HAMILTON – National Security Minister Wayne Perinchief yesterday urged law enforcement officials to consider using curfews and electronic tagging in a bid to curb the rising criminal activities on the British Overseas Territory.
He told Parliament that police officers should also seek to “enforce the law with the powers they already have” since the “senseless” murders were continuing to threaten the “idyllic setting of paradise we call home”.
He said that while the country “can’t legislate” its way out of its current problems, the police should consider using curfews and electronic tagging as a new stragety.
“More families mourn losses that seem and are quite simply senseless. Communities struggle to understand how the idyllic setting of this paradise we call home can be the site of such violence and manifested anger.
“I have attempted to give voice to the feelings of many in the community and have put several concepts into the public domain to spur debate and to raise the level of awareness of the pressing need for such anti-social behaviour to be met with strong enforcement of the law.”
But Perinchief, who is also Bermuda’s assistant police commissioner, said officers weren’t using all the powers at their disposal.
“In my meetings with the Commissioner of Police and the senior command of the Bermuda Police Service I have left them in no doubt that their focus must be on enforcing the law and using the tools provided to them by this Government, with the support of the members of this Honourable House.
“Mr Speaker, Honourable Members will no doubt recall the raft of measures passed in 2009 which came directly from the police wish-list.
“Measures like stop and search powers, enhanced security for licensed premises and the ability to disperse anti-social gatherings were speedily enacted. Mr Speaker, some of those powers remain to be used. I have urged the police to make use of all the powers at their disposal,” the National Security Minister said, adding it is wrong “to pretend that we can legislate ourselves out of this period of violence and gun crime.
“Passing legislation is only one of the means by which to deal with these issues,” he said, noting that “the Bail Act 2005 permits the police to prescribe the residence of a person, to impose a curfew, reporting restrictions and electronic monitoring all without the requirement to charge an individual.
“These are significant powers and in the first instance they must be used to the fullest extent. If we are to give true meaning to the saying ‘we know who they are’ then we must use the tools we have to deal with them. A fully utilised Bail Act will achieve that.”
Perinchief said he also wants to see conditions such as a curfew or electric tagging imposed where on oath a senior officer satisfies a Magistrate that the subject is part of a violent or anti-social lifestyle.
“I know the guardians of constitutional freedoms will have their concerns. I will respect them; but wish for the community to understand that national security demands that we be prepared to re-examine the balance of freedoms versus restrictions.” (CMC)