Analysts to help RCIPS report clean-up rates
Crime scene in April 2017
(CNS): Two expert crime analysts will be joining the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service shortly to help the police understand their detection rates, which, in addition to current information on crime levels, will show the public how successful the RCIPS is at solving crimes. Police Commissioner Derek Byrne explained that crime reduction and prevention rates are important but they do not always show the full picture, especially when multiple crimes are committed by one offender. But he said there were plans to improve how the police report back to the public on detection rates.
“What we don’t have in the organisation at the moment are crime analysts,” Byrne said at a recent press briefing where the RCIPS revealed the 2018 crime statistics report. However, he explained that two had been recruited and are expected to start work in June.
“That will give us a greater focus on the detection rates,” he said, but explained that there are other factors which have to be considered. “The traditional measurements of crime are reporting and detection but the greater measurement is reduction and prevention. And the difficulty for any police service is recording the level or percentage of prevention.”
He pointed to a drop in the burglary statistics, which shows some prevention and reduction but it is hard to put a percentage on it. “We will have greater statistics as we go forward,” Byrne noted, as he explained how crimes are counted.
The main problem, he said, is that a suspect may be arrested on suspicion of multiple crimes but confess to just one crime, which is what is actually counted and presents a difficulty in terms of detection rates.
But when it comes to understanding performance management, the traditional measure of detection, reduction and prevention must also be considered.
In the crime statistics report the data represents the principal crimes and offences that happened last year that were actively investigated, with only primary offences included in the totals, as per UK National Counting Rules.
This means that if two crimes were committed by the same person during a single incident, then the crime carrying the longest potential sentence would be included in the cumulative statistics, while the secondary offence would not. So where a murder is recorded, the suspect may also have committed other offences such as possessing an illegal gun that would not be recorded.
Other things that are important to consider when it comes to understanding detection rates is the issue of illegal firearms and what that can tell the public about other serious crime detection issues.
In 2018 there were eighteen robberies recorded with the use of firearm compared to 13 in the previous year, but in some cases robbers pretend to be armed or the witnesses see what they think is a gun but is not real.
Guns are also recorded as the secondary offence in the case of robberies, and so the rise or fall of armed robberies may not be fully instructive in understanding the prevalence of actual firearms. But in 2018 police recovered nine real firearms compared to 29 the year before, of which 19 were manufactured firearms, and there was also a gun amnesty.
Understanding whether or not police did a better job in 2018 tackling gun crime than they did in 2017 can be quite difficult and is not as simple as comparing the numbers. It will be the job of the new analysts to help both the RCIPS and in turn the public understand how well the service is doing when it comes to solving crime.
Crime stats are important for Police, the more crimes they can report means more budget money. So what the police are saying is that crime is not down just not counted.
So we have gone from zero consultants to two. Is there enough work for two?Why did they not start with one. Guess their spouse needed a job too. Should have only hired one. What are their salaries. This Government got the RCIPS spoiled. They get everything they ask for and one extra.
Things like this shows how incompetent the RCIPS management is?
Let’s hope our money won’t be wasted on a contrived consultant report telling us all is well, just like we want to hear.
How can I get a job as a consultant? Seem to be a very lucrative occupation in the CAYMAN ISLANDS!!!
You do realise you have to be a yes man first and foremost.
Yes Sir
Let’s guess where they will be recruited from, friend of friend, will a local Caymanian be trained in conjunction with these overseas officers?
England of course
I wish. Jamaica more likely given the last 20 years or so…
More consultants??? Oh gosh.SMH!!
Detection means little when the DPP can’t be bothered to actually prosecute people arrested and charged. Let’s see the statistics on burglaries and robberies that result in charges but then go nowhere.
I wonder what is this all about.
Analysts, consultants, whatever it all means someone coming in and pocketing a lot of public money for doing a job that by rights should be done locally.
As for the crime figures? “Lies, damned lies and statistics?”
Sadly, being able to demonstrate how what crimes may be being prevented is a challenge in any jurisdiction. Often a focus on better supporting families and reducing poverty have been shown to be effective.
Ah, but that would mean immigration having to tighten up on who comes here, and why. Maybe when that seafarer marries that much younger chica someone has to tell her her foreign children cannot come with her. Maybe we should stop allowing work permits to people from outside at sub subsistence wages. Maybe entry level jobs need to be reserved for locals. Maybe foreign criminals with a propensity to be repeat offenders should be kicked out after their first offense. Maybe employers can be expected to do more for parolees in relation to relevant roles. Maybe people should just enforce the damn laws we already have.
Perhaps to keep it simple, could the RCIP please report on the clear up rates on the 4,684 vehicles that failed to indicate on the Hurley’s round-about, the 417 vehicles that failed to come to a complete stop at the hospital 4 way crossing, and the 78 vehicles that drove past the police station with missing or obscured plates, so far this morning?
I know there are much more serious and complicated crimes going on, and you have a way to go, so I limit my questions to the easy stuff.
About the seafarers, govt money should only go to the young wives if they have been married over 20 years, or had a child from that marriage or were married at the time the seaman was at sea. I personally prefer only the latter. Otherwise it is just a bunch of opportunistic women preying on these old men wanting steady income and waiting for these men to die.
Seamen money should only go to the old wives that was married to the old seamen when they went to sea and the wife had a hard time raising their children by themselves when their husbands was at sea.