CoP Brandy pledges to keep the numbers low
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - FOLLOWING the announcement during the recent sitting of Parliament that crime is trending downwards, an analysis of the crime statistics for 2020, thus far, has shown that criminal activities have increased during the period of July to September.
Official statistics from the Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force showed that there was a sharp increase in several categories of criminal activities during the third quarter of the year.
Though some of the numbers provided by the Police Force do not add up, the general figures highlighted that there were significant spikes.
Data provided to this media house up to September, pointed to triple figures recorded for Larceny, Other Bodily Harm, Break-ins and Malicious Damage.
According to the official figures provided by the Police Force, there were 102 Other Bodily Harm Crimes, including Wounding; there were 192 Break-ins; in the category of Larceny, there were 270 instances reported to the police, while Malicious Damage was pinned at 148 for the year thus far.
Compared with the same period last year, the police saw a decline in some areas while in others there were increases. For example, in 2019 there were 112 Other Bodily Crimes committed for that period compared with 102.
With regards to Break-ins, there were 247 for the same period last year compared with 192 for this time around; there were 301 Larceny incidents committed up to September last year, and 139 instances of Malicious Damage for the same January to September timeframe.
Strikingly, the quarterly breakdown shows that the police were either on par with earlier quarters or had surpassed those numbers.
In the category of Malicious Damage, police recorded 43 for the third quarter compared with 41 in the first quarter and 42 in the second.\, while Robberies saw a triple for the first quarter, four for the second quarter and 12 for the third.
Larcenies saw the biggest spike among all the crimes, with the third quarter of the year recording 108 compared with 54 from the second quarter and 73 from the first.
Break-ins also spiked with data showing 63 reported instances in the third quarter, compared with 69 in the first quarter and 37 in the second. The instances of Bodily Harm Crimes remained at the same level with 33 reported in the third quarter, 34 in the second, and 24 in the first quarter.
Commenting on the post lockdown numbers, Commissioner of Police Hilroy Brandy told SKNVibes News that the Police Force is still in the process of mapping out its strategy for the remainder of this year and outline its plans to keep the figure low in 2021.
One measure that the Commissioner outlined is engaging the public through face-to-face education on remaining safe and safeguarding their properties, as the officers did on Friday with their pamphlet drive.
The officers are expected to continue with their stop and search operation over the busy Christmas period.
