BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - FOLLOWING the Police Force’s report of a significant decrease in major crimes and an increase in minor ones for 2020, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Valston Graham, is of the view that persons affected by the latter could lose confidence in the justice system.
The DPP was at the time delivering his address at the opening of a one-week Training Workshop for Law Enforcement Prosecutors.
He told the participants that victims of minor and petty crimes would begin to lose confidence in those persons who do not successfully prosecute the perpetrators.
The DPP also told the participants that when crimes are down, politicians and tourism officials are happy, but it is a different ‘ball game’ when there is an increase in minor and petty crimes.
“When minor and petty crimes are up small businesses are devastated. They lose confidence in the police, they lose confidence in the justice system,” the DPP noted.
He lamented that the small man within the communities are the ones who will suffer the most when it comes to petty crimes.
Back in January, SKNVibes had requested the full crime report for 2020 but was recently told that they are still being compiled. However, many aspersions were cast against a number of high-ranking government officials and police officers on the public airwaves.
However, in statistics belatedly provided to SKNVibes last year after repeated queries and reports, petty crimes were significantly high. A breakdown of that information showed that there was a significant decline in the number of crimes attributed to the period of lockdown.
Stats on the first three quarters showed that there was an increase in several categories of crime in the Federation.
For the period January to September, there were triple digits recorded for Larceny, Other Bodily Harm, Break-ins, and Malicious Damage.
The Police Force reported that there were 102 Other Bodily Harm Crimes, including Wounding, 192 Break-Ins, 270 instances of Larceny and Malicious Damage was pinned at 148.
