Police Chief Keith Miller says criminals are getting smarter

Criminals are getting smarter but Commissioner of Police Keith Miller says that the police will be stepping up their game too.

Back fresh from study leave, Commissioner Miller joined in the chorus of concern that has been expressed by some persons in the last few weeks – that the police need to step up their game in the area of intelligence gathering, if they are to have any chance against the new breed of criminals.{{more}}

“Long ago people used to hide things under their beds, in the bottom of suitcases, barrels, in their ceilings and so on, but not again, they are becoming more sophisticated,” Commissioner Miller told SEARCHLIGHT.

Commissioner Miller said that the police cannot operate without accurate intelligence because it would be like going on a wild goose chase.

He said that television and criminal deportees, who are exposed to a more high tech way of criminality, are making the task more challenging but the police have risen to the occasion.

“Sharper intelligence gathering skills is the way forward, and we (the police) are ready to face the challenges,” the top cop said.

During a recent trip to this country, Major Stanley Ford of Jamaica said that the police should spend less time on rough-house tactics and concentrate more on the gathering of intelligence in the fight against crime.

Major Ford, who was once second in command of Jamaica’s National Firearms and Drugs Intelligence Centre, opined that investment in the development of specialist intelligence personnel in the fight against drugs, firearms and crime on a whole is what is needed in the region.

He said that with better intelligence, the police would be more focused when they go out on operations.

“So when they go out they don’t go and harass every one in the neighbourhood and kick down half a dozen doors along the way,” he said.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves also pointed to the development of intelligence gathering skills as an important tool in the battle against crime as he spoke to a group of Vincentian students studying in Taiwan last week.

Kenton Chance, a journalist, who was part of the group reports that Dr Gonsalves also said that he found the homicide rate unacceptable in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

And a few weeks ago, head of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Eckron Lockhart admitted that they (the police) have been locked into conventional ways of conducting investigations. He said that the police need to change, and quickly.

“We still have to abide by the laws and rules and so on…the criminals seem to know when and how we are going to act,” ACP Lockhart said.

“We are aiming to become more professional, so we will need a lot of training, which will be on stream in the not so distance future,” he said.

It was weeks of intelligence work, police say, that led to the arrest of Jamal “Cribbit” Finch 25, and Jariel Belle 19, on August 4, at Cane Hall, on guns and ammunition charges.

A total of four guns and over 100 rounds of ammunition was seized in what was a joint Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and Special Services Unit (SSU) operations. Both men have been remanded in custody, after being denied bail by Chief Magistrate Simone Churaman, at the Serious Offences Court, when they appeared before her last Tuesday, August 7.