Barataria crimes fall

NORTH Eastern Division police are boasting of a 50 per cent reduction in serious crime in Barataria. At a police community meeting last week, senior police officers said this statistic came a year after it was determined that Barataria was among the top 20 hot spot areas, which had a high rate of crime.

Surrendra Sagramsingh, Acting Senior Superintendent of North Eastern Division and Superintendent Nazrudeen Pragg divulged some strategies which were used to stymie the rate of crime in Barataria.

According to Sagramsingh, the main tool for reducing crime in any area, is developing dedication and commitment in police officers.

“The sad reality is where long ago it was easy to push forward discipline to get people to comply, you can’t do that today,” Sagramsingh said.

“We in the North Eastern Division have adopted that awareness, so we try to get our officers especially the younger ones to know that they need to be part of a team if they need to achieve a particular result. There is no magic formula...just dedication and commitment.”

Sagramsingh said that along with motivating his officers, his division has followed the crime plan developed by Acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams, which he described as, “near perfect.”

One of the strategies used was to limit the amount of entrances and exits into Barataria and ensure these points are properly monitored by surveillance cameras. Information from neighbourhood watch groups also play a major role in the police’s crime fighting.

El Soccorro, Aranguez and Sixth Avenue were among the areas in the Barataria boundaries which were of concern to police. It was noted that in these areas, serious crimes are usually committed between 4 pm and 4 am.

Last year, between January and April, Barataria had ten murders and several robberies.

This year for the same period Barataria has seen four murders and a reduction in robberies and assault.