Above: St Kitts and Nevis PM Denzil Douglas (UN Photo: Marco Castro)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Citing escalating crime in the country, St Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Denzil Douglas, who is also the current chair of CARICOM, announced he had been assigned the Police and Defence Forces by the country’s Governor General, Sir Cuthbert Sebastian.

Douglas, who said the country had expressed “great shock and dismay” over the recent jump in crime, also announced several new anti-crime initiatives, including the establishment of a new Ministerial Task Force on crime fighting, along with a proposed Special Anti-Crime Unit in the prime minister’s office.

“The current levels of crime in our country, if continued for an extended period, could undermine our programme of debt reduction, growth and development and bring all of our efforts to naught,” he said. “We run the risk of shattering the confidence of many of our foreign investors, scaring away potential tourists and depleting our confidence in ourselves as a people.”

This week, the country swore in its newly-recruited Police Commissioner Celvin Walwyn.

“The buck stops with the prime minister, whom you elected to serve you and protect you with the help of the cabinet and the various organs and institutions of government,” Douglas said in an address to the nation. “Indeed I am convinced that crime represents such a huge risk to our society and to all of our achievements as a nation that it must be addressed at the very highest level of our government,” he said.

Douglas said the move to reassign the police and defense forces had been done in consultation with the governor general and in accordance with the constitution.