In light of the re­cent vi­o­lence in Harpe Place and Orop­une Gar­dens, we note that the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) has tak­en steps to en­gage in dis­cus­sions with the po­lice ser­vice about en­hanc­ing se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures in pub­lic res­i­den­tial de­vel­op­ments.

Hous­ing Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is is call­ing for in­creased po­lice sup­port to ad­dress the fac­tors that are fu­elling crime with­in these com­mu­ni­ties. This in­ter­ven­tion is cru­cial­ly re­quired in cer­tain HDC hous­ing es­tates. De­spite the state en­ti­ty’s best ef­forts to im­prove its rep­u­ta­tion as a trust­wor­thy provider of af­ford­able hous­ing, it is ev­i­dent that some old­er projects have long be­come hotspots for crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing firearm-re­lat­ed of­fences and drug deal­ing.

Ef­fec­tive­ly deal­ing with crime in gov­ern­ment hous­ing com­mu­ni­ties re­quires a mul­ti­fac­eted ap­proach. Reg­u­lar col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween so­cial state agen­cies, lo­cal law en­force­ment and com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions is key to de­vel­op­ing com­pre­hen­sive crime pre­ven­tion strate­gies.

The on­go­ing dis­cus­sions be­tween the HDC and po­lice must, there­fore, re­volve around in­creas­ing the pres­ence of law en­force­ment in HDC com­mu­ni­ties to dis­cour­age crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties and pro­vide a sense of se­cu­ri­ty for law-abid­ing res­i­dents.

It is al­so crit­i­cal that the HDC and po­lice seek ways to con­tin­u­ous­ly en­gage res­i­dents in de­ci­sion-mak­ing and en­sure their voic­es are heard when de­vel­op­ing and im­ple­ment­ing such crime pre­ven­tion strate­gies.

The key to pre­vent­ing crime in these com­mu­ni­ties lies in col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween res­i­dents and law en­force­ment, with ef­fec­tive feed­back chan­nels for res­i­dents to re­port con­cerns and pro­vide in­put on crime pre­ven­tion ef­forts.

Form­ing strong re­la­tion­ships and earn­ing trust from res­i­dents is es­sen­tial for law en­force­ment to gath­er valu­able in­for­ma­tion on crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty and es­tab­lish part­ner­ships for pre­vent­ing crime.

In ad­di­tion to en­hanc­ing se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures, the strat­e­gy must al­so in­volve im­ple­ment­ing so­cial pro­grammes and pro­vid­ing re­sources to cre­ate more sup­port­ive liv­ing en­vi­ron­ments for all res­i­dents.

Im­ple­ment­ing com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing strate­gies like neigh­bour­hood watch pro­grammes and com­mu­ni­ty out­reach events can strength­en the bonds be­tween law en­force­ment and the com­mu­ni­ty, re­sult­ing in a much-need­ed col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach to crime pre­ven­tion.

Too of­ten, we see a sense of re­sent­ment to­wards the po­lice in vi­su­als from news re­ports on in­ci­dents in hous­ing com­mu­ni­ties, which does not bode well for the co­op­er­a­tion that is es­sen­tial in en­sur­ing law and or­der with­in these hous­ing de­vel­op­ments.

The po­lice, too, must look with­in. Train­ing law en­force­ment of­fi­cers on cul­tur­al com­pe­tence and de-es­ca­la­tion tech­niques can im­prove the re­la­tion­ship be­tween po­lice and res­i­dents and re­duce the like­li­hood of con­flicts or mis­un­der­stand­ings.

These are some of the con­ver­sa­tions need­ed now be­tween the HDC and law en­force­ment to dri­ve holis­tic changes with­in com­mu­ni­ties marked as crim­i­nal hotspots and to pre­vent the degra­da­tion of oth­er com­mu­ni­ties. In this re­gard, we are keen­ly in­ter­est­ed in hear­ing more from the po­lice and hous­ing of­fi­cials re­gard­ing the prac­ti­cal mea­sures that will be im­ple­ment­ed as a re­sult of their col­lab­o­ra­tion in this mat­ter.