By Peter Polack

A senior UK police officer deployed to the Cayman Islands has come out with the most unbelievable of statements, that his officers had been deployed to crime hot spots during peak times for offending. Either this unfortunate statement comes from a new and secret Cayman criminal mind reading program or it it simply the most stupid thing to emanate from the RCIPS and it’s overseer, the Minister of Home Affairs Nickolas DaCosta.

The lowest rank police officer or criminology student would confirm that the most certain thing about crime is that it is uncertain. To pitch the ever certain random crime reality to an unsuspecting public and business community after a CI$60 Million budget in this manner is simply unconscionable.

Crime is not by appointment only.

The beleaguered home grown Commissioner is in no better position as he bleats for more personnel and resources when core members and the ever important helicopter is dispatched to Anguilla and TCI in apparently open ended deployment. The silent Minister of Home Affairs albeit subject to UK oversight and micro management should go gospel with the nation.

That unfortunate senior RCIPS commander went on to confirm that businesses of the Cayman Islands should protect themselves in various ways. A simple requirement from the Chamber of Commerce would be that every dollar spent on police replacement security should be reimbursed from the non-performing RCIPS budget.

The crime by appointment strategy is only exceeded by the wider Caribbean policing initiatives of Zones of Special Operations or ZOSOs also mini states of emergency where citizens are put in a corral and curfew just like cattle. Recently pioneered by the Jamaicans and extended to the Turks and Caicos Islands as well as elsewhere with negligible results. The desperate Jamaican Minister of National Security has even recently called for the expungement of the criminal records of drug traffickers. Election fever reaching the peak of ridiculousness.

The beleaguered business communities of the Caribbean cowering behind metalwork and private security should rise up to demand results and attacks on core causes. No more anti-crime plans and promises just simply value for money.

The local Cayman business community is not as enamored with the FATF grey list as life has become a ritual of daily survival for them and their dependent families.

Perhaps a temporary transfer of the financial crime staff to fight the urgent street crime by appointment only debacle is in order.There is precedent with RCIPS assets and personnel being despatched overseas.

Perhaps the way forward is to put Minister Michael Myles the most qualified and best 100 day performer of the novice Cayman Islands government to work in the crucial Home Affairs portfolio.

Common sense like charity begins at home.

PETER POLACK

Peter Polack is a former criminal lawyer in the Cayman Islands. His books are The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War (2013); Jamaica, The Land of Film (2017); and Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution (2019). He was a contributor to the Encyclopedia of Warfare (2013). His latest book is a compendium of Russian espionage activities 1940-88.