Crime situation in St. Maarten
The swearing-in of six new police officers comes at a time when concern is high about the crime situation in St. Maarten, with already 12 deaths resulting from violence for the year, double the number in Curaçao. The recent announcement that there is no money for the badly understaffed police to work overtime anymore because the NAf. 5 million budgeted for the year has already been used up did not exactly send a reassuring message.
The local police union representative and others have correctly pointed out that stopping overtime could seriously impede efforts to fight crime, but the
Justice Minister says his request to reduce overtime by 10 per cent per month was not honoured and there must also be financial order and accountability within the Antillean Police.
The Curaçao newspaper Extra in any case questioned how it is possible that a police force of 650 could spend 5 million guilders in overtime in seven months. The mass circulation daily called for an investigation as well as a total restructuring of the police force and mentioned what is happening at the prisons in Curaçao and St. Maarten as example.
“If there is a lack of workers, we must look at which ones are doing hardly anything, as is the case with the riot team, and put them into the active work process on a daily basis. Perhaps even police sitting in offices have to be taken out and have civilians do their work, so they can be sent into the streets when there is a lack of police to work,†argues the paper, adding that former Justice Minister Leo Chance had already said this at the time.
While perhaps somewhat simplistic, the basic idea that overtime should not be structural and that there must be alternatives is a sound one, as is the suggestion to look into absenteeism. Working too much overtime, for one thing, can actually contribute to health problems as well. Recruiting more police is a far better long-term answer when it comes to lack of personnel and the addition of half a dozen in St. Maarten is certainly good news in that respect. Less encouraging, however, is that there are reportedly no students from the Windward Islands in the current police academy class.
It’s important that efforts to interest local youngsters in police work continue and are even intensified. Also in light of St. Maarten’s quest to become an autonomous country in the Kingdom less than a year from now, ensuring that the island has an adequate police force is vital, not in the last place because the tourism economy to a great extent depends on it.
source: The Daily Herald