BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – FORMER Minister of National Security G. A. Dwyer Astaphan has outlined a litany of recommendations that can be employed by the security forces and the justice arm of Government to arrest or curb the crime scourge.
Astaphan, founder of Operation Rescue, was at the time speaking on his organisation’s weekly radio programme ‘The Operating Room’ aired on WINN FM 98.9 last evening (Nov. 1).
Among the recommendations given, Astaphan stressed heavily on expanding the security forces’ Canine Units, the weeding out of bad apples from the security forces and taking more offensive action against criminals.
Concerning the Canine Units, Astaphan explained that these should be a mandatory part of all stop and search operations.
“The Police and the Defence Force need to beef up their dog units. These dogs must be on patrol around the clock, no part of St. Kitts and Nevis must be exempt from these places. People need to put better security systems on their properties, including trained dogs. Let’s see how bad these bad men are.
“When stop and searches are being done, the dogs should be there at every stop and search. Dogs should be patrolling with police officers, combing the fields, combing the communities. The dogs need to be all over the place like rain. Let me see how bad a bad man is when a dog is after him, a trained dog.”
Most of Astaphan’s recommendations focus on the Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force. Being the primary law-enforcement agency of the Federation, he explained that the Force is not as efficient as it could be in its current state.
“The police are not as efficient as they need to be. Let us face the facts. Morale, mental and physical fitness, training, knowledge of the law, application of the law, dealing with people, professionalism, commitment, integrity, these things needs to be improved upon at all levels.
“If you want to stop these kinds of crime, you have to clean up. It’s not only the criminals need to be cleaned up. And when I say that, I don’t mean anything drastic; the crime needs to be cleaned up. I personally don’t think we need more police; what I think we need is more and better policing.”
Also as a means of increasing efficiency within the Police Force, the former National Security Minister considers the possibility of relieving officers of the responsibility of providing evidence in court for “small matters”. He said these offences should be made ticketable, thereby freeing up police officers to engage in other policing activities.
“We have a lot of trained persons in the Police Force doing desk jobs or non-policing jobs. Too many of our police are overweight and underutilized. Eight years ago, I signed a police regulations, the latest police regulations as the Minister of National Security, and it called for a very strict fitness regime and things like that. All it has done over the last eight years is gather cobwebs. Nobody wants to enforce it.”
The improvement of evidence gathering and preservation as well as the witness protection are areas which Astaphan said need to be addressed.
Law enforcement across the world use drones in their crime-fighting and security exercises and, according to Astaphan, it is time that the Federation moves in this direction.
“We need drones to surveil the landscape. Drones can pick up a lot of information; a lot of these rental cars that people using and all kinds of things like that. We need to have command of the roads wherever cars go, because people ain’t going go somewhere to kill or rob or something and look to walk away from it. They want to get away fast, they don’t want to get caught.”
Harsher penalties for specific crimes and more use of capital punishment are measures which Astaphan feels could curb crime.
“If we want to be able to carry out executions we may have to disconnect from the Privy Council. Anybody who shoots at security personnel or is violent towards security personnel should be dealt with in the harshest way possible. Our security forces need to go on the offensive for all of these gun criminals and not just the man toting the gun, but the man dealing with the gun and the murderers and the robbers and the rapists too. These criminals don’t want to receive what they give…put the pressure on them and see how bad they are. It’s time to turn the tables.”
He said criminals must understand the implications and consequences of their actions, suggesting that the offensive on violent crime “needs to be relentless and within the law…it needs to be ruthless. I am not advocating anything outside of the law or breaching anybody’s rights”.
Over the past couple of weeks there has been widespread public outcry about the level of crime within the Federation.
Of particular note are the three murders that occurred within a matter of days during the past week.
According to the local Chamber of Industry and Commerce, the Federation now has one of the world’s highest murder rates and urgent action needs to be taken to address the crime situation.
