Click to Sitemap

NATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON CRIME - COMMONWEALTH OF DOMINICA

(continued)

Crime Management and Challenges in the 21st Century: By Mr. Matthias Lestrade, Chief of Police

Mr. Lestrade said that in presenting his paper on Crime Management and Challenges in the 21st Century, he would identify -

Mr. Lestrade first gave a brief history of the evolution of the Dominica Police Force. He said that the Force was established in 1840 and in 1856 Magistrate Edward Lockhart took command of the Force with a population of twelve men. Some years later, 1907, the Federal Police Act was created and Dominica became a single Force function in the Windward Islands. Prior to 1978 Dominica was part of the Windward Islands Colony up to 1940 with the Headquarters being in Grenada. From 1960 Dominica's Police Force was administered locally by Chief of Police James Monigard, a British Officer, who was succeeded by Damas Henry Philbert in 1969, the first local Chief of Police. Other local Chiefs in succession - Mr. Oliver Phillip, Mr. Ensley Pierre, Mr. Desmond Blanchard, Mr. Simon Darroux and himself as the present incumbent.

Mr. Lestrade informed that in 1978 the population of the Force was 282 and presently the population had increased to 412, an increase of 130 in twenty-five years, thereby showing the challenges and threats since Dominica had not made significant progress compared to the other islands which were nearing the one thousand mark.

Vision Statement
The Vision Statement of the Dominica Police Force, in part, is as follows:

"Develop and maintain a professional organization equipped with the required resources …"

Mr. Lestrade said that the Vision Statement was worded in such a way that the officers could be motivated and disciplined. The officers must have work ethics, personal discipline and must be able to work closely with the communities and law enforcement agencies in order to confront the challenges of a changing and increasingly complex criminal environment, which was service and resource demanding.

Mission Statement
Mr. Lestrade stated that as an organisation the Police Force was required to work in partnership with the communities in order to provide quality service in a most efficient and effective manner through community leadership and objective management.

He said that one of the responsibilities of the Force was to provide services that seek to maintain peace and the people of Dominica and the Government expect a Police Force that was responsive and effective in its operations at all times. He said that in order to live up to that expectation the attitude of the police was very critical. The capacity to achieve the commitment and the loyalty, the knowledge and skills were required in order to perform a wide variety of functions which were all vital elements required to accomplish their objects and to meet people's expectations. However, he said that the Police Force in turn had an expectation, i.e., to have the required available resources to execute those duties and responsibilities entrusted to them. Mr. Lestrade stressed that unless those resources were made available nothing would happen - make the resources available and the Police will function.

Mr. Lestrade pointed out that crime was not asleep and with a force strength of 412 they were not all on the beat where they were required to be because of the several other functions which they were ready and prepared to perform but what was required were the facilities, equipment and resources to proceed.

Statistics on Indictable Offences
Mr. Lestrade informed that in 1996 indictable offences increased from 1,591 to 1,667 and in 1998 it increased to 1,975. So that in 1998 not only was it high, in all aspects, right across the board, there were a lot of murders, burglaries, rapes, etc. He said that burglary, which was the most prevalent crime being committed in Dominica showed trends of increasing with a 17% rise in 1978. Robbery was also on the increase by about 80%; forgery increased by 100% with a 500% increase in 1997 and grievous bodily harm increased by approximately 40%.

Mr. Lestrade said that those crimes were considered a threat to security. Burglary, he said, was embedded in society; robbery, a cause for fear; forgery - nowadays there were new patterns of crime and the police had to deal with them. In that regard, he said there was need to computerize their whole system because presently crimes were being committed on the computer.

Threats
    Mr. Lestrade stated that presently there was no existing credible intelligence that would suggest that any country had designs to take over Dominica. However, the perceived threats to national security came from -

With regard to drug trafficking, Mr. Lestrade said that marijuana was widely cultivated in Dominica and could be considered indigenous to the island. He said the island was also used mainly as a shipment point for the exportation of other illegal drugs especially cocaine. Over a ten-year period, 1992 to 2002, statistics revealed that on average approximately 350 persons yearly were being arrested for drugs. Marijuana, 150,000 trees and 75,000 seedlings and about 25kg of cocaine were destroyed yearly. He disclosed that in 1991 there was a very big seizure of about 1,449.65 kg of cocaine.

