The St Ann police are moving to tackle the problem of domestic violence through greater partnership with communities and stakeholders in the parish.
While addressing the monthly meeting of the St Ann Municipal Corporation on Thursday, police commander for the parish, Senior Superintendent Dwight Powell, said a third of the 67 murders that were committed in the parish last year resulted from domestic disputes.
He said it is hoped that the mitigating measures being implemented will effectively deal with domestic disturbances before they escalate into violence and injury.
“One of the things that we will be pushing is more community participation, stakeholder involvement, to see how best we can seek to reduce those domestic-related incidents,” Powell indicated.
He appealed to residents to utilise non-violent methods to resolve conflicts.
File photo of a police quick-response motorbike team on duty.
“I am using the opportunity and every platform that I get, to say that as a parish, we need to find more amicable ways in resolving our domestic-related issues,” said Powell.
“We ended last year with 67 murders across the parish. That, of course, is an increase of 12 murders when compared to the previous year. The concern that I have for those murders is that one third or 24 of those murders were domestic-related conflict situations, and it seems as a parish, we are still not (properly) resolving our disputes,” he added.
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Meanwhile, Powell said quick-response teams have been established across major townships in the parish, to help make further gains in tackling serious crimes, particularly robberies.
The senior police officer expressed confidence that the strategy, coupled with “new things that we will put in place this year, will make our parish a better place than where we were last year.
“Last year, we had a challenge with robberies across the parish. That challenge was mitigated… by putting in what we call a quick-response system, and so, you would have seen some police on motorbikes dressed in blue denim, and that was one of our… strategies to counter the bike robberies, especially in the towns,” he said.
