Police upgrade to high-tech crime-fighting |13 May 2011
The Seychelles police included have also had to improve theirs and this means getting in
Since last year with the launching of their High-Visibility Operation, the police have worked on getting in modern crime-fighting equipment.
With a gradual flow of equipment coming in – a lot of them digital gear – the police are now better equipped to deter and fight crime on various levels.
These include gear such as night-vision goggles, utility belts, better handcuffs, pepper spray, multi-lens and tactical flashlights, breathalysers, speed guns, powerful megaphones spotlights and digital radios.
Superintendent Godfra Hermitte, who is also in charge of operations in the police department, told Seychelles Nation they intend to move with the times and with ongoing recruitment exercises they are aiming to modernise the force.
“Each piece of equipment has its importance but gear like breathalysers and speed gun would greatly help the high-visibility operation team detect crimes such as driving under the influence and speeding,” he said.
“Various types of radios will be put at different locations, for example at police stations, others installed in police vehicles while handheld sets will be given to individual officers on patrol.”
As for utility belts, pepper spray and batons, he said they are for self-defence and should only be used in cases where the officer has no choice but to prevent himself from being harmed in the face of an obvious, unrelenting attack.
Speaking about what he would like to see the department get, Mr Hermitte said they are working on an automated fingerprint identification system, which he said would be able to identify a person’s fingerprint on their database in a matter of minutes.
“With such a system, gone would be the days where it would take a long time to be able to track down a fingerprint. At crime scenes, prints lifted and put in the system would make the job a lot easier than having to do everything manually when trying to identify the culprit,” he said.
A networking programme is also on the way – set to be in place by the end of the year – where the police, who are already linked to agencies such as the Seychelles Licensing Authority (SLA), will be connected to others such as insurance companies. This will make spot-checks much easier to verify information given by drivers and pedestrians.
“If a driver is stopped at a checkpoint and says he does not have his driver’s license at hand or his insurance disc is not fixed to his windscreen, we will be able to network with the SLA or the insurance companies and verify whether he really does have a valid license or insurance,” said Mr Hermitte.
“This will also apply in instances where a witness has seen a number plate of a vehicle suspected of being involved in a crime, we can immediately obtain the owner’s name, address and other information from the number plate.”
By Ivan Hollanda