Gangs violence is an everyday reality that the Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF) is contending with. However, with a new perspective in combating crime and criminal elements, Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Stephen Dean said that there are some initiatives the force is taking in the fight against crime.
Speaking at a Rotary Club of West Nassau weekly meeting, Senior ACP Dean said that through some initiatives undertaken by the force, serious crime is trending down.
“Most of our serious crimes continue to trend downwards, and while we don’t glory in it, it is a positive sign.
“Since the new commissioner has come in, we have been looking at some initiatives, because what has been happening over the past three or four weeks, you would not have heard the regular call of the murders. Things have been happening.
“We have been arresting a number of bad guys off the street. We’ve been taking particularly, a lot of firearms off the streets of New Providence,” Mr. Dean said.
“High powered weapons, automatic weapons, we have been finding them,” he said.
Mr. Dean attributed the fact that crime has been trending down to strategies that the force has recently implemented.
“We, believe that because we are taking a number of firearms out the criminal’s hands, we are forcing a reduction in some of these serious crimes.
“I can tell you some of the initiatives. We have instituted the Anti-gang and firearms Unit.
“It’s a law, an anti-gang law that we are targeting of persons who are involved in gangs. We are doing a lot of work behind the scenes, to bring these persons into custody.
“We realized that gangs in our country is a reality, it’s real. We have a lot of young men involved in these gangs, these are real issues in these communities.
“We have the Flying Squad, this is a group of very serious, elite officers who target some bad guys, and they have been targeting them, and bringing them into custody.
“We have the Rapid Response Unit, that we have put in place, and this is another group of officers who are always willing and ready for any emergencies, for any situation that is needed. Any person who believes that they are above the law, this is who we send to get them,” Mr. Dean said.
President of the Rotary Club of West Nassau, Christopher Dorsette, during the club’s weekly meeting, spoke to the role of rotary in the fight against crime.
“Well we as a Rotary Club, and the Rotary Club of The Bahamas as a whole, we are working with the Royal Bahamas Police Force.
“We have an initiative called ‘Road to Peace’, which really speaks to how we as members of a service organization try to give our members, as well as the wider community, to resolve their issues in peaceful way. We have mentoring programs, [and] we have conflict resolution programs.
“We just had a training last week Saturday, with persons who would go into schools and teach the students how to resolve their conflicts in peaceful ways. And that’s how we feel that we are making a contribution to the efforts of the Royal Bahamas Police Force, in combating crime,” Mr. Dorsette said.
