By Emma Kakololo
WINDHOEK
The establishment of a Police Relations Committee and Neighbourhood Watch make up part of the list of recommendations for effective measures towards crime prevention in the country.
The recommendations are the result of the first annual national conference on crime prevention and safety that took place from Monday to Wednesday with the aim to outline the way forward for crime prevention.
If implemented, the Police Relations Committee would comprise of members of the community drawn from all strata as well as the police, whereas the Neighbourhood Watch programme would oblige the community to watch itself as neighbours by observing one another’s safety and security, as well as property.
“Police Relations Committee means a close cooperation team between the public and the police,” said the Minister of Safety and Security Peter Tshirumbu-Tsheehama at the closing.
“They should consist of interest groups in the community such as youth groups, community and traditional leaders/followers groups, business people, enterprises, workers and ordinary citizens.”
Their purpose he said is to isolate criminals from all strata of the society, “so that whoever criminal will try to destabilise the peace and stability of one or the other peace-loving citizen in any given community – the rest of the community will have the culture of standing together in the fight against the criminal”.
“And they can do so in taking preventive measures by alerting the police on any attempt to commit a crime or reporting any suspicious activities or persons to the police for a follow-up investigation.”
Tsheehama said the two measures would complement police efforts, while police on the other hand are hard at work patrolling, guarding, staging checks, searches and roadblocks, amongst others.
He noted however that these measures would require capital, whether human or financial.
“Crime of the contemporary epoch requires modern policing, and modern policing means to have all necessary resources, tools, weapons and technical equipment to operate with,” he said.
“We are talking about bringing the police as closer to the people as possible. We have in mind to build police stations in all the needy and remote places. To do that the police need funds,” he stressed.
Crime has increased drastically in the country by 13 percent from 2000 to 2006. In addition the country’s rate in violent crime is the highest on the African continent.
Namibia is among the top three in the world with regard to rape-related crimes, according to a recent United Nations survey. The Safety and Security Minister assured the nation: “We are indeed perturbed by the current serial murder crime and the innocent young women being raped. Our formidable police force is committed to its work to track-down the perpetrator and pledge that this brutal and barbaric killer (s) will one day be brought to book.”