St. Kitts – Nevis Police On Parade
Basseterre, St. Kitts – Nevis
December 14, 2012 (SKNIS)
The Government of St. Kitts and Nevis and local law enforcement has been praised for its proactive pursuit of training opportunities to better equip security personnel with information and techniques to effectively manage and reduce crime.
Over the past year, a number of advanced training programmes have been conducted in the twin island Federation ranging from fingerprinting and crime scene investigation to firearm tracing and youth-oriented intervention programmes. The rigorous and comprehensive courses were recently highlighted by Major Coleman of the Department of Justice in the United States.
“St. Kitts police, under Commissioner [Celvin] Walwyn and Deputy Commissioner [Stafford] Liburd, is very quickly becoming a centre of learning for law enforcement in the Caribbean,” he emphasized. “I think the type of training that they are promoting and the amount of it is indicative of that.”
Mr. Coleman is the Regional Legal Advisor for the Caribbean in the Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training (OPDAT). He has been coming to St. Kitts and Nevis from the United States on a two month rotation basis since June 2012 in order to work with authorities. His services were secured through the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI) which was launched in 2009 by United States President Barack Obama.
The Regional Legal Advisor worked closely with rule of law officials to assess training needs and has been busy addressing gaps identified. At the start of the new year, attention will be placed on developing policies and procedures to implement the training into rules and regulation for the police department. A mentoring phase will then commence to ensure that the training is followed.