Human intelligence is becoming more important in solving crimes than any of the other traditional factors. As societies become more complex and increasingly impersonal, however, the building of intelligence will depend on more formal system rather than having to rely on informants for information.
Guyana’s database to fight crime is limited. The police do not even have access to the fingerprint database of the Guyana Elections Commission to track down criminals using prints obtained from the scenes of crimes.The police have been undertaking highly invasive, controversial and possibly illegal methods of obtaining information from suspects. So far no lawyer has taken the Guyana Police Force to court for seizing and perusing the cellular phones of suspects.
The information on a person’s cell phone is private; this includes both the numbers that person would have dialed and the text messages stored. No authority should be able to invade a person’s cellular phone and obtain information without a court order.
The police had at one stage used stranger methods to develop a database of criminals. They would arrest persons, take these persons down to the station and insist that they be photographed and have mug shots taken. The legality of these actions is also open to question.
There are cameras located at various junctions which are supposed to be used to help the police detect crime. The police have reported that these cameras are used to charge traffic offenders.
This in itself is suspect because the law only provides for persons to be charged not for owners of vehicles involved in crime. How then does the police determine who is the driver of a vehicle which is seen on camera breaching the traffic law. Surely, those cameras that they have installed at major junctions are not powerful enough for personal identification.
The cameras at the Demerara Harbour Bridge have been very helpful in detecting crime. If you commit a crime in West Demerara and you are escaping out of the jurisdiction, then the cameras at the Harbour Bridge can help the police to know the registration number of the escape vehicle.It can also provide crime sleuths with the registration numbers of the vehicles that cross the bridge. This is useful information to investigators when investigating crimes with very little leads.
The system needs, however, to be developed further. It is known, for example, that a number of vehicles are stolen and those that steal them can re-spray the vehicles to make them unrecognizable to the owners.The GRA has a database with all the legally registered vehicles in the country. This database should be integrated with the system at the Harbour Bridge so that for every vehicle that crosses the bridge there is a detailed description available.
This can be a powerful crime fighting tool. If per chance a vehicle, which is supposed to be white in colour crosses the bridge but it is yellow in colour, this can trigger an alert and the vehicle can be held at the other end of the bridge for investigation.If the description or model of a vehicle, as registered by the GRA, is not the same as the physical description and model of a vehicle bearing the same registration number, the same things can happen. The recording systems at the bridge therefore should be upgraded so as to help track vehicles.
The system should be fully computerized so that any authorized person can simply type in the number of a vehicle and have available a comprehensive record of all the trips that vehicle would have made across the bridge, the times when those crossings took place and a full description of the vehicle, supported by camera footage of the occupants of the vehicles.
These are the sort of initiatives which the Ministry of Public Security should be engaged in at the moment. There is need for greater information to be made available to the police.
Informants have their roles to play but the system has to be able to use information in order to solve cases and identify suspects.