“The vast majority of arrests that are made are intelligence-led, resulting from the application of specific law enforcement skills and careful execution of strategy. Based on the sensitive nature of the operations, I am not able to say much more on this other than that our intelligence initiatives are making an impact,” Dr Nottage added.
Dr Nottage said “significant progress” had been made within the Bahamas in areas such as murders, which he said were down by 13 per cent (127–111); reported rapes (107-97); attempted rapes (38-12); unlawful sexual intercourse (178-167); robberies (369-361) and attempted armed robberies (43-31).
He said decreases were also recorded in burglaries (340-309); house break-ins (3242-2875); stealing (1940-1909) and stealing from vehicles (2490-2284).
“While there is good work being done by the police with the support of the public, there are still far too many crimes being committed in New Providence by young, adult males,” Dr Nottage said.
Comments
proudloudandfnm 11 years, 8 months ago
Someone please wake BJ up, the man is friggin dreaming!!! SO far he is without a doubt the worst Minister of National Security of all time. Nothing but lies!!
wave 11 years, 8 months ago
Now Berny when you say “War against Crime” you are referring to officers that murder people in police stations or political bribes and kickbacks or criminals that are not convicted because their mommy or daddy are in high places? That war you mean Berny?
SP 11 years, 8 months ago
Minister of National Security, Dr Bernard Nottage would be well advised to take a lesson on how best to realistically be more selective on the war against crime by looking at the United States, who is systematically working to drastically lower crime statistics and expenditure by legalizing marijuana for personal use.
Senators in Colorado and Oregon have introduced legislation for a federal marijuana tax to boost State incomes by $100M+ annually. No official mention of how this is expected to positively affect the tourist industry, however, one can look at Amsterdam and use ones own imagination to come to a conclusion rather easily.
Some States were well ahead of the 8 ball by making small amounts of marijuana a misdemeanor offence punishable like a traffic ticket years ago.
The reality is America lost this aspect of the war on crime and discovered they can no longer afford to spend $Billions to house 100'000’s of inmates across the country for such a frequent petty offence that actually harms no one.
Alternatively, the Bahamas government as usual did the total opposite last year by imposing stiffer penalties with drastically increased incarceration for possession of even small personal use amounts of marijuana.
The legalization of marijuana in the Bahamas would immediately free up law enforcement agencies to concentrate more assets to other pertinent areas on the war against crime, greatly reduce the backlog of cases for the judicial system, make a hell of a lot of space available for serious offenders at overcrowded Fox Hill Prison by giving those charged with personal possession a full pardon, create a new industry with much needed new employment and finally if properly exploited, enhance the tourism product by offering various grades or species of marijuana from regional producers now trafficking through the Bahamas anyway.
The Banana Republic of The Bahamas however as always remains assbackwards, too late, behind time and missing every boat by eons!
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