By Chernor Alimamy Kamara
The Deputy Head of Community Relations Department (CRD) of the Sierra Leone Police (SLP), Superintendent Samuel Saio Conteh has highlighted the need for community policing in various settlements to help curb crime rate.
In an interview with Politico, Supt. Conteh noted that the CRD is very strategic and plays a vital role in public engagements, and community sensitization. He said that they normally go to communities where they discuss, engage and educate key stakeholders about critical issues such as safety, peace and non-violence.
“For the past two weeks we have been engaging various communities starting from Freetown East that’s made up of four Divisions; East End Police, Ross Road, Kissy and Waterloo,” he said.
He stated that each of the divisions has several communities that they target and where with experts they address critical issues in the various sectors. He said that they initiate edutainment to preach against anti-social issues such as drug abuse and the dangers of reckless driving.
Supt. Conteh spoke of how people accuse the Police of being heavy-handed and said with the creation of the CRD in the Police, they now engage highly respected community leaders. He cited the case of Abacha Street traders that saw their leaders with support from representatives of other sectors convinced the women to move behind the railings to allow the free flow of traffic.
He believed that community- oriented policing is very key as it allows the public to work with the police amicably, creating partnership with people such as journalists, traders, and drivers’ union officials in the interest of maintaining the peace and solving community issues.
“Certain revelations emerge in our engagements with communities, where they applaud the Police for engaging them, a development which they claim not to have seen before,” he said.
Supt. Conteh highlighted the issue of drugs like “Kush” which he said is destroying not only the mental ability of young people, but also their physical being. He said most of those young people after engaging them and displaying pictorial evidences of substance abuse will stop the habit.
He pointed out that they discovered domestic violence and illegal mining in some communities visited and noted that community policing does not only limit to mere arrests but tries to know the root causes for the perpetration of vices such as kush addiction .
He emphasized that the CRD plays a very critical role in maintaining peace, sanity and harmony in various communities and called for cooperation of the public, insisting that community policing cannot be totally achieved without the cooperation and collaboration of the public.
CRD was created by the Sierra Leone Police to establish direct links and build good relationships with community members, with the aim of aiding the police in reducing crime.
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