Police Minister explains budget allocations for community policing

The Ministry of Home Affairs and New Growth Industries, like other ministries and departments, had to submit their wish list of priorities before the Budget Presentation on March 10. For the police department specifically, a significant amount is going into community policing initiatives come April 1. This morning, Minister Kareem Musa was asked to explain the reasoning behind the particular focus on community policing rather than boosting the department’s investigative resources. 

Hon. Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs and New Growth Industries: “There is always the enhancing of our investigation and prosecutorial services within the police department. That emphasis is always there. What we’re trying to do now is to tap into the other areas because while we continue to enhance and develop those particular sectors we do recognize that like I said innovation and technology, utilizing the NFS services to see how it is that we can solve more and more crimes using DNA testing. Right now for us to test anything for DNA you have to go abroad, sometimes that takes three weeks to five weeks when in fact you may have someone in your custody that left something at a scene of a crime and you need to test that immediately or else you will have to release that individual within forty eight hours. And so we recognize there are other areas in crime fighting and crime prevention that require an investment that has not been there and so yes we will continue to invest in our prosecution, continue to invest in our investigative services within the police department but we’re also branching out because we recognize where other tools can be utilized in our crime prevention strategy.”