Police swift response to crimes commendable

The Ghana Police Service has in recent times responded swiftly to deal with crime across the country.

The responses are in line with its mandate to keep the peace and to apprehend those who commit crime to assure the public that their safety is guaranteed.

Among the recent commendable acts of the police is the arrest of a man seen abusing a woman said to be his partner in a viral video. Similarly, a woman also seen in another viral video physically abusing a man has been arrested.

Earlier, the Ghana Police Service, in collaboration with the Ghana Armed Forces, had rounded up thugs who had threatened security personnel in the line of duty.

It included those who had attacked personnel of the National Anti-Illegal Mining Operations Secretariat (NAIMOS) at Hwidiem in the Ahafo Region. At Dadwene, Obuasi and Anwona in the Ashanti Region and Ehi in the Volta Region, some members of the public attacked either state security personnel or police installations in brazen fashion.

The swift action of the police was necessary to immediately restore the name of the security services to good health. Internal security is a crucial requirement for the health of the nation, and the proactive actions of the police are essential in maintaining the required peace and order.

Those incidents, it must be emphasised, are just a few of the many serious cases of crime and violence recorded in the country recently.

What is crucial is how the police have reacted to give the nation and the people reassurance to go about their daily activities.

Indiscipline in society has been an age-old phenomenon, but the brazen attacks on security personnel is new, and therefore needed to be quickly snuffed out.

The Daily Graphic gives credit to the police for acting decisively to crush any such emerging tendencies as the nation battles crime and violence on different fronts.

For example, the military and police continue efforts to douse the flames in Bawku in the Upper East Region and Sampa in the Bono Region, where communal violence as a result of chieftaincy disputes continue to threaten life and property.

Those areas are just two of hundreds of hotspots of potential violence that continue to stretch security deployment and national resources to maintain peace and order. Any actions by the public that draw more personnel and resources must, therefore, be met with equal force to quell potential escalation.

We are encouraged by the delivery of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Christian Tetteh Yohuno, and his team for how they have managed internal security this far.

Since assuming office, the IGP’s emphasis on intelligence-led policing has led to timely responses to violent robberies in key hotspots, while morale among junior officers is said to have improved through transparent promotions and welfare reforms.

The whole enterprise also gives credit to the Criminal Investigations Division (CID) of the Ghana Police Service.

The CID has played a big role in tackling a car theft case at Taifa in Accra, smashing of a robbery syndicate leading to the arrest of 10 others, and tracking and finding the suspected-armed robber extradited from Togo to face charges in Ghana, while the offer of support to critically ill personnel is another moral booster for the men and women in the police service. 

Another plus for the IGP has been the improved relationship with the media, and the promise to deal with attacks on journalists.

Today, the ambience under which personnel work is excellent. 

The steps taken by the IGP have thus received commendation from the Ghana Journalists Association.

The Daily Graphic thinks that the initiatives of the IGP are bearing fruits. But we acknowledge that fighting crime is a shared responsibility, and to win this fight and maintain law and order, members of the public would have to support the police.

We would urge Mr Yohuno to swiftly deal with personnel who misconduct themselves in the line of duty.

Indeed, the bad lots must be rooted out since they go a long way to erode the gains made by the service. 

Let’s support the IGP to ensure sanity in the system.