BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – NOTWITHSTANDING that the Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force’s detection rate is above the internationally-accepted standard, Commissioner of Police said he is not pleased with last year’s figure.
Statistics provided by the organization yesterday (Feb. 23) indicate that the detection rate for 2016 is 34.6 percent.
On the island of St. Kitts, 464 of the 1444 recorded crimes for 2016 – which equates to 32.1 percent – were detected. And on Nevis, 199 crimes were recorded, of which 104 were solved. Nevis’ detection rate for 2016 is 52.3 percent.
According to Commissioner of Police Ian Queeley, last year’s detection rate is a slight decrease from that of 2015.
“We have also reported a slight decrease in the detection rate of our cases when compared to that of 2015. The detection rate in 2016 was 35 percent and the detection rate in 2015 was 37 percent.”
While registering the organisation’s dissatisfaction with the rate of detection for 2016, the CoP noted that the number of cases solved in 2016 is greater that than of 2015.
“Although the 35 percent detection rate is above the internationally accepted standard, we are still not satisfied with that and it should it noted that notwithstanding the slight decrease, there was an overall increase in criminal cases detected by 171 over 2015. In other words, we may have had two percent decrease in the detection rate but when compared to the amount of crimes that were reported in 2016 over 2015, we have made over 171 more arrests.”
Queeley also spoke of a number of steps which the Police Force has or will be taking to fight crime and also increase the rate of solvability. He said these include the use of drones and increased use of forensics.
