As the Guyana Police Force (GPF) continues in its quest to improve its service to society, quite a number of advances are being made to ensure that the necessary background information of criminals is readily available to members of the Force countrywide. One such initiative being undertaken by the GPF includes the development of a current up-to-date digital database system, which would enable a rank in any part of the country to access the criminal history of a person.
Crime Chief Paul Williams on Wednesday told Guyana Times International that this update for the GPF is very important and will be useful to fight crime. The database being established by the Force will seek to include all Government agencies, he said.
It was explained that, “If the Police have an arrest warrant for you… and you end up now at the GRA (Guyana Revenue Authority) to renew your driver’s licence, from the time they put in that [information], they would immediately be able to see that you are wanted by the Police”.
“Also if you have gone to the court and you have a criminal conviction, from the time the court makes the pronouncement and enters the information into the database, it will spread across all the relevant agencies.”
The new database being developed, he said, will also ensure that the suspect can be identified using more than one method of identification. The new methods of identification the Force is striving to include into its database include the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) number, Tax Identification Number (TIN) and even a person’s passport number.
The current database system uses fingerprints, photographs and name recognition.
“If that person was never convicted or was never charged, we would have to get started, but even if we bring you in now on an investigation and we find that the investigation doesn’t reveal any criminal charges that they are not any criminal charge on record, we can keep that information, we can keep that same photograph, so that is one way how we build our database,” Williams explained.
As it relates to the cost of the database, Williams explained that there is no specific figure as yet.
“The IT (Information Technology) Department is handling that, so they will get the figures and everything… as it is, they have various persons who will have their role to play and to comment on cost and equipment and materials and so,” he told this publication.
While giving a brief background on the project, he told this newspaper that when the programme was in its initial stage, the Police Force only used photographs and fingerprints to identify criminals.
