Police set sight on reducing crime |15 January 2018

Although crime can never be wiped out completely in a community, reducing it drastically is what the Seychelles Police Force has set its sights on for this year.

This can be achieved by setting targets and monitoring the force’s performance on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis.

“We all know that crime will always exist and never be stopped completely, however when the founder of modern day policing (Sir Robert Peel) was asked to define successful policing and crime prevention, his answer was in three words: ‘SCARCITY OF CRIME’ can define successful policing. Scarcity of crime is what we all need to work towards achieving in our communities,” said Superintendent Sean Jacklin.

Supt. Jacklin said this in his presentation on crimes statistics for last year during the Seychelles Police end-of-year review held last week at the STC conference room.

Supt Jacklin said even if crime statistics did reduce slightly from September 2017, however the monthly crime figures continued to remain high in comparison to the same period of 2016.

He said a police force’s performance is largely measured in terms of crime prevention, crime combating and crime investigation and detection. But as is evident from the 22% increase in the reactive crimes for 2017 compared to 2016, 2017 has proven to be a very challenging year, which needs to be improved on during this year.

It was also something voiced out by the Seychelles Commissioner of Police, Kishnan Labonte, while addressing police officers at that event.

“This would need to be achieved as a collective effort, whereby all the police officers (regardless of rank/station or unit), accept their responsibilities to provide the service expected by the public, in order to achieve the goals and objectives of the Seychelles Police Force,” he said.

His presentation showed total reactive crimes for 2017 was 4613 which resulted in a monthly average of 384 cases. 2017 saw a total increase of 831 reactive crimes, or 22%, compared to the same period in 2016.

Reactive crimes are when police respond to assistance after a crime has been committed.

Supt. Jacklin also said if we compare the monthly crime chart from January to December, the crime trend for the first and second quarter was very similar for both 2016 and 2017 and until June 2017, the crime was still at a similar trend in comparison to 2016.

“However, from July 2017 we will notice an increase in reactive crime, as the trend increases and moves away from the 2016 crime figures and peaks in August 2017 at 522 reactive cases for the month, compared to only 283 cases during the same period in 2016.

“Fortunately the crime statistics did reduce slightly from September, however the monthly crime figures continued to remain high in comparison to the same period of 2016,” he said.

He said in December 2017 there was a decrease of 93 reactive cases compared to November (from 457 cases down to 364 cases). He added the decrease for December can also be attributed to the Police’s Festive Season Operational Plan which commenced on December 7, 2017.

“The sudden increase in reactive crime can largely be attributed to the scarcity of drugs at the time which resulted in an increase in the price of drugs. The increases in the crimes of burglary and theft shows a similar trend over the same period,” Supt. Jacklin added.

Supt. Jacklin said another factor contributing to thefts is opportunist crime which can be described as when an easy opportunity presents itself and subsequently tempts a person to steal, as there is minimal or no chance of being apprehended.

The total crimes for Offences AgainstPersons were 715 for 2016 (a monthly average of 60 cases) and 777 for 2017 (a monthly average of 65 cases).

Contributing factors are alcohol and drug related which tend to increase during the end of the year as festivities increase.

With regards to Serious Offences, the total serious crimes reported in 2016 in comparison to 2017 are very similar with a total of 110 for 2016, an average of 9 per month and a total of 111 for 2017 representing also an average of 9 per month.

Regarding police stations performances on reactive crimes, only two police stations reflected a reduction in crime in 2017 compared to 2016: They were, Central (7%) and Anse Boileau (15%). With police generated targets set for 2017, Anse Aux Pins (2696); Anse Royale (2678); Central (2611) and the Traffic Department (6116), were successful.

Police Generated Crime (proactive policing) had a total of 20,960 achieved in 2016, reflecting a monthly average of 1747 while a total of 22,694 was achieved in 2017, with a monthly average of 1891.