BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS – St. Kitts Prime Minister, Dr. the Honourable Timothy Harris said at last Wednesday’s (July 27) press conference that – because a lot of witnesses and victims of crime are unwilling to talk to the police about what they have seen and experienced – it is becoming more and more necessary to implement safeguards to ensure that sound evidence is put before the courts and justice is served.
The Unity Government’s move to provide state-of-the-art forensic equipment, including a comparison microscope, for the Forensic Department now comes sharply into focus.
A press release issued by the Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force on November 12th, 2015 noted that the Honourable Prime Minister “had the opportunity to inspect first hand the new and very expensive Olympus SZX16 Comparison Microscope.”
The press release went on to detail the capabilities of the microscope, saying it “is used to examine shell casings from crime scenes for comparisons and special markings. This is useful for linking shell casings to specific guns used in criminal activities. The microscope is also used to examine and compare handwritten documents.”
Prime Minister Harris’ comments at Wednesday’s press conference also shed light on why the Ministry of National Security is the beneficiary of one of the largest allotments in the Government’s EC$608.3 million Budget. Dr. Harris made it clear that the police will be relying more on forensic video analysis.
At his press conference, Prime Minister Harris said that, “Too many persons are unwilling to share information with the police. In that setting, it makes the police’s job very difficult, not impossible, but very difficult. It means then that the government has to find other resources to make up for that, so we have to then invest more in a CCTV [closed-circuit television] program.”
Dr. Harris continued: “We are moving ahead with that. We have asked the Taiwanese government to expedite action in terms of the specialists that are to be here to help us. We were impressed by the level of reduction in the homicides reported in Taipei [Taipei City is the capital of Taiwan] from the use of, and attributed to, the CCTV program, and so they being a good ally and they being well versed in all forms of technology, we want them to be a strategic partner with us.”
The Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis and a delegation to Taiwan visited the Taipei City Police Department’s CCTV Centre on May 19th, 2016, the day before the country’s first female President, Her Excellency Dr. Tsai Ing-wen, and her Vice President, Chen Chien-jen, were sworn into office.
The visit to the CCTV Centre was scheduled as a follow-up to a bilateral meeting between St. Kitts and Nevis and Taiwan that was held on March 16th in Belize.
In Belize, then-President Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan met with Prime Minister Harris and Minister of Agriculture et al., the Honourable Eugene Hamilton, and agreed to collaborate with St. Kitts and Nevis in implementing a far-reaching, crime-fighting plan for the Federation.
The plan entails expanding the use of CCTV to cover hot spot areas for violent crime, as well as providing training and technical assistance to the Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force.
At the bilateral meeting, then-President Ma Ying-jeou sang the praises of crime-fighting technologies, which he said account for impressive results in Taiwan. “The petty crime rate has dropped 70 percent and violent crimes went down 80 percent. There are 2.6 million people in Taipei, and so far there are 13,700 CCTV devices. People feel safe,” he said.
A press release issued on May 15th, 2013 by the Taipei City Police Department reinforces these comments. The press release titled “Mayor Hao Praises New CCTV for Outstanding Results in Crime Prevention and Investigation” reads in part: “From July 2009, Taipei City Government began installing a new CCTV system totaling 13,699 cameras at major intersections and crime hotspots… installations were completed on November 19, 2012.” It continues: “In 2012, 5,282 criminal cases…were solved with the assistance of the new CCTV, which is a significant growth of 500% compared with 923 cases in 2011…From 2012 to the present, all robbery cases had been solved and the clearance rate for home thefts increased from 20-30% to 80%, creating the lowest crime rate in Taipei City during the recent 10 years.”
Shortly after the March 16th bi-lateral meeting, the Federal Cabinet of Ministers announced the removal of all duties and customs service charges on all surveillance equipment to be used by households and businesses in St. Kitts and Nevis, effective April 1st, 2016 until December 31st, 2016. The Cabinet took this step in response to a written request from the Chamber of Industry and Commerce to the Ministry of Finance, following consultation between Chamber officials and the Police High Command. When the Cabinet met with Chamber officials on April 28th, the Honourable Prime Minister in discussing the surveillance concessions said that, “We believe that every commercial entity, especially of a certain size, every bank and every supermarket must have these surveillance systems in order to play a responsible role in society.”
“As part of this society, our people need to take their role seriously,” Commissioner of Police Ian Queeley said in response to a question asked of him at the Prime Minister’s Monthly Press Conference on Wednesday, July 27th, adding: “There are persons witnessing these crimes in broad daylight and refusing to speak to the police. The thing is, there is a marked distinction between information and evidence, that which we can put before the court to secure a conviction. Victims themselves who are being wounded would tell the police outright that ‘we are not speaking to you, we are not telling you what happened.’ So then, how are we to solve those matters when we are not getting the cooperation from the victims or the public? …We, the security forces, are prepared to do all that is humanly possible, within our means. I can say, and the Prime Minister already said, that our requests are being looked at and considered seriously and granted, and so we want to continue the fight against crime with the help of not only the law enforcement officers and the Government, but the members of the society on a whole.”
