Benn sees crucial role for Community Policing Groups in fighting crime this year

Minister of Home Affairs Robeson Benn has placed heavy reliance on the National Community Policing Group (CPG) to track down and fight crime in 2024. According to the Minister, these are the crime-fighting operations that have firsthand knowledge of the dangers posed to the nation.

During the Ministry’s agency review, posted to the Ministry’s Facebook page on Wednesday, Minister Benn said these groups have a better understanding of challenges within communities and can assist with best practices to mitigate crimes there.

“We speak of increasing peace in Guyana [and] we expect that the knowledge that CPG officers have of their communities and challenges of livelihoods, that they would be the best persons to advise us on how to intercept in relation to crime and violence in those Communities,” Minister Benn said.

There were over 10,000 community police group patrols conducted in 2023 and these were done by boat, motor vehicle and bicycle. There are 401 CPG’s across the country and 4,923 members involved at community levels.

Minister Benn said the government is trying to prevent and mitigate community violence and crimes which occur due to too much drinking and the use of illicit substances, and trafficking in persons. This is where the CPGs play a major role in gathering information on these crimes for further police interventions.

Though these groups managed to assist significantly with crime-fighting in 2023, Minister Benn said that in 2024, the focus will be improving the communication and interpretations of information reaching the Police.

He said due to the country’s landscape, information from far-flung communities are sometimes inaccurate and can be misleading.

“The challenge given how Guyana is large and how communities are spread out in relation to improving communication and improving factual information coming out of communities, sometimes we get various interpretations of what may be going on in communities,” Benn stated.

Meanwhile, Administrator of the the Community Policing Groups, Rishi Das, said that in 2024 another 40 or more CPGs will be formed in communities that need it. He said 97 new groups were formed last year.

“We have 112 persons from CPG doing traffic wardens’ work and we also have assistance with building community trust,” Das said.