In the case of burglary, Mr. Lestrade informed that on average approximately 1200 burglaries were committed in Dominica yearly, i.e., one burglary to every twenty houses on the island. That trend, he said, was untenable and must be reversed. He pointed out that burglars traumatize their victims, deepening their fear of crime because those burglars would invade their victims' sanctuary and seriously disrupt their sense of security.

Mr. Lestrade believed that the sudden interest in robbery on the island was almost phenomenon. The sheer viciousness of some robbers and the violence perpetrated on their victims were sending shock waves throughout the island. He said that the high incidence of the use of firearm in committing robberies was alarming and pointed out that Dominica was experiencing some measure of illegal firearm importation into the country, a situation that could only bring about further criminality.

Best Practices
/Mr. Lestrade stated that in order to conquer the effects of the crimes under review, the police had adopted and executed some best practices aimed at reversing that vicious cycle. Among those best practices are:

Challenges
Some of the challenges identified by Mr. Lestrade included -

Mr. Lestrade said that because of past incidents where police had not responded appropriately to calls for assistance from the public, the Police Force did not presently enjoy the level of support it wished to have to be able to effectively execute its functions. He said further that the lack of cooperation between state agencies in the timely transmission of pertinent information seriously hampered the Force's ability to investigate and detect crime. He felt that inter-agency relationship was very important and key.

Crime Detection
    Mr. Lestrade said that against the ever increase in crime levels, the main areas of the Police Force's performance that require improvement and development were:

In his presentation, Mr. Lestrade suggested the need for the establishment of an Intelligence Committee to support the crime fighting initiative. That area, he said, should be given urgent attention and top priority if an anti-crime policy were to be successfully implemented.

He stressed the need for the police to be trained since many of them were still functioning with their basic training which they got twenty-five years ago. In that regard, he suggested that the Dominica State College should offer degree programmes or certificate courses designed and delivered to meet the needs of a developing Police Force.

In conclusion, Mr. Lestrade hoped that the symposium would forcefully bring out the message that fighting crime was everybody's business. He said that the stakeholders must understand the devastating effect crime could have on the social, spiritual, economic and political well being of a people. He said further that the Police Force would be looking forward to cementing partnerships with the wider community as Dominica's future rested on the collectiveness and industriousness of its entire people.

Discussion
/With regard to lack of resources, one of the questions raised was whether the Chief of Police on his own, could source funding from other agencies. The Chief of Police responded that he was not allowed to seek assistance outside of the Cabinet. However, he said that small items had been received following discussions with other organisations.

One of the questions raised was whether the complaints made by Mr. Lestrade had ever been brought to the attention of the political leadership and if so whether any responses had been received. Mr. Shillingford said he was particularly concerned about that because he represented certain elements of the Diaspora, Dominicans who wished to return home and would not like to know that there was a situation in Dominica that would cause people to be fearful and insecure. Mr. Shillingford mentioned his own experience as a victim of crime and said it was brought to his attention that in the event he were to lose his credit card anyone could use that credit card on the internet to transact business and there was no operating law presently to deal with that level of crime.

Mr. Lestrade confirmed that it was a fact and said it was not only credit cards but also computers and there no existing law to deal with computer print outs. He pointed out that the Police Force was serving a country and the intention was to stop crime not only by words but also in thought and deeds. He mentioned that the police had been making representations for a very long time now for resources; even the living conditions of police officers were not encouraging.

In response to a question raised with regard to police patrolling the tourists sights, Mr. Lestrade informed that they were physically putting police officers at the different sights around Roseau, Gardens, Cathedral, Trafalgar, Emerald Pool, Morne Bruce, etc. He said that if a police officer were to be present during the robbery of a tourist, that person would be taken into custody. However, because the tourist boat was scheduled to depart early, he believed that the matter should be dealt with immediately but there were no laws in place to deal with that unlike Grenada where night courts were being held.

The question was again raised as to whether the lack of resources and equipment had been brought to the attention of the authorities and Mr. Lestrade informed that a yearly budget was prepared for the Police Force and invariably it would be cut. He said that representations were being made frequently and apart from all the shortcomings Dominica had one of the best Police Force in the OECS.

Previous Page:::Next Page