CoP: Community policing critical to trust in RCIPS
(CNS): Even with serious staff shortages across the RCIPS, Police Commissioner Kurt Walton believes that maintaining the headcount at the Community Policing Department (CPD) is vital in the fight against crime and fundamental to building trust between the people and the police. At a recent press briefing, he said he wants to refresh and increase the size of the CPD.
“We cannot operate in this small environment, this small community, without community policing,” he said. “For me, community policing is at the heart and soul of everything we do. We cannot and we should not function without it. It has to be at the forefront.”
Walton, who has been in the RCIPS for more than three decades, said that back in 1999, when he was a detective sergeant investigating serious crime, he worked to establish good community contacts in the district where he was working. When he was called upon to deal with a shooting, those contacts helped him to identify the three suspects, arrest them and recover the gun within 48 hours.
“They trusted me,” the CoP said, as he indicated how important building community policing is to crime prevention and detection. But he believes there’s a misunderstanding about what community policing really is.
“Community policing, for me, is understanding the issues that are bothering or posing problems for those communities. There should be no community police officer that doesn’t know every single criminal… on their respective beat,” he said at the media briefing on the release of the 2024 crime and traffic statistics.
The CoP spoke about refreshing the community policing programme, including increasing the headcount and training officers, noting that the CPD is one of the most important departments in the RCIPS.
During the surge of firearms crime last year, in particular the mass shooting at the Ed Bush Stadium in West Bay, Walton said he took officers from traffic to work on that investigation and the related clampdown on firearm-related crime, but tried very hard to keep community officers on the beat because they were part of the response to that shooting.
Although no one has been charged with that particular crime, because of the crackdown on gun-related crime and the multiple arrests for gun possession in the aftermath, the police are confident that those responsible for that shooting are currently in jail on gun charges.
Echoing the CoP, Superintendent Roje Williams noted the importance of the CPD. He said that every time there’s a major incident, the detectives rely on community policing, as it is the “conduit within the community and especially the community that the crime has impacted”.
Community officers often work with partner agencies to tackle several different issues affecting their districts, he said. For example, they partner with WORC and CBC to clamp down on illegal workers and overstayers and tracking wanted people. Williams said that community officers have played key roles in high-profile arrests.
They also do low-profile work with businesses and homeowner associations to help prevent crime. They clean up derelict vehicles with the Department of Environmental Health and work with young people in sporting events or at career days to help foster good relationships between the younger members of the community and the RCIPS.
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Category: Crime, Crime Prevention, Police
Newsflash: The West Bay police had a district crime meeting last week,
but did NOT inform or invite the public.
Just cant make this stuff up!!
NO Trust in Any officer I know of!! Keep the station closed!
You took the words right out of my mouth. Time for a new PC, this one needs to be gone like yesterday.
Trust in the RCIPS – perhaps more to do with letting MLAs slide without breathalysing them, having police officers pass on messages from arrested murderers to witnesses and letting 30kgs of coke walk from an evidence locker than community police officers.
waffle.
how can you respect a police force that is overflowing with incompetent, overpaid, underworked, lazy people???
Hopefully the Commissioner of Police keeps better order of RCIPS than he does his rental home in Spot Bay, Cayman Brac.
There is no such thing as community in Cayman anymore. Any sense of community in Cayman was destroyed decades ago.
Insular cabals based on nationality, yes.
Insular groupings based on expatriate status, yes.
Insular “neighbourhoods” based on financial status, yes.
Community?
No.
Well, there was a green Honda Accord on CMR the other day. Old, battered thing, with no license plates at all. This particular vehicle has been in regular use for months at the very least. Not a day or two, but months. The vehicle isn’t exactly hidden away either, it’s been around Fairbanks, but now seems to have moved on. A community policing initiative would have picked this up a long time ago, but it seems to have been left to response and traffic officers, who don’t seem to have detected it yet 😴
Clueless you are.
Then why isn’t this department adequately staffed? We have been hearing the same song for the past Two commissioners. Still nothing has changed.
Come on now. Things need to change.
We have more cops per capita than many other jurisdictions, it is efficiency and laziness that is the problem. I once had a parking ticket that I promptly tried to pay, but after driving into town, struggling to find parking, the court clerk told me the cop had not processed it and I would just have to keep checking back to pay it.
Haven’t seen a single cop in my district in years, but I have seen;
Speeding cars
Cars driving at night with no lights on
Dirt bikes doing wheelies and riders with no helmets
People using cellphones while driving
Kids standing in moving cars
Vehicles not stopping for school buses
Dump trucks using jake brakes
Leaf blower gangs in the road making dust storms
Etc etc.
Don’t forget those vehicles with no operable brake lights.
Same madness here in West Bay. Tired of making reports. Am still waiting for CCTV footage to be pulled from a few weeks ago, when I was almost killed by a black 2 door Mercedes coupe convertible on Conch Point
Road. 4 women in it with a specialized name license plate. RCIPS is a joke, full of rude foreign officers, who do nothing to assist the public. BTW Mr. Walton where are the community police officers. We could sure use some in West Bay, along with some police officers that actually care about protecting the residents and want to work. A joke force is what RCIPS is sad really sad.
Community police officers are traditionally those officers with experience and in depth knowledge of their localities and areas. The RCIPS cannot currently retain its staff. It lost unprecedented numbers due to the buffoon that was Derek Byrne. Recruitment and training is a shambles. Officers just don’t stay. Address that before you start spouting on about the virtues of community policing.
Kurt you are from the Old School Policing back in the early eighties. We all worked hard as Detectives and very rarely had an unsolved crime. I listened to to you at the Police Conference with the News Media and was very disappointed and disheartened along with your counterparts. We all worked with competent Senior Officers who crossed every T and dot Every I. I now see and convinced why the morals and ethics of the RCIPS is so low. For an Island such as the Cayman Islands who was deemed the Jewel of Caribbean we should have one of best and advanced Police Force. Sorry to say, the public is not happy with your delivery of policing along with your Counterparts. Drastic measures need now. “ To whom much is given, much is expected “. Get these so-called officers back on the beat. You know the advantages of Beat Patrol. If officers are not staying in the Service you might need to do a reality check to see why. Stop recruiting these low skilled people who can barely read and write and can hardly spell. We can do better Kurt. The Force needs to return to Rudy Evans days. A New Dawning is badly needed to win back the public trust.
Even they were aspersions cast about Rudy Evans , also certain allegations made against him he ran the Force with an IRON FIST back in the days. Officers trembled when they were summoned to his office. These so called police you have now in the Force majority of them couldn’t even be hired as cleaners. He maintained a certain standard and we upheld them. I am so disappointed with my RCIPS.Anonymous