From April 2021 to March 2022, overall crime in the country rose by 10%, says Commissioner of Police, Trevor Botting, in releasing some of the latest crime stats today.
The figures show that crime increased by an additional 157, for a total of 1738 over the 12-month period.
What’s more concerning is that the rise of serious crime is outpacing that of overall crime, rising 13%, with some 355 recorded incidents. This figure is also considerably higher than the five-year average from 2021 to 2022.
Commenting on the rise in crime, Commissioner Botting says that whilst overall crime and the number of serious crimes have risen by 10% and 13 % respectively, the Turks and Caicos suffered a very significant surge in crime during the months of January and February 2022.
This surge accounted for 68 additional serious crimes when compared to the year before and in relation to overall crime, the same two months saw an additional 121 crimes when compared with January and February 2021. Police believe these additional crimes were carried out by a very small number of prolific offenders who are no longer active.
Examining the crime stats further, there were 286 burglaries between April 2021 and March 2022, the same number of offences as the same period the year before. There was a rise in aggravated burglaries of 19 offences compared to the year before with a total of 53 and also a rise in Firearms Offences with an additional 37 crimes compared to the same period the year before.
Despite the concerning rises, there were some reductions with a slight reduction 1% in the number of robberies and a 20% reduction in the number of murders from 20murders in 2020 – 2021 to 16 in 2021 – 2022.
Botting says that the officers and staff of the Royal Turks & Caicos Islands Police Force remain committed to the prevention and detection of crime and to keeping communities safe. He says that the force’s response to the surge in crime in the first three months of this year had a positive impact and the targeted operations have continued into the first half of this year.
Botting added that whilst policing is at the forefront of crime prevention and detection through enforcement and the officers and staff within the force have worked very hard to tackle the surge in crime committed by prolific and dangerous criminals, the societal issues that are the causes of crime must be tackled to see a sustained reduction in crime, especially serious crime.
According to the commissioner, the force will be further developing its community policing teams across the TCI over the coming year as well as working with itspartner agencies and communities to tackle crime together and build safer communities.
In more updates from the force.
As of today, 13 June, the force’s Police Records Department in Providenciales will only be open Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays between 8:30am and 3pm for the collection of Police Certificates of Character. The force says that this is to facilitate the processing of backlogs and will be temporary.
However, they note that in cases of emergency, applications for certificates will be accepted and processed.
The police say that they do understand the challenges the public has encountered in obtaining a police certificate in a timely manner and has apologized for this.
