Region 1 ranks urged to be proactive in the fight against crime – Commander

Commander of Region One, Superintendent Boodnarine Persaud issued a call to police officers
there to be more proactive, and to work with residents as the region continues its fight against
crime.
Commander Persaud was at the time addressing the annual breakfast and award ceremony of
Division One, in the region. In disclosing statistics for serious crimes in the Mabaruma sub-
district, he said this have increased by 21 per cent when compared to last year’s report. He noted
that there’s also a significant increase in robbery under arms, standing at 9 per cent this year
against 4 per cent in 2020. Relating to statutory rape, Commander Persaud said that this is at 49
per cent, compared to 23 per cent in 2020.

The Region One Commander noted that solving cases of statutory rape continues to be a
challenge. He said this is because most cases are only reported during pregnancy. Housing and
Water Minister, Collin Croal, who was also at the event, assured that the government has
invested significant funds to enhance the physical infrastructure of the security sector. He noted
that further Government seeks to better the lot of officers to better serve citizens.
Croal declared that Government’s investment includes the purchase of 50 police vehicles at a
cost of $225M from the recently approved $21B supplementary budget. “Policing can be
thankless job sometimes because you can be critiqued for doing your job. However, this situation
can go vice versa, you know both sides of the coin,” Croal explained. Croal, like Persaud,
believes building a relationship with the communities in the region could be quite beneficial. “If
you don’t have the community support… the only way to be successful in solving crimes is
through intelligence. So, the reality is that if we don’t have community spirit then it will make
our work much harder,” he revealed.
Minister Croal pledged the government’s continued support to improve the security sector. As
such, he hopes that all officers continue to perform their duties with integrity, honesty and
professionalism.
Meanwhile, Regional Chairman, Brentnol Ashley agreed with Croal’s sentiments. He told the
officers that they are important and without them, there would be no order. To this end, he
encouraged them to develop themselves to become the best version. Additionally, several police
officers and members of community policing groups (CPGs) were honoured for their work.