Crime detection rate improved, police say |17 July 2015

With the decentralisation of the CID (Criminal Investigation Department) within the police force, the detection rate of crimes has significanty increased, from 8% prior to June to 60% in June.

This move has also led to shorter response time to complaints and emergency calls. More than 80% of complaints and emergency calls are attended to within the base time target of 10 minutes. 

“This is significant taking into consideration that an average of nearly 100 complaints/enquiries are received per day,” said public relations manager Jean Toussaint.

Mr Toussaint made these remarks while giving a mid-year review of the Seychelles Police’s work to the press earlier this week.

Also present at the press briefing were the Commissioner of Police Ernest Quatre and his two assistant commissioners – Reginald Elizabeth (for policing) and Godfra Hermitte (for support).
“The aim of such approach is to keep the general public informed of what is going on within the force and at the same time try to seek even better cooperation from concerned parties,” Mr Toussaint said while explaining the reason behind the mid-year review.

He said during the past months a number of significant changes to the operational capacity of the Seychelles police have been achieved. He noted an improvement to the force’s corporate image – where the force got new vehicles and uniforms have been standardised.

The various police stations have been beefed up with more personnel and vehicles have been redistributed.

Mr Toussaint also remarked that police visibility has increased as a result of the redistribution of patrol vehicles to police stations, foot patrols have intensified and bicycle patrols have been introduced.

Police vehicles were re-branded with police signage and this has resulted in a reduction of cases where police vehicles have been misused.

Talking about reported crimes, Mr Toussaint confirmed that serious crimes like house-breaking and burglaries are on a steady decline and that crimes in general have decreased from as high as 158 cases per week to 100 per week.

“A good example is the Mont Fleuri police station where reported crime was reduced from as high as 56    per week to around 10 per week. Even at Anse Aux Pins, there has been a decrease in crimes,” Mr Toussaint confirmed.

Two tracking teams have been deployed to track down wanted criminals and this has resulted in a decrease in the number of people on the ‘wanted’ list from between 80 and 100 to only 16, Mr Toussaint noted.

According to Mr Toussaint, policing is focused on high crime areas and intelligence driven crime combating operations are undertaken on a regular basis to stabilise these high crime areas.

Another positive outcome is that compared to 2014, the police have registered more complaints from visitors also.

“In the past most cases were not reported and this shows that the police are working very closely with the public. So far the police are working on improving their service but this will not happen without the help of the citizens. Together we will be able to reduce crime rates and we can say that through our website and from anonymous phone calls, we get a lot of help from the public,” remarked Mr Toussaint.

Commissioner Quatre added that all these changes are happening due to the dedication of the police department to improving the service.

“Every Monday the management meets with the station commanders and the minister to see how to facilitate the processes in the stations and make them more efficient. We are also bringing technology into our system and on July 25 a group of experts from Interpol will come to help Seychelles in determining what we need to start using DNA detection system. We will soon also get the technology to determine the owner of a car involved in a criminal activity without going through licensing. These tools for sure will help our investigations and raise our standards,” stated the commissioner.

For his part, assistant Commissioner Elizabeth said: “We want to create a modern police force and we have seen the success of doing that. We are doing in-depth analysis of the crimes in Seychelles and together with the station commanders we are finding ways to tackle them and making Seychelles the paradise we all want.”

Currently the Seychelles police force has 800 staff and is looking for more dedicated people to join the force.