The Royal Bahamas Police Force prefers to use intelligence to track down the owners of illegal firearms, rather than adopting buy-back programmes and amnesty periods that are used in other parts of the Caribbean, according to the Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of crime Reginald Ferguson.
RBPF statistics indicate that of the 26 murders committed so far this year, firearms were used in 15 of them and in 10 cases knives were used.
“What we find to be extremely effective is developing intelligence and working not just here on the local scene, but working with international agencies for example the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms which assists us with tracking down people and firearms,” Mr. Ferguson said.
He maintained that the police force is continuing an aggressive campaign to reduce the number of violent crimes by limiting the availability of weapons.
“Some of those firearms might even have been purchased legally in the United States, but somehow end up on our streets being used to commit crimes,” ACP Ferguson said.
Over the years the RBPF attempted various incentive programmes to encourage persons in possession of illegal firearms to turn those weapons in to the proper authorities.
But ACP Ferguson classified those initiatives as unsuccessful.
Firearms and knives were also used in the commission of a number of rapes between January and July 29th this year, according to police statistics.
According to that data, five rapes were reportedly committed with the victims being held at gunpoint and six rapes were said to have been committed with the perpetrators using knives.
Force and alcohol were used in the commission of the majority of those reported rapes, according to police.
Mr. Ferguson said in addition to efforts to remove illegal firearms from the streets, police are working aggressively to remove other weapons of choice frequently used by perpetrators of crime.
“What you find is that when we begin to have success in getting firearms off the street we tend to see an upsurge in the use of knives, machetes and other weapons,” said the assistant commissioner of police.
“So we have to focus on that and try to keep down crimes committed by [using] those kinds of weapons. As a matter of fact our officers out there have been mandated to step up their vigilance and proactivity in that area,” he added.
By: Darrin Culmer, The Bahama Journal
