ERLA'S CRIME PLAN – CoP hopes to reduce murders by 20%, expand anti-gang unit

BY the end of this year, Police Commissioner Erla Harewood-Christopher intends to reduce murders and violent crimes by 20 per cent, increase gun seizures by 15 per cent and improve the detection rate to 30 per cent.

Newsday received a copy of the top cop’s violent-crime reduction plan that was recently sent to National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds. Hinds mentioned parts of the plan in Parliament on Wednesday.

While at the launch of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management (ODPM) Public Alert Notification System (PANS) system, Newsday overheard Harewood-Christopher complaining that the plan was leaked. Harewood-Christopher appeared upset while Hinds appeared shocked. The exchange took place at the end of the ceremony while attendees were mingling.

At a meeting of the Joint Select Committee (JSC) on National Security in March, Harewood-Christopher promised to reduce murders by June in the short term and by December in the long term. She did not quantify the reduction she hoped for at the time.

Using the murder toll of 605 last year, Harewood-Christopher’s hope, as stated in the plan, is that the murder toll be reduced by 121 this year, which would amount to a total of 484 murders in 2023.

On Friday, police said the murder toll was 190 at the time.

At that rate there is an average of 47.5 murders each month.

Therefore, at its current trajectory, the murder toll at year's end will be 570 – less than last year’s figure but much higher than the targeted reduction.

In the plan, under the heading: "Where are we now?" Harewood-Christopher said violent crimes, especially gun-related homicides had been increasing at a phenomenal rate which fuels widespread fear across society.

“The problem is built around gangs, guns and drugs. There must be a turnaround in 2023 to show a significant decrease in violence and improvements in safety.”

In order to make every place safe in the country, the top cop said, by the end of the year, the police hope to be progressing “in a significant way” while enjoying an improved relationship between the police and the communities.

Achieving that would mean a 30 per cent detection rate for violent crimes and a reduction in serious crimes by 15 per cent.

At a symposium co-hosted by the UWI Trade and Development Unit and the Confederation of Regional Business Chambers on March 31, Harewood-Christopher detailed her ten-point plan to reduce crime and violence.

Her two-year plan, she said then, included precision policing, focusing the resources of the police to address violent crime, dismantling of gangs by using precision policing and legislation, targeting communities with high reports of crime and retrieval of illegal guns.

At the time, she said she would used available resources to focus on transnational crime – targeting gun and drug trafficking, human trafficking, money laundering and cybercrime.

“We will improve our efficiency and effectiveness by optimising our existing technological capabilities, both internal and external and invest more to close the gaps in our technological capabilities.”

Police statistics indicate that, last year, there were 732 reports of shootings with 196 detected, rape and other sexual offences accounted for 669 reports with 133 of them being detected. There were also 2,436 robberies with 455 detected.

Overall, in 2022, there were 4,557 violent crimes reported, the third highest between 2018 and 2022, with 924 of them being detected, the lowest detection rate of the last five years.

Harewood-Christopher's 41-page plan obtained by Newsday on Friday, also detailed a 10 per cent reduction in larceny of motor vehicles, to charge 20 gangsters under the Anti Gang Act, arrest and charge 40 priority offenders, successfully prosecute 20 priority offenders and decrease road deaths by five per cent.

This will be achieved by “successfully implementing a violent crime reduction plan built on the golden pillars: Precision, Intelligence, Prevention, Proactivity and Prosecution.”

Harewood-Christopher intends to focus on precision policing of the “power few,” dismantling gangs, eradicating drug blocks, enhancing police intelligence capability, building police legitimacy, increasing visible police presence and controlling movements on our roadways and public places.

“A very small number of people (prolific offenders) are responsible for most of the violent crimes in the country. The majority of violent crimes occur in a very small number of places (hot spots). The majority of violent crimes occur within a specific period of the day and on specific days of the week (hot times).

“Precision Policing is the policing approach which allows us to focus policing effort and resources on those highly concentrated violent-crime people, places and time (power few) for best results. Is the golden thread running through this violent-crime reduction plan” she said.

The top cop intends to increase accountability and transparency, improve the management and supervision of police operations and adopt a zero tolerance on police ill-discipline and corruption while promoting a positive image.

Police for the rest of the year will focus on extensive data mining on gangs including the size, locations, criminal modus operandi and profiling members and associates.

The most violent gang members in the police database will be selected and each police division will conduct intensive targeting of them, particularly members with outstanding warrants, drug dealers and other notorious people for specific action.

To dismantle gangs, the top cop will increase “substantially” the number of officers assigned to the gang unit while assigning intelligence officers in each police division to collect and process intelligence on criminal gangs.

The police will also operationalise Gang Intelligence Units in each police division.

While dismantling gangs, the police will also increase its intelligence-guided stop-and-search exercises and its collaboration with the US to disrupt the trafficking of firearms.

As guns and drugs go hand in hand, police will identify drug blocks in their divisions, identifying the dealers and all associates.

In enhancing police intelligence, Harewood-Christopher hopes the collection and processing of intelligence by the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) will be shared with the multiple units and teams within the police.

The criteria for establishing informants will be updated while recruiting paid informants and establishing closer working relationships with the Defence Force, Customs, Immigration and Prisons.

First-division officers will now be included in patrols as well as members of specialist units while applying directed patrols to hot-spots. The Police Social and Welfare Association will be engaged to “secure the commitment of officers.”

Harewood-Christopher said while there are 38 legal ports of entry, police identified 156 illegal ports while Tobago has 27 illegal ports and three legal ports. The ant-crime plan said intelligence, as provided by the Security Service Agency (SSA) suggests there are an estimated 11,043 illegal firearms in the country.

The top four of the 10 divisions for gun retrievals are Northern Division with 3937 guns, Southern with 2453, Central Division with 1493 and Port of Spain with 1196.

Harewood-Christopher, who was chastised for saying the police will use spirituality to help in its crime fighting, ended the plan with “God Bless.”