The police have been urged to focus more attention on, and step up security presence at, settlements outside the city centre because such communities are increasingly coming under armed robbery attacks.

For more than three months, Amanfrom, Klagon, and most recently, Promised Land near Adjei Kojo in Tema have suffered violent attacks.

But Amanfrom has been the worst hit with about 15 people sustaining machete wounds as a result of these attacks.

Criminologist and legal practitioner, Prof. Ken Attafuah in an interview with Joy News Editor Dzifa Bampoh said although the police visibility programme is commendable the criminals have devised ways to avoid them. 

In a response to why areas like Amanfrom, Klagon and Promised Land have become targets of such attacks, he said there are too many uncompleted homes in the area which serve as secure habitat for the criminals.

“The citizens who live in these places are vulnerable, they are highly vulnerable by the virtue of the vast distances that separate them from police stations and from the more developed communities.

“So what we are experiencing now is a geography of crime, the shifting cultivation type of situation and the poorer people become more and more vulnerable”, he added.

The Acting Dean of the Faculty of Law at the Central University College, said the robbers seem to attack people who have less rather than the rich because the poor tend to be more exposed and vulnerable.

Many of the robbers, he believes, are young people who have chosen to become career criminals.

They choose their prey with caution, look around, survey the neighbourhood by day and they know what the risks are before they go in so “homes that are well secured by way of high walls, barbed wires and are electrified and homes that have wild dogs are rarely attacked relative to homes that have poor security systems”, he said.

Prof. Attafuah says although there is increased police visibility in communities in recent times, it has become institutionalised at certain locations and because the criminals use conventional facilities like ordinary people do, they know how to avoid the police.

This, in his view, calls for a change in the policing tactics.

He said although the police may be willing to deal with crime, the lack of resources and personnel is making it increasingly difficult for them to carry out their mandate.

“I think when the barest minimum is provided them and sufficient motivation is given them, they will do a good job but when the police are not well resourced they will use the lack of resources to justify their laxity”.

Meanwhile, the community leader at Amanfrom says the residents are complicit in the incessant armed robbery attacks in the area.

The Municipal Chief Executive for Ga South, Jerry Akwei Thompson, is currently meeting community leaders and chiefs from across the municipality over the security situation in the area.