Board Update - Winter 2020 - SAFETY & SECURITY - Summary and Community Action

On February 7, 2020, Sam Gillespie and Erica Krygsman met with Commissioner Trevor Botting of the Turks and Caicos Royal Police to review the apparent rise in criminal activity in the Long Bay area and discuss steps to address it and enhance the safety and security of our residents and their guests. As background, Commissioner Botting was appointed to his post in the summer of 2019, having previously served as Commissioner of Police for three other British protectorates. Born, raised, educated and trained in the UK with more than 40 years policing experience, he comes across as both knowledgeable and capable of handling the crime issues facing the island if he gets adequate support from the government and communities such as ours. We are convinced that he fully grasps the scope of the issue.

With the full support of the Governor and the Premiere, he has already embarked on an ambitious hiring and off-island training program for current and new officers. He also recognizes that, as important as increasing the size and skill level of the force is, the real problem will only be addressed by attacking the underlying causes. With this in mind, the Governor, Premier and Commissioner are intent on developing intervention programs through schools to train youth in the technical skills that are in such high demand on the island. Obviously, change is not going to happen overnight but it is critical that the country embark on the effort now.

We raised our concern that there isn't any verifiable information available to the public about crime on the island, noting that the only source of information for residents is the portrayal of the island’s criminal activity on social media and through rumors circulating the neighborhood. The Commissioner agreed that there's a lot of misinformation about crime circulating the island which only makes the problem worse. Thanks to the skill and support of a private donor, the police will be addressing this problem with the imminent unveiling of a new website to provide the public with accurate information.

Another major goal of the Commissioner is to introduce community policing to TCI. As soon as the current hiring/training program is complete, he will assign community police officers to each community and it will be their job, in part, to keep in touch with community members, gather and report information on community issues and communicate police activities and objectives to the community.

For our part, we described the Association's plan to place a security facility at the entry point of the subdivision on Long Bay Highway. The Commissioner was very supportive of this step and saw it as an opportunity to help integrate his community policing effort by providing a location where the community assigned police officer could take bathroom breaks, get a cup of tea and find out what's happening in the subdivision. We will be meeting soon with Officer Kenny Grant who is responsible for designing and implementing the Community Policing program.