Residents across Antigua and Barbuda are being urged to return to a greater sense of community in a bid to address the number of break-ins at places like schools and business places in recent times.
A number of schools at both the primary and secondary levels have been victims of break-ins and vandalism over the past couple of months, and business places – mostly in the city of St John’s – have also been feeling the pinch.
Speaking on State media yesterday, Police Commissioner Atlee Rodney said the police force is concerned about the frequency of these incidents and assured that they are using all the resources available to them to identify the perpetrators and prevent any recurrences.
It is well documented that the force is relatively strained, having only been able to recruit new personnel back in June for the first time since 2019, and receiving only a fraction of the investment required to properly improve its operations.
For reasons including those, Rodney urged residents to work on improving the bond with members of their communities and adopt a heightened sense of responsibility for their neighbours’ safety and security.
“One of the things we try to ask persons to [do is] know their community, know your neighbourhood, know the persons around you. If you have that knowledge, you are in a position to detect suspicious movement or suspicious persons in that neighbourhood.
“We have to go back to the days where we know our neighbours, know where they work, know what type of work they do, and maybe even know some of their relatives and friends who normally visit them, so you are not alarmed if you see a relative on the gallery [for example].
“But if you don’t know the person, [you’ll be] in a position to at least assist your neighbour in terms of who was on their gallery at that particular time,” Rodney said.
The commissioner also encouraged homeowners and business operators to, where possible, invest in more technology like surveillance cameras to monitor their interests.
This investment, he explained, can serve as both a deterrent for prospective criminals and also support the work of the police in investigating any criminal incidents.
“Seeing the camera forms part of a deterrent to persons, but also at the end of the day, if the crime is committed, there are means [for the authorities] to retrieve valuable information that can lead to detection.
“So, it’s a technology that is available and we would encourage persons to [install them]. There are simple ones that are very cheap and there are the high-tech ones, so within your own budget, we’d encourage persons to use the technology.”
Like many others in the country, Rodney also lamented the fact that some places that were previously considered ‘untouchable’ due to their important place in the society, were now being targeted by unscrupulous persons.
This, he noted, adds negatively to the impact on the local economy from the criminal ‘attacks’ on the business community.
“It is very distasteful when persons break into churches, into schools and business places. As one business person said, the private sector plays a role in employing persons, and if we destroy their efforts, we are destroying our own economy and our own livelihoods.
“So, it is something that we all have to see that it is not just the old way of somebody just breaking into a house, but you are affecting institutions, you are affecting individuals, and at the end of the day you are affecting the economy,” he said.
The Clare Hall Secondary School is one of the institutions most recently targeted by vandals, who destroyed windows when their attempts to enter a section of the school building were thwarted last weekend.