Dear Editor,
President Irfaan Ali and the Guyana Police Force have recently highlighted a 61.7 per cent crime-clearance rate for 2025 and a reported reduction in serious crime. If sustained, these outcomes would represent a positive development and deserve acknowledgment.
However, headline figures alone are not sufficient to fully assess the state of public safety or the performance of law-enforcement institutions. Clearance rates tell us what happened after crimes occurred. They do not tell us enough about response times, compliance with internal safeguards, or the day-to-day experience of citizens seeking help.
For example, thousands of body-worn cameras have been distributed to police ranks, but no publicly available data has been released on activation rates, compliance audits, or disciplinary consequences where cameras were not used. Similarly, there is little public reporting on the performance of emergency response systems, such as call-answer times, service reliability, or abandonment rates for 911, despite its central role in public safety.
There is also limited transparency on how complaints against police officers are handled. While the existence of an Office of Professional Responsibility is often cited, the public is rarely informed about how many cases are concluded, how long investigations take, or what systemic issues are being addressed as a result.
If confidence in law enforcement is to deepen, performance reporting must go beyond celebratory aggregates. Regular publication of operational and accountability indicators, body-camera usage, emergency response metrics, complaint resolution timelines, would strengthen public trust and allow citizens to better judge whether reforms are truly taking root.
Public safety is too important to be measured by a single number. Transparency, consistency, and accountability must accompany any claims of progress.