Crime
Commissioner of Police Richard Boyce Offers Christmas Message on Policing Public Safety and Decline in Crime Rates
"Read Commissioner of Police Richard Boyce's Christmas message reflecting on the ongoing challenges of policing and the significant reduction in serious crimes, including murder, during the past year."
5 min read
Originally published by barbadostoday.bb (opens in new tab)
Christmas Message from Commissioner of Police Richard Boyce
Season’s Greetings.
Policing public safety and the provision of police services generally was once described by a commentator, as a Sisyphean task. Of course, he was using as a metaphor, the story from Greek mythology, involving the character Sisyphus.
As punishment for some misdeed, Sisyphus was forced to roll a very large boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down every time it neared the top. And this happened repeatedly.
This is useful to illustrate that policing is an ongoing activity that seeks always to meet ongoing challenges and that there is no room to rest on past accomplishments. This is especially relevant to vibrant developing countries such as ours.
While this metaphor is useful, it omits to mention of the service element, which is also an essential element in policing public safety. These issues converge at this time of the year, the Christmas season. Coming as it does towards the end of the year, the season provides an opportunity for review of, and reflection on our work during this year.
There was an appreciable decline in serious crimes, including murder. Our statistics show that the murder rate per capita for this year is 7 per 100,000 as compared to 15 per 100,000 for 2022. This is a significant reduction and the rate for this year compares very favourably with the international standards. Reductions in other violent crime including firearm-enabled events/incidents were also recorded.
We are all aware that the frequency and severity of these categories of crime have over time caused significant public disquiet. It is therefore pleasing to note the reduction of these events.
While a full analysis of these developments is ongoing, we can confidently state that our efforts in the Police Service coupled with public support have contributed significantly. Over the past several months, there have been sustained and targeted operations to address these threats to public safety. These initiatives among other things resulted in the seizure of several illicit firearms. Much more is yet to be done and we remain committed to fight the battle.
I wish to offer my gratitude to officers across the Police Service and to our partners and sister agencies, including the Barbados Defence Force. Special thanks must be extended to the police special units that did most of the heavy lifting.
