British Virgin Islands: President of the Road Town Anti Crime Group, Eugenia O’Neal, has said the group will be submitting a number of recommendations to Premier and Minister responsible for National Security, Dr. D. Orlando Smith, to help curb and address crime in the territory, according to a report on the BVInews.com.
Mandatory sentences for gun crimes, community policing and proper lighting in the main town, are among the recommendations that the group will submit to the government, said O’Neal who made the announcement at a recent function in which the police donated a CCTV camera to the group, according to the BVInews.com report.
“We really need community policing. Quite often we might start a relationship with a police officer in one community and within six months the officer will be moved to another community, so you lose that relationship and the community loses that feeling that there is somebody there who knows the people of that community and who knows their issues and concerns. I will really like to encourage community policing,” O’Neal said.
She added: “We are also going to be recommending that mandatory 10-year sentences for any crimes committed with a gun, so if you burglarized somebody and you have a gun, then that’s a mandatory 10 years. And we will also be recommending five years mandatory for gun possession.
“We want proper and regular maintenance of the lighting fixtures around Main Street and around Road Town. If you walk on Main Street now you will see several trees that obscure the lights and so you have deep pockets of darkness when you are walking on Main Street, and any of you who have walked on Main Street in the evening or at nights, it’s practically deserted because of the way we have allowed the town to develop. It’s mostly commercial so that means at night there is nobody there, so we need to pay attention how we are developing our communities and we need to pay attention to having proper lighting fixtures.”
The Road Town Anti Crime Group is also recommending that property owners take responsibility for themselves and property, the BVInews.com report stated.
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