The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr Paul Quaye, has taken investigators at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to task, condemning what he termed the practice of arm-chair investigations at the department. The result of this, the IGP complained was that over 70 out of 100 cases reported to the department were often said to be still under investigations at the end of the year. Mr. Quaye expressed the concern yesterday when he met the officers in plain clothes at the CID headquarters in Accra. Quoting from the 2008 Annual Crime Reports and investigation of cases, he said by December 2007, 195,320 out of the 255,412 cases reported were still pending investigations. "A similar situation prevailed in 2008 when 183,126, representing 76.35 per cent of the 239,823 cases reported, were pending investigation at the end of the year," he said. What this meant was that investigators had ignored one of the key principles for successful criminal investigation, which demanded that an investigator must be interested in his or her case from the beginning to the end. He also took issue with the unprofessional manner in which exhibits were handled at the department. "As investigators, you have to bear in mind the fact that seized drug exhibits, apart from their monetary value, constitute invaluable criminal evidence in the prosecution of drug cases in the courts of law," he said. The IGP cited exhibits that were carelessly dumped in store rooms, saying the practice provided unhealthy recipes for the theft of such exhibits. He said although elaborate procedures for the proper handling of exhibits in police custody had been spelt out in service Instructions Number 207, the procedures were blatantly ignored investigators and exhibit storekeepers. "The Service is indeed yet to recover from the abyss into which our reputation has sunk and this calls for the collective effort of all of us to work towards salvaging the dented image,” he stated. The IGP said that laxity made it possible for drug syndicates to prevent exhibits from reaching the courts. "By and large they carryout such nefarious activities in collaborative tandem with some bad nuts in the CID. In order to make it difficult or impossible for such dubious criminal characters to undermine the integrity of our investigations, it is necessary that the quantum and quality of security measures put in place to ensure the safety of such exhibits be equal to, if not more important than, those used to ensure the security of public cash," he stressed. Again, he expressed concern that vital institutional structures in the CID such as the known criminal section, the convicts on licence the modus operandi, the appeals and cancel1ation as wel1 as the Gazette sections, had over the years, been either distorted, relegated to the background or seriously watered down to regrettable levels of significance. The absence of these units, he stated, had created a huge vacuum which rendered the country's criminal investigations hollow, incomplete and woeful1y unsatisfactory. Mr Quaye promised to assist the criminal Data Services Bureau, the crime scene management team, the serious crime registry as well as the upgrading of ICT skills of personnel to deliver on their mandate. He objected to the unjustifiable mass arrests, untested approaches of trial and error and other draconian measures employed by some officers in combating crime, saying they were no longer acceptable. "Modem policing and crime fishing must be intelligence-led," he insisted. The Deputy-Director of CID, ACP Ken Yeboah, stressed the need for capacity building for personnel of the department to sharpen their skil1s. He also called on the IGP to assist the department to establish a new detective school to replace the one burnt down some time ago. Source: Times