THERE is no deteriorating crime situation in Barbados.
In fact, Commissioner of Police Darwin Dottin disclosed that not only did Barbados have the best crime figures in the Caribbean, but the island’s murder rate, which stood at 16 at the end of last month, was also the lowest in the region.
“Whenever you are trying to gauge the situation with crime and security in a country, you look at homicides . . .,” Dottin noted yesterday, while addressing a Press conference that was carried live by national television and radio stations.
“I thought I should bring this to show Barbadians that there is no runaway situation in Barbados about crime despite the outrage that occurred last Friday,” the Commissioner said, making reference to the tragedy at Tudor Street, The City.
Dottin also reported a reduction in aggravated and commercial burglaries, but said there was “some pain” with residential burglaries and street robberies, which showed significant increases.
To this end, the police chief expressed concern about newspaper advertisements promoting “cash for gold”.
“This matter of cash for gold is causing us significant pain . . .
“We have had experience that a lot of this gold is leaving the country and being sold in New York, where the price is very good,” he added.
He also noted that young people were being targeted for cellular phones, jewellery and cash and described them as hot items.
The police chief also took issue with those accusing the Police Force of not working, noting that at the end of August more than 147 people were arrested for burglary and 126 for robbery.
“I believe that puts a lie to all of these comments and so forth about the force is asleep, the force isn’t working and so forth,” he said.
Dottin said a large percentage of those arrested were repeat offenders, but noted the system was not rehabilitating the offenders.
As a result, he said an in-house computerised programme had been put in place to keep track of the repeat offenders.
“I just want to indicate the force is proactive, the force is not sleeping and the force considers public safety issues as paramount,” he said. (TS)
