St. Ann Police to Tackle Domestic Violence

The St. Ann Police are moving to tackle the problem of domestic violence through greater partnership with communities and stakeholders in the parish.

Addressing the monthly meeting of the St. Ann Municipal Corporation on Thursday (January 12), Commanding Officer for the parish, Senior Superintendent (SSP) Dwight Powell, informed that one third of the 67 murders committed in the division last year resulted from domestic disputes.

He said it is hoped that the mitigating measures being implemented will deal with domestic disturbance before they escalate.

“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,” SSP Powell noted.

The Senior Superintendent of Police also appealed to residents to utilise non-violent methods to resolve conflicts.

“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,” SSP Powell said.

“We ended last year with 67 murders across the parish. That, of course, is an increase of 12 more 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 resolving our disputes,” he added.

Meanwhile, SSP 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.