Police Commissioner Austin Williams

Commissioner of the Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force, Mr. Austin Williams, attended the weeklong 25th annual Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police conference held at the Wyndham Sugar Bay Resort & Spa in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.

The conference, which began on Monday, May 24, and concluded on Thursday, May 27, was conducted under the theme of, “Violent Crime in the Caribbean — Defining and Delivering a Regional Response.”

Attendees heard presentations from a range of perspectives, including many regional law enforcement officials involved in such diverse areas as ballistics research, intelligence gathering, and disaster management.

Among them was Kittitian-born Dr. Frank Mills, Director of the Eastern Caribbean Center Director at the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI), who quoted a 2007 U.N. report stating that the Caribbean has more murders than any other area of the world.

“Crime has invaded the Caribbean region like a cancerous growth,” he said, noting that the region is “caught in the crossfire” of drug-producing countries in Central and South America, and the primary consumers in the United States and Canada.

Promoting the law enforcement concept of ‘zero tolerance' Jamaica's Deputy Police Commissioner Jevene Benet told the audience that, “A climate of disorder is like a fertile ground” for violent crimes.

“The argument is that such a rise in the number of homicides [in the region] was aided and abetted by a rise in the climate of disorder, a climate in which little misdemeanors, small infractions that went unchecked, permitted bigger infractions,” she said.

The conference host country is currently experiencing an escalation in homicides, with the current rate threatening to overtake Jamaica, which has consistently had among the highest rates in the region.

As of the opening day of the conference, 38 people had been killed in the Virgin Islands in 2010, and if homicides continue at their current pace, 96 individuals will die this year, or 84 killings for every 100,000 Virgin Islanders – far above the Jamaican average of 60 per 100,000.

In Day Two of the Conference, presenters included Dr. Marilyn Jones, a native of Jamaica and an Associate Professor of California State University in Sacramento, who discussed the impact of crime on human development, from a Caribbean perspective.

“Drugs and firearms are closely related,” said Maurice Cooper during his turn at the speaker's podium. He is a Ballistics Analyst for the Virgin Islands Police Department, and provided a detailed overview of firearm identification and procedures.

Effective disaster management was the chief topic discussed by Robert D. Paulson, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), who spoke about the lessons he learned from dealing with Hurricane Katrina in 2005

Collaboration between various law enforcement bodies was the main theme for Day Three of the conference. The presentations began with Mark Ridley, Deputy Director of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), who pointed to a number of ways that the NCIS can partner with Caribbean nations and territories in the areas of law enforcement, training, counter intelligence, and anti-terrorism.

Winsburt McFarland, supervisor of the Territorial Anti-Gang Initiative Team, talked about the rise of gang culture, and emphasized the importance of working with young people to keep them from following destructive paths.

Rooting out corruption within police forces was the focus of the U.S. Attorney for the District of the Virgin Islands, Ronald W. Sharpe, who touted the Territory's success in prosecuting individuals in law enforcement and the postal service who had betrayed the public's trust, and engaged in corrupt activities.

The same theme was followed up by Trinidad and Tobago Police Commissioner, James Philbert, who led a dialogue on the best ways for senior police force management to act on accusations of corruption.

Eleven of the 25 members of the Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police attended the meeting, according to USVI police spokeswoman Melody Rames. Besides those representing the host country, regional participants included the Bahamas, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Curaçao, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, and the Turks and Caicos.