Police officials were cautiously optimistic about recently released crime statistics for the first quarter of 2012 in a report in Saturday's Guardian. Murders were down to 91, a 13 per cent decrease over the 2011 total of 104 for the first three months of the year.
There was also a dramatic decrease in burglaries, which dropped by almost half from 1,119 in the first three months of 2011 to 640 for the same reporting period in 2012. Report of rape, incest and other sexual offences doubled over 2011, rising from 123 reports in 2011 to 256 in 2012.
Deputy Police Commissioner Mervyn Richardson was quick to explain that the increase in those reports represented greater confidence in the police service. Head of the Police Service Victim and Witness Support Unit, Margaret Sampson-Browne endorsed that view of the increase.
Sampson-Browne has been working with support groups in communities to build more effective connections between the police service and citizens and reports that: "We are doing marvellous work in the communities." "People feel more comfortable with the police. This encourages witnesses and victims of crime to come forward."
Certainly such trust will be an effective addition to the policing arsenal and improve the quality of community engagement and reporting that will be crucial to building the type of rapport that intervenes in domestic crimes before they become fatal. If there's anything that recent child abuse cases teaches us about domestic violence, it is that the most valuable intelligence to manage such cases originates within communities.
There is more to be done to boost public confidence in the police service, but the statistics for the first quarter of 2012, undiluted by the impact of the State of Emergency, point to police initiatives which are coming up strong, if not quite ready to be declared as bearing fruit.
More than a decade of quick-fix crime plans with increasingly absurd codenames and unsupportable promises have taught us that rebuilding the capacity of the police force will take time. Any police engagement that reduces burglaries by half a year later is something that's worth pursuing, as are the efforts of the Police Service Victim and Witness Support Unit, which addresses a long standing shortfall in the relationship between citizens affected by crime and the police officers charged with protecting and serving them.
Certainly, the calls for the heads of the CoP and the Minister of National Security, John Sandy have subsided perceptibly. But Sandy and Gibbs should not be content to relax with this improved report card on their efforts. The legislative and operational measures that have been instituted over the last few years appear to have taken hold and the leadership of the police service must be attentive to those initiatives which have proven effective and seek to decisively address those which have faltered in the field.
One area that certainly deserves refreshed attention is the quality of detective work that continues to lead to poor returns in arrests in court convictions. Of the 256 reported incidents of sexual offences, the police have marked 166 as solved, but that's an indicator that someone has been held for the crime and doesn't measure whether that arrest turns out to be the right person or even if the case gets to court for a successful conviction.
Statistics for murders are less impressive. Of 91 murders recorded for the first quarter, only nine are recorded as solved. As the police leadership plans new initiatives to manage crime, rebuild national confidence and renew a critical partnership with communities, they should be mindful to offer their achievements within realistic parameters and with a view to over delivery on their mandate to manage crime.