Police Eastern Division has best detection rate

The largest of the nine police divisions in TT, the Eastern Division, has distinguished itself by having the highest crime detection rate.

Speaking at this morning's police press briefing, legal officer for the division Insp Jankee Doodnath said his division had a 50 per cent detection rate and a 32 per cent decrease in serious reported crimes for the year so far.

A total of 532 people have been arrested and charged in the division over the past year. Jankee reported since January, police had found and confiscated 38 illegal guns.

He attributed this success to continuously monitoring the activities of shooting suspects, closely monitoring suspected drug blocks, public support and exposing officers to the latest training available.

"For the past six months we have experienced the largest reduction in serious crimes in the country," he said, reporting there had been 153 fewer serious reported crimes for 2019 compared to the same period last year.

"We have been contiously monitoring priority offenders and drug blocks and co-ordinating raids and searches on a regular basis at various locations. We have directed our mobile and foot patrols and continued training and development for our officers. We also utilise the police youth clubs, where we try to connect with youths from different communities through active participation and befriend them through various activities."

The division, Jankee said, extends from Matelot in the north to Rio Claro in the south and covers the entire east coast of Trinidad, sandwiched between the northern, central and southern divisions.

Jankee said the majority of crimes committed in the division were break-ins at beach houses, robberies and drug trafficking.

Asked if similar techniques were being implemented in other divisions, police public information officer acting Supt Wayne Mystar said different divisions required different strategies, citing the Enterprise community in Chaguanas as an example of the need to shift policing techniques.

"We tend to alternate 'hard' and 'soft' approaches to crime-fighting, depending on the area. If you recall, in Enterprise, in the Central Division, we would have implemented the 'hard' initiatives when there was a lot of crime. But now the crime rate has subsided there, we are using the 'soft' initiatives.

"So we give different communities different techniques," Mystar said.