George Town, Grand
Cayman – Following the release last week of the 2018 Crime and
Traffic Statistics, I would like to thank the Commissioner of Police,
Derek Byrne and all officers and staff of the Royal Cayman Islands
Police Service (RCIPS) for their hard work to keep the Cayman Islands
a safe place to live, to visit and to do business.

When we took office, our
Unity Government prioritised action to make communities safer and we
gave a clear commitment to work with the RCIPS to tackle crime.

In our first two year
budget, we delivered on that commitment as we allocated additional
funding to the RCIPS to provide for 75 new police officers over three
years with added civilian support staff.

The Commissioner of
Police agreed with us that we needed to improve Community Policing
and I’m very happy today that Community Beat Officers are operating
in every district across Grand Cayman. The success of that approach
is demonstrated in the statistics released last week.

Building relationships
and trust within those communities as well as the introduction of
many new Neighbourhood Watch Schemes is helping to stop nuisance
crime and providing intelligence about serious crime.

I am delighted that
property crime and burglary dropped significantly in 2018 and were
the lowest for 18 years. Whilst the RCIPS targeted and imprisoned
serial offenders, support from Neighbourhood Watch Schemes has also
added to this reduction. Neighbours know when something looks wrong
and when someone looks out of place in a community and these groups
are raising the alarm with their Community Police.

The Commissioner has
said, and I agree, that we need to keep up the pressure to maintain
this improvement. Thanks to further additional funding from the
Unity Government, the RCIPS is in the process of expanding its
Community Policing Department with the addition of Community Safety
Officers, which are civilian posts. These officers will know the
people in the communities they serve, but more importantly local
people will know and trust him or her. My Government welcomes this
enhancement of community policing efforts.

Similarly we must
redouble our efforts to clamp down on gun crime. Improvements shown
in last year’s statistics are attributed to marine interdictions,
firearm recovery operations and the firearms amnesty. I expect to
see this trend continue once the new Cayman Islands Coast Guard is up
and running. We have combined the law enforcement units of
Immigration and Customs into a single cohesive Cayman Islands Customs
and Border Control Agency. They along with the new Coast Guard have
the responsibility for protecting our borders, whether by air or sea,
making it difficult for drugs, guns or illegal persons to enter our
country.

His Excellency, the
Governor Martyn Roper has been very helpful since taking up his new
role. He supported the purchase of the new H145 helicopter, which
was part funded by the United Kingdom Government. This expands our
aerial law enforcement operations as well as supports our
neighbouring Overseas Territories in their time of need.

Whilst I’m very
pleased with the 2018 Crime and Traffic Statistics, we cannot become
complacent.

We believe improved
policing is about dealing with crime now. The long term answer lies
in stopping our people turning to crime in the first place.

The Community Police are
working closely with the schools, attending careers days, PTA
meetings and generally building relationships and trust with young
people.

I believe the most
significant contribution to long term crime reduction, besides a good
education, will come from the early identification of young people at
risk of offending behaviour, and implementing programmes to help them
make better life choices – choices that will benefit them, their
families and their communities. The anti- gang strategy that the NSC
has commissioned will be an important part of our efforts to support
young people as well as targeting gang activity directly.

Community safety is not
just a policing issue. The whole of government has a role to play
and communities themselves contribute to their own safety. The 2018
crime statistics show that by working together we have helped to make
Cayman safer. We must all do our part to maintain that improvement
over the years to come.