BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – THE Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force continues to complain about the “lack of evidence”, which it states is a contributing factor to the Federation’s low rate of crime detection.
Speaking with members of the media, Joseph Liburd, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) with responsibility for Crime, informed that the police were able to solve approximately 33 percent of reported crimes during 2009.
He said while the internationally-accepted detection rate is 33 percent, the Police Force is not satisfied and is working on increasing that percentage by identifying and capturing the perpetrators of crime.
In their quest, however, challenges are met and one of them, as the ACP explained, is that evidence is not forthcoming as the authorities would hope it to be.
“What has caused the detection rate to be as low as it is…and it is no comfort to us, the evidence is not forthcoming. We still have a lot of people who are facilitating criminals; facilitating criminals by buying things from these criminal because they can get it cheaper. They are buying from these criminal so they are facilitating the process. And it’s shameful to say that some of these persons are persons who everybody would tend to look up to.”
On countless occasions, members of the law enforcement organisation, including ACP Liburd, have endeavoured to explain to the public the corollaries of refusing – for whatever reason – to give evidence leading to the closure of cases. The call was reverberated recently with the ACP outlining the deadly cycle that this problem facilitates.
“We have the problem of getting the evidence – people who would see and know things are fearful to give evidence in court because they are fearful that someone would retaliate against them, and this is something that we have been encouraging the public about; that they need not be fearful to give evidence because when you are a reluctant witness today, tomorrow you may be the victim. So that is why we are encouraging everybody to get onboard. They need to come out and give evidence again Tom, Dick or Harry, whoever that person may be or persons are.”
The Police Force, according to Liburd, has access to and uses ballistic and DNA testing in their investigation of crimes. He however noted that DNA testing is costly which forces the organisation to “prioritise as to what to send overseas” for testing.
These tests can only go so far but, as the ACP suggested, corroborating witness evidence is needed.
“Just sending things off for DNA testing is one part but we need other bits of evidence to go with that. It is not likely for the police to just come and get samples of blood here and there or samples of evidence here and there (to) send off and get (them) tested...but we need somebody to connect. We need the connection and without the connection you still don’t have a case, even though you have the DNA testing and the DNA results. But we really need people to come onboard and give the evidence. If people come onboard and give evidence, the detection rate would be much higher.”
