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- Contact: Dana Augustin
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- Monday January 8, 2001 – A new defense arm of the Royal Saint Lucia Police Force was opened officially to serve residents of Marchand and surrounding areas on Sunday January 7, 2001. The ‘Marchand Station’, built at a cost of 1.548 million dollars was handed over to the government and people of Saint Lucia by the National Insurance Property Development and Management Company Ltd. (NIPRO) that supervised the construction of the sub police station.
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- Honourable Philip J. Pierre, Parliamentary Representative for the Castries East Constituency of which Marchand is a part of, noted that the establishment of the police station is part of a holistic plan to improve the quality of life for the residents of Castries East by developing and upgrading the social infrastructure. That plan has included among other things, he mentioned, a post office at Bocage, the construction of a multi purpose centre in Entrepot, the building of several footpaths and the construction of the Marchand sidewalk.
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- According to Mr. Pierre, the Marchand Station will be used to pioneer the whole philosophy of community policing. He urged residents to develop trust in the police and vice versa.
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- “You must not feel intimidated by police presence in your area. You must look at them as allies in your search for the preservation of peace and honour. Learn to trust them as they in turn must learn to trust every law-abiding citizen and assist them, when called upon to do so in the prevention of crime,” he said.
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- Meanwhile Minister for Legal Affairs, Home Affairs and Labour Honourable Velon John said that no amount of technology could guarantee that the police will solve all criminal cases because most crime suspects cannot be identified readily.
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- Said John, “Among developed democratic countries Japan is the exception where 58% of all crimes reported to the police are solved. In Canada it is 45%, in Britain it is 35%, in Australia it is 30% and in the United States of America with all of its resources and technology it is 21.6%.”
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- The minister, impressed upon the residents to adopt a more proactive approach in the maintenance of law and order. “It is only by your creative involvement you - the people of this community and other communities - that we can take back our communities, our streets, our by-ways and cul de sacs from the criminal elements in our midst,” he noted.
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- In delivering the feature address at Sunday’s opening ceremony, Madame Justice Indra Hariprashad–Charles High Court Judge, expressed the view that the construction of the Marchand Station is perhaps the timeliest venture in the area of law enforcement by government to date. She said that in the face of much public scrutiny regarding the police, “taxpayers” in exercising their right to criticize public officers objectively, must do so in a manner that is “fair, just and honest.”
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- Several members of the Cabinet of Ministers as well as many high-ranking officers of the Royal Saint Lucia Police Service attended the event.
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